Things you think you know:

[Typhon]

I’ll make this vague so people can pitch in with their little nuggets of ideas and wisdom from all areas of exercise or even sport.
I hoped this thread could be a place where people can say what they think they have learnt from their time training without having to back in up with evidence or research. These are the things that you have witnessed or experienced through the years and think that you might have come across an idea that has merit.

As it’s just a place of ideas and opinion please keep any bashing to a minimum and responses friendly

 

[Typhon]

I'll start it off;

Your lower body development is restricted primarily by your own pain threshold rather than physical limitation.

I know there’s bound to be a lot of evidence to the contrary but from what I’ve found, the urge to give up, be sick or pass out comes long before that actually happens and 99.9% of people give up when they think they can’t lift anymore but in fact once you have reached the point of failure you can continue to work the legs hard after a very short rest period. It’s agony but it works.
My contention is that as your legs are so vital to our survival as a species that they are designed to work hard and provide force even when we think they aren’t capable of anything else. IMO this causes people that train their legs in the same way they do their upper body to get poor lower body results.
Lower body training needs to be brutal to bring results as your legs have such a high natural ability to cope that to over load them takes mental strength and physical pain barriers to be pushed back.

Because of this I now fit more high rep work into my leg training, 20 rep sets are common for me these days. Now all I need to do is find the right way to train my skinny chest

 

[Karky]

that makes a lot of sense with the lower body, yeah, you can usually grind out a few more reps than you think.

I think it's sort of the same with the upper back. I recently started hammering my upper back more than usual. I can't say anything about results yet, but I'm gonna try to up the volume even more. I think the upper back can usually handle a lot more training than people realize.

 

[firefreak]

that makes a lot of sense with the lower body, yeah, you can usually grind out a few more reps than you think.

I think it's sort of the same with the upper back. I recently started hammering my upper back more than usual. I can't say anything about results yet, but I'm gonna try to up the volume even more. I think the upper back can usually handle a lot more training than people realize.

yeah my upper back can handle it great.

my forearms, and shoulders can't unfortunately. forearms due to lack of strength and shoulder cause they are all screwed up.

I thought I knew how to train for a marathon....apparently I didn't.

 

[BikeSwimLaugh]

I guess mine is about diet....

There are no magic formula's, no ratio's of carbs/protein, no secret oils or foods that reduce hunger or stimulate metabolism. Sure, there's caffiene and other things....but in the grand scheme of things I've found and realized that we are far more slaves to our bodies then we realize and by this mechanism our weight is somewhat dictated by our own internal balance.

We like to think we're in control and have free-will and make our own decisions....but in reality we just get a fraction of our lives to do with what we want. Indeed: every day we are forced to sleep, eat, urinate, deficate and tend to our bodies needs. If the body senese we're low on fluids, we get thirsty. If we need calories, we're driven with hunger. Even the procreation of the species is ensured with hormonal drive...think about it; what if there was no orgasm or any of those hormones...would you really drive in your car, find a motel and pay for sex?

But seriously...our bodies probably maintain an average intake of calories on a consistent basis that we're not aware of....it knows the balance of things. I've stuffed vegetables, water and other no or low calorie foods into my stomach until I can feel my gut bulging...and yet, my low blood sugar and the body getting little or nothing in the way of glucose-rich nutrient still drives me to want to eat more.

For me, I've found I can do a LOT of cardio and weights....but the body knows when it's lost calories and it fully inspires and drives me to replace each and every one of those calories. The body has a scale, a balance and a system...it's inescapable and undeniable: to lose weight, you must endure a calorie deficit and YOU MUST ENDURE HUNGER. Hunger means the equation is upside-down and you're in deficit....and deficit is what is required to lose weight.

So my thought is that you have to keep this in mind and realize it's a battle of mind over body. The chief thought is that once you lose that weight and reset the internal thermostat, the body will reset to that weight and then you can go on maintenance to maintain that state.

I hope this was helpful...it's hard to put to words these thoughts properly.


On another topic/question: I'm under the impression that in order to make progress with weight-training we really need to push ourselves SUPER-HARD. That means doing reps until failure and really enduring some serious pain towards those last couple reps. Some people suggest you don't need to go balls-out to the extreme...but I'm thinking that's when you tear the muscle and induce rebuilding larger/stronger. So on a scale of 1-10, do we need to pound a solid 10+ to make progress...or can moderate levels also achieve results?