Is bodybuilding dying?
I come from a very old school of training: focus on strength and everything else follows. It does not matter if your goal is to gain muscle, lose fat, or perform better. If you do not have an underlying base of strength, then you will not achieve anything. When I go to the gym, I really find it quite sad that personal trainers have their clients stand on bosu balls while curling 5-10 pound dumbbells.
It seems like this generation of gym goers are misinformed and misguided, and this is the fault of personal trainers. A lot of these trainers have their clients perform all sorts of crazy "circus" exercises on stabilty balls, resistance bands and cable machines. these personal trainers put their clients through some mobility drills to make things interesting, to make the clients feel like they’re getting a workout. and yet after months of training the physiques of these clients are still the same.
In all honesty, I don’t like calling myself a personal trainer, because it has a very negative connotation among those in the strength and bodybuilding community.
but what is also sad, is that this generation of gym goers lacks discipline and does not want to put in the hard work of training and dieting. In the old days, if you had balls and patience, then you would focus on a handful of compound movements, lift big weights, eat like man, and VOILA! Muscular physique!
nowadays, everybody wants instant results for little effort. most of the disciplined weekend warriors these days don’t do bodybuilding. most of them are into MMA, which doesn’t stress strength as much as skill and cardio. bodybuilding is a dying interest, and much of this bodybuilding knowledge is slowly being lost.
So for the love of God, whether you’re a man or a woman, whether you’re a bodybuilder or not, when you train with weights: train to be strong.
For more insights into strength training and bodybuilding, visit my blog: http://www.strengthandphysique.blogspot.com
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December 27, 2007 at 7:29 am
Preach on! You’re right, though our gyms are a bit different, I’ve been to civillian gyms too where it seems like PTs just make stuff up so it’ll look like they have that ‘magic pill exercise’ everyone’s looking for and look: you do it with 5 lb dumbbells so you won’t even have to work hard!