About weight training

You can lose weight with diet, but if you don't incorporate workouts, your body won't be firm and well-shaped. You can achieve weight loss with diet alone, but without workouts, that body will look pretty bad.

For the time spent in the gym to be as useful as possible, you need knowledge, the proper application of that acquired knowledge, and here, as everywhere, the presence of the intangible, and the awareness that these are also available to us in the fight for shaping our bodies.

Focus. Every workout should be an event, and you need to approach it as such. The workout doesn't start in the gym, but in the hours leading up to it. First and foremost, you need to mentally prepare. Plan what exercises you'll do, prepare yourself for the strain, and accept that it will be difficult, because everything that involves progress in life will be difficult and happen outside our comfort zone. Concentrate on the workout, and get into the zone so that by the time you get there, your performance is the best it can be. Your body will handle it, but only your mind truly matters in what you do with your body through your mind. Going to the gym without focus and preparation is completely pointless; everyone needs to develop their own ritual for this.

I personally would die without music. Music helps you shift into another world, music provides the soundtrack to your thoughts, and it pumps you up sufficiently. Unfortunately, I can't help you choose music, because music is subjective. Eminem might get me in the zone, but Calvin Harris or that hermaphrodite Lady Gaga might do it for someone else, electronic music for yet another, and there are even those who are affected by alternative music.

The point is that by the time you arrive at the gym, you need to be in a state where you can shut out all the crap from your life. A lifestyle change program is wonderful precisely because you can escape from everyday life. There's no room here for your stupid relationship crisis, or that your boss is a jerk, and you don't have to dwell on grievances. The priority can be nothing else but the workout itself.

Emotions and energy. In the gym, there’s nothing but weights that you have to move. These are dead objects that you fill with energy. Now, the strength and quality of this energy is entirely up to you. It's not your body that lifts the weights, but your mind. It's not your body that exerts energy, but your emotions that move them. Tension is a fantastic source of energy, and in the gym, you can effectively release these accumulated tensions. My God, how many times have I pushed through workouts where I would have loved to cry from pain, disappointments, grievances, and my anger at the injustices of life, and by using these, how much energy was released in me, and I had great workouts. Sport is the best possible way to relieve tension, and not least, it mobilizes hidden energies that allow you to perform effective workouts. Stepping out of your comfort zone means nothing else but mobilizing your energies. The inner fire ignites the villages of your life that you deem cursed, and only inner strength can overcome all obstacles. People who achieve exceptional results never use the strength of their bodies, but their inner resources.

 

No need for all the crap. In gyms, without exception, 90% of what they sell at the counter is nonsense. L-carnitine isotonic drinks, to mention just the biggest rip-off, but protein bars also hold a prominent place on the asshole success list, as the epitome of real bullshit. Protein bars are chocolates, isotonic drinks are sugary water. I want this to sink in.

At the beginning of your program, you don't need anything other than whey protein, Pyruvat PRO (fat burner), and glutamine. I currently only use these. It's completely unnecessary to take anything else or more AT THE BEGINNING. I'm writing "at the beginning" because as you progress, more and more things will need to be incorporated, but you need to get to that point somehow. Do your workouts properly for 4-5 weeks, 4 times a week, and if you still haven't failed your program after that, then the other supplements can come in, and your body's changes will demand it. This whole supplement evolution can be illustrated something like this:

Step 1: Weeks 1–4: whey protein, glutamine, Pyruvat PRO

Step 2: Weeks 5–7: whey protein, glutamine, BCAA, Pyruvat PRO

Step 3: Weeks 8–10: isolate, glutamine, BCAA, some all-in-one product (Aesthetic)

Step 4: Weeks 11–16: here we're talking about a strongly advanced level. Isolate, glutamine, BCAA, Aesthetic, pre-workout product, possibly creatine.

And then the world stops. Everything beyond this, you don't need anymore. Beyond these, you get anabolics and steroid bullshit, and if you start that, there's no stopping. Sooner or later, you'll get insulin and thyroid-stimulating bullshit, stanazol for water retention, and absolutely no one needs these things.

As for the workouts. I follow a split training plan, workout days, which is always structured like this: Chest-biceps, shoulders-triceps, back, legs. This is ideal for 4 workouts a week. If you switch to 5 days, I suggest that one day be an arm day, in the form of biceps-triceps, between back and leg day. Abdominal exercises should preferably be on every workout day.

The length of the workout. It shouldn't last longer than an hour and a half. Nothing justifies it, but if possible, it shouldn't even last that long. 70 minutes is ideal, which you should time with a stopwatch. You need to reach this level, but I thought I'd write it down so that if you're there, this is how you do it. There are great apps for this, I use one too. The exercises last as long as they last, but strictly, between two sets, you take a maximum of 45-60 seconds rest. A maximum of 2 minutes should pass between two exercises, that is, when you move from one exercise to another. Adjusting weight and seat height, loading plates, etc. And this is where the importance of the stopwatch comes in, of course.

A few weeks ago I took a big fall on my motorcycle and dislocated my shoulder. So I was a little scared of weight training, but it was proven again that if you perform the exercises correctly, you won't get injured, and you won't even reinjure an existing injury.

I've always considered cardio warm-up before weight training to be gay; I don't think there's any need for it, just as there's no need for a cool-down, because we're just unnecessarily burning muscle with it. It's perfectly sufficient to simply thoroughly mobilize our body, especially the shoulders, elbows, wrists, lower back, and knees. Depending on the workout day, of course, with even more emphasis on the areas we're about to train.

And which exercises are worth doing? Well, here’s the Training Anatomy post series. Review all of them, read them, save them, print them if necessary, and follow what’s written there.