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You train muscles, not movements.

Master_Of_Disaster
Public 9 conversations 55 arguments 423 agrees 72 disagrees 0 series 4,543 views

Most people do not have a movement problem. They have a weak-link problem. I am not talking about elite athletes, that's a minority and they're not on the internet reading me anyway. I am talking about ordinary people who want a body that can handle hard things without something dumb failing first. If your arms, shoulders, or grip give out before the job is done, I do not care what your squat and deadlift numbers look like. The body tells the truth fast.

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Most people do not have a movement problem. They have a weak-link problem. I am not talking about elite athletes, that's a minority and they're not on the internet reading me anyway. I am talking about ordinary people who want a body that can handle hard things without something dumb failing first. If your arms, shoulders, or grip give out before the job is done, I do not care what your squat and deadlift numbers look like. The body tells the truth fast.

I learned that in the least masculine way possible, after 2 years of thinking I was awesome since my squat was ~350lbs and my deadlift ~400lbs. I weight 170lbs. The numbers were good enough to make me think I knew what I was doing. Then real tasks exposed the lie. Holding my girlfriend... in a private setting. My biceps failed, my anterior delts.... my abs!. Never felt a thing in my legs, nor in my back. But my "mirror muscles" gave up! All the carryover lectures, the functional training and it turns out the mirror muscles are my weak link!

That triggered me to reflect and call out that the whole "train movements, not muscles" is bullshit. It sounds smart, and sounds athletic and it gives you an excuse to feel better about your time invested in the gym even if your body doesn't show. Sure, those other guys look great, but "I'm functional baby, I can do shit they can't". Mostly it sounds like a guy trying to sound above bodybuilding. What it usually hides is a refusal to ask the only question that matters: what are you really training for? Do you even know what you intend to do with those squats (which don't even transfer to running) or deadlidts (when do you really have to lift something so heavy that conveniently has such a barbell-like grip for you to hold?).

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Obligatory Starting Strength smearing

If you play a sport, identify what you need and train all those muscles with a variety of exercises to hit them everywhere. If you train to look good, then "train all the muscles with a variety of exercises to hi them everywhere". And if you don't know what you're doing then "train all the muscles with a variety of exercises to hi them everywhere". Stop fooling yourself thinking that it's somehow useful to squat hundreds of pounds, or to dead-lift them. I did that for years, never needed to squat anything. Stopped doing it, started doing some lighter single leg work and my sprints exploded. Started doing biceps curls and suddenly I could hold my girlfriend... Sure, do some dead-lifts every now and then, for fun mostly.

Ironically, bodybuilding really works at... bodybuilding. It has good principles, tons of exercises, lots of tribal knowledge... And it works. Sure, we've all seen memes of bloated bodybuilders on growth hormone, but that's the drugs, not the sport. You don't need to take them, but you can use the methods they use for exercising. Find what is underdeveloped. Train it directly until it stops failing first, then train the next thing. That is often more functional than the stuff sold as functional because at least it is honest about weakness, instead of triggering dopamine every time you add 2 lbs to the same 3 exercises. Lateral raises, curls, triceps work, rear-delts, forearms, calf work, leg curls, quad isolation, yes they're boring, but they're so fucking good to hit the weak spots.

Bodybuilding is simple and realistic. Stop asking what training tribe you belong to, you're building your body and you'll do whatever exercises work.