Batman can't be Superman

One of the things I hear/read from guys that don't lift weights, concerning athletes today, is that they are somehow bigger and stronger because of advances in weight training.

I generally have to explain to these turds that there really have been no advances in weight training since the barbell was invented.  They generally argue with me that "of course we've made advances" then tell me about all these fancy machines and training ideas that guys use.  That they saw some training footage of some freak athlete where he was doing some shit with electrodes strapped to his testicles and big rubber bands around his ankles while being chased by a mountain goat.

This is FML dumb...

Somehow, this is the reason that we have these freak athletes today.  This is what training has "evolved" into.

Fantastic.

In 2001 Adam Archuleta was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in the first round of the NFL Draft.  Adam had been trained by an asshat named Jay Schroeder, who had some very "interesting" training methods.  He did shit like drop Archuleta from 6 or 7 feet in the air, made him catch weights, do reps with super light weights as fast as possible, and all sorts of bananas dumb shit.  


The result?  


Archuleta bench pressed 225 31 times at the NFL combine.  He ran a 4.42 and jumped 39 inches.  The bench press was an all time combine best for a safety.  And he only weighed 211 pounds.  


So the Rams took him in the first round, and he signed a 5-year contract worth 7 million, with 3 million up front.  


Success.  


Oh wait............


Over the next 5 years Archuleta managed to play in all 16 games one time.  It was also the only year he had a decent statistical season, which doesn't mean he played well, just that his numbers on paper looked ok.  


After his 5 years of shit play in St. Louis were over, he signed with the Redskins.  Owned by the dumbest owner in all of the NFL, now that Al Davis is dead (or is he?), Dan Synder paid him 10 million dollars in signing bonus, and something like 30 million overall.  


For what?  


Basically, because of "potential" based off his first round draft pick status.  That's all I can figure because they guy couldn't play a fucking lick when he was with the Rams.  


He played 1 year in Washington.  Yes.  1.  Uno.  He started 7 games.  


Then Chicago signed him.  And he sucked there too.  


The guy was constantly out of position, took poor angles, couldn't read offenses, and for all his "timed" speed the guy was slow as fuck on the field.  Because he lacked FOOTBALL ABILITY.  And for all his time spent in a groovy new-age training environment created to "replicate the collisions on the field", he managed to play a whole 16 game season 1-time in his career.  Nothing he did inside those "weight rooms" made him a better football player.  Not at the NFL level anyway.  

Fraud

The whole thing seemed like a gag to me after it was all over.  Let's prop up this unorthodox training method, show how these guys took this kid from 170 pounds to 211 over a few years, had him moving X amount of weight, jumping X high, and running 4.4 40's.  He did win PAC-10 defensive player of the year his senior year.  But the PAC-10 is a pussy conference, and everybody knows it.  So who cares?

Anyway, the talk of these unique training methods was all over the net at the time.  I thought these guys did a great job of building up Archuleta as some kind of Superman.  But he was really just Batman.  He wasn't Ronnie Lott, even though he could outrun Lott and certainly outlift him.  And no amount of training and being dropped from heights and catching fat bars was going to make him a better player.  No training "guru" had an answer for that.  Archuleta could have spent those years with just about any solid trainer and ended up with the same results.  The guy was obviously gifted in the weight room.  I don't believe for a second that that particular training, was the reason he boasted the numbers he did.  The ability was already there.  He should have spent all that time working with a coach that could teach him how to read offenses.  A guy that runs a 4.8 gets to the ball faster if he breaks down the play quicker, than a 4.3 guy who has no idea what he's looking at.

The anti-Archuleta

What I'm REALLY getting at with all of this, is that there are no training systems that can make you something you are not.

There are no training gurus or training styles that can turn you into something outside of your genetic ceiling.  Guys who preach the "I don't believe in limits" stuff make me laugh.  They are most often the guys who fail the most, because they don't evolve their training to fit what their body can or can't do.  They have trouble admitting they can't do something.  And when you can't admit a weakness, then you will fail to address it.

Guys also often don't prioritize properly.  If you want to get in shape and lose fat, then make THAT a priority.  Don't worry about setting PR's in the bench or squat when you know you will be doing sprints and limiting food.  This is dumb.

If you're a football player, get stronger on the basics, and spend the rest of your time practicing football.

If you're an MMA guy, get stronger on the basics, and spend the rest of your time practicing your crafts.

This is not a difficult philosophy to understand.

More Chronic Routine Changers -

One of the things that CONSTANTLY runs the course of the net is program and routine hopping by guys that think the reason why they have stalled is because their routine sucks.  And it very well could.  But more often than not it's just that guys don't put in enough time doing the things that have been proven to work over time, in order to get better.

If you took the next year out, and just squatted, pressed, and pulled as heavy as possible, and did a ton of conditioning with mobility work with a tight as fuck diet, what do you think would happen?  Would you be better off or worse off than if you did a bunch of routine changing every other month, worrying about bands and bar speed and shit like that?  We all know the answer.

So why do guys, who aren't even at the 300/400/500 level move around from routine to routine more than guys that are strong?

Lack of patience - 
There are no magical training routines.  There are no gurus that have secret answers.

Lack of understanding -
Squat, press, pull, condition.  That's really all there is to this whole thing.  Regulating volume, intensity, and frequency are all individual things that you need to figure out.  Some guys do great with high and some guys do great with low.

Find your sweet spot in terms of these three things and you'll make the fastest progress of your life.   

There are no training secrets, or training gurus that can turn you into something you can't be.  So stick with the things that have been tried and true for decades and train like your life depends on it for the next year.  You won't be dissatisfied with the results.