# Stop looking for the secret... It's not that difficult



## swole troll (Apr 15, 2015)

In response to the many threads I'm either tagged in or stumble across on exercise selection, macro layout and drug or supplement stacks i figured I'd nip it all in the bud for those that are searching for the secret

as the real secret to success in your chosen endeavor is genetics

genetics will ALWAYS reign supreme

we can manipulate things and be the best we can be but there is no magic drug stack or diet or special type of one arm machine fly on the smith that hits the inner upper outter pec for maximal development that is going to blow you up beyond that which a simplistic approach will and in most cases will usually hinder progress by getting tunnel visioned on one aspect or over complicating your training as Martin Berkhan once termed "****arounditis" which simply put means if your legs arnt growing from squats then its your diet or progression not the exercise

*Training*










the simple fact of it is the majority of your mass is going to be accrued by hitting the major barbell movements with progression whilst eating in a caloric surplus and getting plenty of rest, that's it!

no amount of leg extensions is going to blow your quads up, a simple 5x5 or 3x10 or 4x8 or what ever rep range you prefer so long as there is progression is going to put 90% of your size on.

*Food*










now while this is one of the cornerstones of your growth people do over complicate this aspect of fitness goals particularly when cutting

your fat loss is dictated by calories. end of

you could get fat eating broccoli, brown rice and chicken breasts and you could get to dangerously low levels of body fat eating chocolate bars

that's not to say food selection doesnt play a role in building or preserving muscle mass but people really over complicate this

* 1g of protein per lb of body weight is slight overkill in most cases but it's easy and works for either cutting or bulking so that's that
* at least 15-30% of your calories to come from fats
* fill the rest with carbs

if you are bulking increase your calories by 10%
if you are cutting decrease your calories by 10%

when this stops working up the cardio or decrease calories further if cutting.

make healthier choices like trying to eat more complex carbs, plenty of fruits and vegetables and minimal processed foods

allow yourself a percentage of your calories to eat anything you'd like, if you eat 3000 calories per day then have 500 of them eating anything you like (chocolate, cakes, crisps ect) this will help with cravings, prevent binging and stops you from being a social reject that takes tupperware to family dinners or nights out with friends

*Gear*










for those that use gear, i've quoted Dante Trudel many times and i firmly believe this: "if you cant get massive on a gram of test alone then your diet or training is off"

no amount of deca or tren will suddenly make you explode, sure these compounds have their uses and each hormone brings its own set of benefits to the plate but by and large testosterone alone can cover you in terms of PED's and achieving your size, strength or leanness goals and if you arnt getting big results off test alone then these other compounds wont be the secret as you can build muscle naturally so if you cant whilst on high dose test you're either a mass monster or your training and or diet is s**t

*Supplements*










finally over the counter supplements... forget it! unless its for a deficiency in your diet then its not doing much of anything other than leaning out your wallet

pre workouts can bring something to the plate but only when used sparingly otherwise you not only become dependent but they dont give you an edge in your training but still jack up your coritisol

creatine, beta alanine and citrulline malate are all promising on paper but i've experimented with all of them on many many occasions with many variables as well as keeping things consistent in diet, rest and training and i saw zero improvement

there is a case for non responders but even those that respond we're talking fractional benefit which again isnt going to be the missing link as to why you dont look like your favorite youtuber, fitness model or bodybuilder

your money is better spent on food and if you are enhanced then you have PED's which are the only supplements worth using (bar those with dietary deficiencies)

*to simplify even further:

1.Train with progression, if you squatted 140kg last week, try to squat 142.5kg this week 
2. Eat in a surplus for as long as possible, all this frequent, short term bulking crap is hindering your progress, any time you are cutting you are NOT building muscle
3.Sleep plenty, ideally without an alarm
4.Over the counter supplements are only good for dietary deficiencies, not muscle building
5.if you take drugs then treat them like any other aspect of your approach, with progression, if you are squatting more than last training cycle, eating more than last training cycle and you weigh more then you can probably bump up your drugs

all factors should rise in tandem, dont ever heavily rely on the drugs alone, if anything food and training needs looking at before the drugs do.*

so stop over complicating all this and remember that even if you are in the perfect environment for building muscle it takes time!

and again, GENETICS ALWAYS REIGN SUPREME so chances are you're not doing anything wrong, it's just that the other guy has better genetics than you and responds better to training and or drugs


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## monkeybiker (Jul 21, 2010)




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## swole troll (Apr 15, 2015)

monkeybiker said:


>


 so he beat me to it lol

JP is fast becoming my favorite bodybuilder


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## Vinny (Nov 18, 2012)

swole troll said:


> so he beat me to it lol
> 
> JP is fast becoming my favorite bodybuilder


 Seem not long heard of him but very impressed. Been tempted to see what's on he's website.


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## swole troll (Apr 15, 2015)

Vinny said:


> Seem not long heard of him but very impressed. Been tempted to see what's on he's website.


 tbh mate im never one to encourage people to pay for websites as all the info you need is out there for free

however in the case of trained by JP its quite a modest asking price and he's consolidated all the info you need

i heard a podcast with him recently where he said he actually encourages those on a budget just to sign up for a month and soak up all the content then terminate their subscription

i think this would be a tenner well spent (or whatever it is per month) for those that want a decent knowledge base and everything nicely nutshelled into one resource

EDIT - to reiterate there is nothing magic about his site, its just all the basic info in one place of reading

i think for most theyd do just fine digging up the info for free however people have a tendency to live by information theyve paid for a bit closer than they do that which theyve gained for free

almost like "well ive paid for this routine so im going to follow it to the letter"

its not to say that lyle mcdonalds generic bulk or 531 are s**t (quite the contrary) its just that if it doesnt work for you due to lack of effort there is no investment lost (other than time) so people are more likely to tweak this or drop that or do more curls instead of rows ect and then before they know it theyre running an inferior bastardized version


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## Eddias (Dec 21, 2015)

Thank you for this, very simple (not easy) but yep simple.


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## Lifesizepenguin (Jul 25, 2016)

@swole troll great post - simplifies and pushes home the fundementals of bodybuilding.
Although I do find it mad that this isnt purely common sense with most with a small amount of training and diet knowledge - and yet I am proven wrong time and time again.

Plenty of people I know who go to the gym (generally colleagues) just do not follow any of these rules, thinking that some £60 book they buy or new workout they do is going to hold the secret to blowing up, even though their diets are very volatile - bulking or cutting (in a SLIGHT surplus/defecit) for a week or two at a time, then switching back because they are "getting fat".
the same people who are pounding supps at a rate for £120 per month for MASS lol.

example - one person I work with today had a footlong subway instead of a chicken bibimbap (chicken pan fried, egg , rice and fried veg) because he has only been going the gym 4 times instead of 6 the last two weeks.
Subway clearly is "healthy and clean" whereas anything from a korean place HAS to be unhealthy....

And yet *im the idiot for suggesting otherwise.*


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## swole troll (Apr 15, 2015)

Lifesizepenguin said:


> @swole troll great post - simplifies and pushes home the fundementals of bodybuilding.
> Although I do find it mad that this isnt purely common sense with most with a small amount of training and diet knowledge - and yet I am proven wrong time and time again.
> 
> Plenty of people I know who go to the gym (generally colleagues) just do not follow any of these rules, thinking that some £60 book they buy or new workout they do is going to hold the secret to blowing up, even though their diets are very volatile - bulking or cutting (in a SLIGHT surplus/defecit) for a week or two at a time, then switching back because they are "getting fat".
> ...


 its surprising how many dont follow the basic fundamentals

one of the jobs i do is in a gym and the amount of people that come in and just throw around any old s**t in bro split fashion baffles me

i personally believe once per week frequency to be inferior (not obsolete!) when compared to a higher frequency however the most crucial part of any training is progression

if you bench 100kg for 3x8 for a year you will have gained 0 muscle in your chest and triceps (assuming bench was your only exercise for these muscle groups)

so many think its a case of just coming in and going to failure on everything and thats how you grow, ive had arguments with people telling me that if you dont go to failure you might as well not bother

yet their bench numbers and the size of their chest and arms have stayed exactly the same whilst all my numbers and measurements have gone up having NEVER gone to failure and this was when i was natural so you cant argue that 'drugs did the work'

going to failure is a tool and if you rely on it exclusively then you are a tool that will make no gains, only tendon issues

all i do with people now is simplify it even more than the above

goes something like this

"eat enough to gain 1-1.5kg per month, eat protein every meal, sleep as much as your schedule allows and log all of your training to make sure you are seeing an upward trend in total tonnage lifted on major barbell movements each week"


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## Lifesizepenguin (Jul 25, 2016)

swole troll said:


> its surprising how many dont follow the basic fundamentals
> 
> one of the jobs i do is in a gym and the amount of people that come in and just throw around any old s**t in bro split fashion baffles me
> 
> ...


 Spot on, yes mate.

Its so simple, but people find it so hard to just follow the correct way. they spend so long fu**ing about that the growth they make in 4 years they could have in 1 just doing it the "normal" and clearly ineffective way


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## Mayzini (May 18, 2016)

swole troll said:


> so he beat me to it lol
> 
> JP is fast becoming my favorite bodybuilder


 I am a big fan of his stuff, his members site is worth money as the honesty is brilliant and the information concise.


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## swole troll (Apr 15, 2015)

Mayzini said:


> I am a big fan of his stuff, his members site is worth money as the honesty is brilliant and the information concise.


 its a shame he doesnt put out more free content but then that would take away from his site so makes sense why he doesnt

i think ive listened to all podcasts hes been in and i cant argue with any of the info he gives out which is rare for bodybuilders


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## Mingster (Mar 25, 2011)

swole troll said:


> if you cant get massive on a gram of test alone then your diet or training is off"


 You'll put the forum out of business if you carry on making common sense posts along these lines lol.


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## Eddias (Dec 21, 2015)

Questions, questions -

1) At some point you will reach your maximum strength, so you increase the number of reps to move forward, then you add in de-load weeks. but how do you keep progressing beyond this point to gain size.

2) How do you break through a strength plateau? for example I have been stuck on a squat weight for ages, sometimes I cannot even lift that weight some weeks, I have put in De-load weeks, dropped reps, increased Reps, dropped sets increased sets, But i never get beyond that particular weight. even tried going in fresh after warm ups for 1 rep max and its the same damn weight, can do it for 3 reps, but i stick more on the bar its just not moving in a proper full range of motion (not telling what it is as its a tad wimpy in comparison to others)

( note: I am aiming for size over strength in the long run)


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## swole troll (Apr 15, 2015)

Eddias said:


> Questions, questions -
> 
> 1) At some point you will reach your maximum strength, so you increase the number of reps to move forward, then you add in de-load weeks. but how do you keep progressing beyond this point to gain size.
> 
> ...


 Sorry if this is brief but I'm on my phone with only 5 mins to spare

the more advanced you get the slower the progress and more complicated your progression will be, to give you a brief idea a simple step by step from beginner to intermediate to early adanced could be strong lifts to madcows to 531

You'd run all of them into the ground and only move onto the next once you are bulking, gaining a lb per week and still are not progressing even after having deloaded

This whole process will take a long time but if you look at the programs and their rates of progression you'll see how progression needs to be structured at a slower rate the more advanced you get

You go from workout to workout progression to weekly progression to monthly and then eventually it's almost full training cycles before you add anything to your major lifts


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## MRSTRONG (Apr 18, 2009)

Eddias said:


> Questions, questions -
> 
> 1) At some point you will reach your maximum strength, so you increase the number of reps to move forward, then you add in de-load weeks. but how do you keep progressing beyond this point to gain size.
> 
> ...


 without seeing your form or knowing anything how you train and what exercises you do its difficult , also could be hydration or diet related .


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

Might be worth moving this to the Getting Started section?


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

Ultrasonic said:


> Might be worth moving this to the Getting Started section?


 Actually scratch that, I'd missed the gear section.


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## nWo (Mar 25, 2014)

swole troll said:


> its surprising how many dont follow the basic fundamentals
> 
> one of the jobs i do is in a gym and the amount of people that come in and just throw around any old s**t in bro split fashion baffles me
> 
> ...


 I think the problem with a lot of people as well is they subscribe to one method and think it to be superior. There are a lot of good programs out there, none of them are superior, and different rep ranges have different benefits. For example, low volume, 6-8 reps, ramping up to one all-out failure and doing dropsets or rest pause or whatever, works. What also works is high volume, high reps, short rests and no failure and this stimulates hypertrophy via different pathways, plus it gives my joints a rest. These are on both ends of the extreme as well, approaches in the middle will obviously work also.

So my question to them is, why just stick to one? If you're on a 2x per week split, have heavy and light days. If you're on a bro-split, get your heavy compounds in first and aim for progression on these first and foremost, then go for higher reps on the following mid-range compounds and go for the pump on the isolations. Get the best of both worlds, keep things more interesting, and you're not training to failure or even training heavy on every exercise, yet progression will be maximal if you approach it the right way.


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## swole troll (Apr 15, 2015)

I agree

People do end up becoming part of a camp when all methods should be cycled as you said

Another huge factor that holds people back is not tracking things

Whether you scribble it on a note pad or enter it into an app it's likely hindering progress if not tracked


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## ILLBehaviour (Dec 20, 2014)

I kept looking for the secret, eventually found it and now I'm too big.


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## nWo (Mar 25, 2014)

swole troll said:


> I agree
> 
> People do end up becoming part of a camp when all methods should be cycled as you said
> 
> ...


 This as well. I'm letting my mate get away with it atm as he's new, and from workout to workout what was heavy for him last week might feel light this week at his stage, so I'm just making sure he trains hard enough. Though I said to him, I don't care if it's effort, a few more months down the line and you're gonna have to start writing s**t down. I have a spreadsheet on my laptop and I just look at that write some notes in the notepad on my phone when I go to the gym as to what weights and reps I did the last time I did that workout, then try and beat the reps before upping the weight when the reps get too high, write down what I did and then save that into my spreadsheet when I get home. It's really no bother when you get into the swing of it and if everything else is in place, there's no way you're not going to progress if you make the effort to improve.


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## nWo (Mar 25, 2014)

What I wrote above reminds me of a chat I had with a guy in the gym I often chat to as well. I went alone as my mate was a bit poorly. I was chatting to this guy and he was like "I didn't wanna say anything, but I've seen you training with your mate, obviously he's new... are you sure that's a good idea?". When I asked why it'd be a bad idea, he responded exactly as I thought he might, saying that you need to train with someone at your own level so you can compete against each other to make sure you push yourself. I literally said, that's bollocks mate. The only person I need to compete against is myself. My last workout. What do runners do to get better? They try and beat their time. When you were a kid and played a racing game on your own, you probably played "beat the ghost" mode, where you'd do a lap, set a record and then try and beat your own time set by your previous lap. Same goes with lifting - you did a certain amount of reps with a certain weight the last time you did an exercise, so you try and beat that this time. Same concept that, once you get into the habit of doing, becomes second nature. It gets to a point where you've experienced feeling a bit disappointed when you didn't make any improvement over the last workout (which is going to happen to everyone quite regularly if you're natty or off-cycle, but it's still mildly annoying) and you've also experienced the thrill of pulling off more clean reps and then upping the weights, because you know you're progressing. You want to try and make sure you can walk away from the bench, or squat rack or even barbell curl, having experienced the latter rather than the former, so you'll try hard to make that happen.

I could tell by his face that I really gave him something to think about after explaining this to him, which is always good.


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## Eddias (Dec 21, 2015)

I'mNotAPervert! said:


> What I wrote above reminds me of a chat I had with a guy in the gym I often chat to as well. I went alone as my mate was a bit poorly. I was chatting to this guy and he was like "I didn't wanna say anything, but I've seen you training with your mate, obviously he's new... are you sure that's a good idea?". When I asked why it'd be a bad idea, he responded exactly as I thought he might, saying that you need to train with someone at your own level so you can compete against each other to make sure you push yourself. I literally said, that's bollocks mate. The only person I need to compete against is myself. My last workout. What do runners do to get better? They try and beat their time. When you were a kid and played a racing game on your own, you probably played "beat the ghost" mode, where you'd do a lap, set a record and then try and beat your own time set by your previous lap. Same goes with lifting - you did a certain amount of reps with a certain weight the last time you did an exercise, so you try and beat that this time. Same concept that, once you get into the habit of doing, becomes second nature. It gets to a point where you've experienced feeling a bit disappointed when you didn't make any improvement over the last workout (which is going to happen to everyone quite regularly if you're natty or off-cycle, but it's still mildly annoying) and you've also experienced the thrill of pulling off more clean reps and then upping the weights, because you know you're progressing. You want to try and make sure you can walk away from the bench, or squat rack or even barbell curl, having experienced the latter rather than the former, so you'll try hard to make that happen.
> 
> I could tell by his face that I really gave him something to think about after explaining this to him, which is always good.


 so true great information in this thread, keep sending it across to my mate who is always looking for the "secret"


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## nWo (Mar 25, 2014)

Eddias said:


> so true great information in this thread, keep sending it across to my mate who is always looking for the "secret"


 Can you send him this for me?


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## Heavyassweights (Jan 18, 2014)

@swole troll good post mate x


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## bonacris (May 20, 2015)

Unfortunately I wasted a few years doing shitty bro splits and making little progress. Training for the pump instead progressively overloading.


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## swole troll (Apr 15, 2015)

bonacris said:


> Unfortunately I wasted a few years doing shitty bro splits and making little progress. Training for the pump instead progressively overloading.


 we all live and learn mate

my first routine was a bro split also and i too made bugger all progress

thing is when youre new to training and youve got the likes of jay cutler or ronnie coleman doing bro splits and talking about anabolic windows or the likes of eric helms preaching minimum x2 per week frequency its human nature to listen to the guy whos more jacked


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## monkeybiker (Jul 21, 2010)

bonacris said:


> Unfortunately I wasted a few years doing shitty bro splits and making little progress. Training for the pump instead progressively overloading.


 I was the same. Came from reading all the muscle and fitness mags my brother had. When I started to simplify my training and doing full body routines I made such better progress.


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## swole troll (Apr 15, 2015)

Shortly after i put out this thread Stan Efferding was on the JuggLife podcast giving out solid nuggets of information as usual but the part that really popped in similarity to the point i was trying to make ITT was when he first met Flex Wheeler as an aspiring bodybuilder 'looking for the secret'

I've time stamped it in the link but if it doesnt work see 1:13:48






echos true of all the points i was trying to make particularly that not only is there no secret but there is a key and that is consistency

i think this is why many doubt their training plan, progression, diet, supplement intake or drug stack is because they dont realize how long it takes to build size and strength

main thing is to master the basics then stay consistent at it

i've said it before and ill say it again: when Jeremy Hamilton was asked "how do you build a big squat" he replied "do it for 10 years"


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## JohhnyC (Mar 16, 2015)

I'mNotAPervert! said:


> This as well. I'm letting my mate get away with it atm as he's new, and from workout to workout what was heavy for him last week might feel light this week at his stage, so I'm just making sure he trains hard enough. Though I said to him, I don't care if it's effort, a few more months down the line and you're gonna have to start writing s**t down. I have a spreadsheet on my laptop and I just look at that write some notes in the notepad on my phone when I go to the gym as to what weights and reps I did the last time I did that workout, then try and beat the reps before upping the weight when the reps get too high, write down what I did and then *save that into my spreadsheet when I get home. *It's really no bother when you get into the swing of it and if everything else is in place, there's no way you're not going to progress if you make the effort to improve.


 It is good practice, I have spreadsheets going back to 1996. good to see how you faired over the years


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