Jon Snow is a personal trainer from the Jacksonville, Florida area as well as training clients online. He has written for Relampago Furioso and I was excited to get a guest post from him. Jon runs a website at Snow Training Systems where he writes about lifting, mindset, and lifestyle helping men get the most out of each. In this article Jon is going to talk about mental masturbation are you guilty of it and how to get past it. Enjoy.
I see a lot of people at the gym who ask me all of these questions.
How can I get bigger and stronger?
How can I improve my bench press?
How can I stop being a weakling?
The answer to these questions lie in the simple principles.
If you want to get bigger and stronger you need to increase your calories and lift as heavy as you can each session.
If you want to improve your bench press, you need to hammer incline bench presses and seated military presses.
To stop being a weakling means you need to get stronger and develop your mental strength too.
Unfortunately, society and school taught you a skill that is completely worthless.
That skill is mental masturbation.
An example of mental masturbation.
Well how do I get stronger?
Should I add 10 lbs or 25 lbs?
Should I front squat or back squat?
What if I get too big?
Big guys or ripped guys don’t ask these questions.
If you want to get stronger add 25 lbs instead of 10 lbs.
If you can’t squat 405 yet, go up in 25 lbs increments.
If you can squat 315 for 5 don’t increase the weight until you can get `12 clean reps.
Then add 25 lbs, that will get you to 365 lbs.
You keep adding weight in 25 lbs increments.
How do I get stronger?
Gain some body weight, increase your calories and try to do more reps or more weight each workout, focus all of your energy on progressive overload in the gym.
Mental masturbation, will hold you back in the gym.
Should I front squat or back squat?
You need to do both.
You need to learn low bar squats.
Low bar squats are much safer than high bar squats.
High bar squats can give you lower back pain.
I’ve learned that this doesn’t happen with low bar squats.
If you learn to low bar squat correctly, your hips, abductors, and glutes will be sore the next day.
You also won’t lose quad size by doing low bar squats.
Low bar squats also allow you to lift the most amount of weight.
Squats
Use simple training programs.
If you’re not getting stronger or bigger, you’re probably doing too much.
To build strength your body needs adequate calories and rest.
You need to eat as much quality whole food as possible.
If you’re trying to get bigger and stronger eat 1.5 grams per pound of body weight in protein daily.
If you shoot for this high, you’ll be able to get in at least 1 gram per pound of body weight.
For carbs stick to one or two sources.
Too many different carb sources will mess with your digestive system.
Keep track of the amount of calories you’re eating.
Avoid mental masturbation here too.
Well what if I do the keto diet, with IF, and counting calories.
Pick a plan and stick to it for 60 days.
Don’t change your plan, or read contradictory articles.
You need to keep your mind focused on what you need to do to get bigger and stronger.
You don’t need 15 sets of side lateral raises, or the perfect accessory work.
Pick exercises, and movements that work for you and that you can make progress on.
Progressive overload
Weighted chin ups
When you’re training at the gym, the focus needs to be on getting bigger and stronger.
Your goal should be to add more weight, or do more reps with the same weight.
If you can do this you’ll be able to move forward with your training and make gains.
People who can’t stay consistent during their training end up making big mistakes.
They waste too much time on trivial bs in the gym.
When you’re focused on progressive overload and getting stronger, suddenly everything else falls into place.
Keep your mind focused and occupied with progressive overload.
Choose a dead-lift instead of a chest supported row.
Pick the harder exercises and get better at them.
Dead-lifts, weighted, chin ups, squats, bent over rows, and bench presses, will all help you get stronger and put on size.
Once you understand this and focus on getting better at those exercises you will improve the way your body looks.
These basic exercises will help the most when it comes to size and strength.
The dead-lift and bent over row will add back thickness.
The squats will add lower body strength and size.
The bench press will increase your strength and size in the chest and shoulders.
If you bench press heavy enough, it is a great front delt builder.
The weighted chin ups are great for your back and biceps and they help with grip strength.
Not to mention that they have a great carryover to dead-lifts.
The dead-lift will build your whole body, and will build strength throughout it too.
When you dead-lift you need to focus on shifting your weight back while you pull yourself into position with the barbell as you pull the slack out of the bar.
Right before you start your pull, it needs to feel like you’re falling back.
Then after you’re about to fall back, press hard through your legs and glutes, similar to a leg press.
This will allow you to keep your back in a safe position and will allow you to dead-lift more weight.
People usually struggle with this.
It’s much easier to just use your lower back during dead-lifts.
When you lean farther back, you can activate your hamstrings and glutes more.
Recap
Nothing will stunt your gains more than mental masturbation. If you’re focused on doing too many exercises, you won’t make gains and your progress will be slower. Keep your mind focused on progressive overload with the main compound lifts. This will allow you to get stronger and add more size than you normally would. 1 set of 500 lbs dead-lifts is better than 5 sets of hammer strength chest supported rows. Dead-lifts, squats, bench press, and weighted chin ups will build your body even better than all of those useless machine exercises. Choose free weights over machines and watch your body grow and develop.
Thank you for reading.
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