One common cause for why some struggle to enjoy much in the way of progress on the training front is a lack of toughness.
I’m not saying these folk are lazy or anything. It’s just they lack the physical robustness to really benefit from their efforts in the gym and on the pavement.
Why is this?
Many reasons, but the main one is that the modern lifestyle leaves them thoroughly unprepared for the rigours of a properly constructed training programme. Hence, most begin with weak tendons and ligaments, relatively fragile bones, flaccid muscles, and sub-par proprioception (the ability to sense the body’s position and movement in space).
All combine to greatly raise the risk of injury (of both catastrophic and cumulative niggle varieties), and greatly diminish the capacities to execute movements (lifting weights, running, etc) with good form and with sufficient force to generate the training stimulus needed to drive desired adaptations (more muscle and strength, greater speed, heartier endurance, and so on).
The fix?
You have to toughen up.
How?
Barbell complexes are my weapon of choice.
I first heard about them in an article (can’t remember who authored it) I read sometime around 2011. However, I didn’t use them until 2016 when I was forced to eat a mostly vegan diet because I had basically no money having moved to another country a couple of months before I was due to start the job I’d secured in that country.
Veganism, being fundamentally incompatible with human flourishing, dumped my energy levels into the gutter, to the point that I could manage at most twenty minutes of hard training before gassing out. So, I opted for a programme consisting of barbell complexes supplemented by what little arm, ab, and calf work my nutritionally deficient body could muster.
Anyway.
This sorry episode did awaken me to the peerless power of barbell complexes for building all-round toughness. Toughness that profoundly enhanced my subsequent efforts (the period between the end of 2016 and late 2017 was easily the most productive I’ve had since exhausting my “beginner gains”), right up until this very day.
It’s for this reason they are a staple of the first phase of my new muscle building course, to create a granite foundation upon which a more aesthetically pleasing physique can be built.
Even those who are already long in the tooth will benefit from devoting a month or so to this sort of activity (I had been training for nearly seven years and had achieved some pretty cool feats of strength before I used this approach to spur greater gains). But I appreciate those who believe they are a hair’s breadth away from possessing a champion physique with performance to match won’t be much interested in spending any time doing grunt work.
Not that I (or anyone else) can help those people. Nevertheless, it’s worth a mention just to deter them from asking to join the course.
For those who live the real world (where I am based), all of the details are below on what is probably the ugliest yellow webpage you have ever seen:
https://philtyreman.co.uk/muscle/
Thank you,
Phil Tyreman
P.S. Whether the last spaces go or not, I am done selling this now so hasten to the page, read it, and email me your details before 23:59 tonight (04/03) if you want in.
This is a real deadline. Meaning that if you contact me even a minute late, you won’t be able to join.