How to Improve body composition or running performance: Advice you WILL NOT want to hear

I am going to take a couple paragraphs from Mel Siff's book Supertraining. Siff wrote these two paragraphs after naming 22 different observations on training for hypertrophy (or basically for pure aesthetic reasons). This tiny section of the book is also preceded by 415 pages in 10 pt font about the science of strength and conditioning with like 400 different citations.

Siff:
 "When someone stated that 'People with extreme genetics or those who are using huge amounts of drugs will probably get big no matter what kind of weight training and rep speed they are doing', he is probably far closer to the truth than anyone who religiously propounds simplistic Time under Tension theories. One has to remember that the marketability of a certain fitness figure or group, according to well-established marketing principles, depends on slogans and simply stated formulae.


The public usually feels far more comfortable with cerebrally  undemanding mantras and 'fast food' solutions than with far more accurate, more complex methods. That is a major reason why many fitness figures write as they do and market their catch phrases simplistically as they do - society has been processed by the mass media to behave like that, and they usually do not want to be forced to think too deeply or to have their convenient current beliefs questioned, because that entails a serious threat to their psychological safety. Humankind has always been like that and they receive what they have been processed or educated to want"

These words resonated with me a lot because I always hear about new ways to do this and new ways to do that. When I tell people I am a personal trainer, they usually ask "What is the best exercise for (insert body part)?" When I tell dudes that are bigger than me that I am a personal trainer they just give me a smug look and hit the nearest gym for some invigorating bicep curls.

Truth is that most people are just training for aesthetic reasons and are unwilling to accept their genetics as a key factor in their body re composition. Consciously and subconsciously we all want to look lean like pictures in magazines. Most of those guys are on steroids, and not just the body builders. Somewhere along the way we forgot what the hell it was like to put time into something and get rewarded ten fold with the result. God forbid if that took more than 2 weeks! Tip: think more long term than short term. You do not grow muscle or run longer from 1 training session. It comes from a well thought out program that takes science into account. Our bodies adapt during rest.

It sounds very simple to think more long term than short term but I guarantee some people are already in denial. But FLEX magazine gave me a whole program to increase my bench press and chest size! If they gave any consideration as to how to perform bench press, they wouldn't do it the hap hazardous way they do.

I like Siff's quote because there is a little sarcasm there. It's as if he was saying, "I just wrote 7 dissertations on strength and conditioning and you just want to know how to get big?"

Genetics play a large role in why we look the way we do. Nutrition plays a much bigger role in hypertrophy and performance than training does. Yes, at a certain point there is a time when we need to alter the training variables, but fundamentals are always first. That applies to almost anything in life.