Things you did when you didn’t have a clue.

permabulker

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I imagine most of you have been in the gym for possibly 10-20 years now or more. I’m curious what things you did in the gym back when you knew nothing about what to do or how to do it.

when I was 17 I used to do sometimes two hours of rowing machines, the arm elliptical machine and elliptical. And wonder why all the other guys were double my size. (I think when you are young skinny and inexperienced it’s hard to just walk into the weight area and start lifting)

what dumb stuff did you do?
 

dk8594

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I started out just wanting abs so I would do 1000s of sit-ups and nothing else.

After about two months of that, i decided I wanted biceps too so I cut it down to 500 sit ups and a hour of bicep curls.

Later I decided I wanted chest muscles and my routine has continued to grow from there.
 
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The Phoenix

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I already had a clue, I had body builders in the family (uncles and brothers) so I grew up already knowing the forms, the exercises, etc.
 

dk8594

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If we want to throw in dieting...

I did a pre-contest diet when I was a teen that consisted solely of 5 cans of tuna in oil a day.

It sucked. I was literally falling asleep standing up, sweating tuna juice, and I came in last. Go figure
 

1bigun11

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If we want to throw in dieting...

I did a pre-contest diet when I was a teen that consisted solely of 5 cans of tuna in oil a day.

It sucked. I was literally falling asleep standing up, sweating tuna juice, and I came in last. Go figure

Yep. Done that too, lol
 

permabulker

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If we want to throw in dieting...

I did a pre-contest diet when I was a teen that consisted solely of 5 cans of tuna in oil a day.

It sucked. I was literally falling asleep standing up, sweating tuna juice, and I came in last. Go figure

that sounds gross
:32 (18):
 

midevil

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I picked up Arnold's bb'g encyclopedia and used it as a guide. Didn't work for me as well as it did for him lol. But it was a great tool to get started.
 

The Phoenix

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I picked up Arnold's bb'g encyclopedia and used it as a guide. Didn't work for me as well as it did for him lol. But it was a great tool to get started.

I learned a lot of exercises from that book that I still do today and people ask where I learned those forms.
 

The Phoenix

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I joined the football team to learn how to lift, they didnt know much except for the basics. But it began me on a good track

I learned the basics from seasoned BB. They were adamant that one should keep it simple at the beginning . They recommended getting fancy once I looked like them. I’m not there yet....
 

1bigun11

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My biggest mistakes at the beginning were thinking that the way to get big was to do more and more and more sets per body part, three times a week, to "hit it from all angles" and "force the muscle to grow to survive," and trying to get huge and get cut at the same time. My biggest breakthrough was when I learned that the secret to size is food, that my muscles won't grow without a calorie surplus, that I will get a bit fatter when bulking, and that five heavy sets per body part, hitting each body part once or twice a week, with progressively heavier weights, is the key for me.
 
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When I was younger it was all about the weight not the movement or the mind muscle.. needless to say I barley made any gains and stayed fat. No training skills just what I read and tried to state out of mags but no real experience or knowledge on how to implement them.It wasn’t till later on when I started training in a about 1998 in a dungeon owned by two old school ameture BBr’s from the late 80’-early 90’s when I started getting a clue.. since then it’s been all about beast mode..
 

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