I was training on a Monday before lunch time. The gym was packed as it was a holiday and everyone had the day off. As I was wrapping things up, I noticed a guy I had never seen at the YMCA before. He looked a little confused and out of place. I glanced over and saw he had somehow attached a chain to the weight belt he was wearing. That sucker was so tightly wrapped around his tiny waist and I was unsure of how he was breathing so easily. The chains being attached the way they were couldn’t have been remotely comfortable. In the midst of this mess, he was attaching a few 10lb plates to do some chins. I was impressed as I had not seen anyone else besides myself in the gym doing weighted chins before. Bravo.

Quick Fix

I pulled him aside and said “you know there is an easier way to do this right?” He looked at me kind of cockeyed and confused. I went over and grabbed the dip belt and attached the chain links for him. “See?” I said. He then attempted to detach the other chain from his newbie-rigged piece of equipment. He was grateful that he would no longer have to bear the pain of chain links being indented into his flesh in his attempt to build his physique. “Since I am bearing no more pain, does this mean I am not hardcore?” He asked. I laughed out loud.

Disappointment

After I finished a few more sets I asked him if he were new here. He stuttered a bit and explained he and his wife recently moved to this side of town and while he was a member of the YMCA, he hadn’t been to this particular location before. I welcomed him and asked him how he got started. He told me had been training for three years and briefed me about how some trainers from his old gym put him on a routine. After his sessions ran out they told him to tear out the workouts from (insert your favorite muscle magazine here) and follow the advice in the publication. He then admitted that he had been at it continuously without much progress.  Whatever he had been doing the last three years was obviously not working as you could tell by his skinny arms, legs and lack of body mass.  He honestly looked like a cross country runner. While he may have been a runner, I could tell he was utterly disappointed.  He wanted to look great naked and was full of anger that he had been misinformed.  Deep down, his desire was to at least look like he worked out. He knew that his physique should look somewhat different after training hard for the past three years. As conversation progressed, he admitted to gaining some strength but that was it. In his head he was saying “I was only doing what they told me to do, so why isn’t it working?”

Entertainment Only

This is why I don’t advocate using bodybuilding or fitness magazines as a source of reliable training information. Sure, there are a few articles now and then that are decent and worthy of reading, however most of what I have seen published may as well be in a comic book because the advice is almost never truly applicable to the general population. Sure the 6 day split may have worked for 1 out of 1000 people but they make it sound as if it it’s going to work for everyone. Guess what? It wont, and these fancy fitness magazines keep all of the newbs in newbie land forever more. I guess that might be the point though, as it keeps them coming back for the next best workout they can spin their wheels with until they start something completely different the following month. Oh yea, they sell a ton of worthless supplements to the newbs in the process. I digress.

I hate to see people being mislead and I equally hate it when people are unable to reach their goals due to having so much invested in ideas/methods that are ineffective. I am very confident that if he gave me 6-8 months, I could give him a much thicker, stronger and un-anorexic frame.