TOPIC 16: Bringing up weaker bodyparts
i hear a lot of guys who want to bring up specific body parts, like chest, or biceps, or calves, or whatever, to match the rest of the body.
now sometimes, when they talk about this, especially when they are talkinga bout legs, you find that they arent training very hard and they just plain need to train harder. but it aint very often you hear guys wanting to bring up the legs or back, no matter how stick legged or thin they are from front to back. no, usually they want to bring up the chest or arms, and usually yooull find that they are already training these bodyparts pretty hard.
well, theres nothing wrong with trying new things, and progress can be made, though with arms in particular progress is usually made with doing less and eating more, but thats besides the point. where i see people derailing their overall traininng plan... is when they get so damn focussed on one little thing that isnt up to par, that their overall training suffers.
lets examine some facts. most people dont have ideal genetics. many people, almost all people in fact, have at least one bodypart which will NEVER match the rest of their physique. if you had perfect genetics youd be standing alongside
ronnie coleman, but there arent many like him. so chances are, that your weak point, take your arms, for instance, will never be a strong point. some people just werent born with the ability to have "purty" arms, just like some people werrnt born with the ability to have big calves... you can get them better, but theyll never match the rest of your body.
ive seen so many people bang their head against a wall and just short circut their entire training plan to try to turn a weak point into a strong point, it just makes me sick. now, im not saying that because you didnt have arms that ballooned to 20 inches in a year, to give up. hell no. what im saying is that sometimes you need to just face reality. say youve been training 5 years, know what your doing, and your big and strong, but although your triceps are fairly strong, they jyust arent massive and they are short, they dont "hang over the elbow" so to speak... then dont short-circut the resto f your training trying anything to get big triceps. deal with the fact that nature gave you a short muscle belly in the tricep, and it aint going to be your strong point because of it.
i guess what im trying to say is, deal with what nature gave you. make the best of what you have, but dont give yourself a nervous breakdown ovr trying to CHANGE what you have. that cant be done. you can improve your body, but not change its structure.
personally, im a big guy... but ive got a big bone structure. my wrists are almost 10inches. so i can get pretty big... but ill never look "freaky" like some of the guys with real little joints and tiny waists. thats fine. my arms have always been big, even before i trained. they are about 23inches now, and i dont train them. but even back when i trained my chest a lot, it was never "developed" in the inner or upper regions to much extent... yeah i did exercises that hit this part, but it just never grew much, hell my biceps grew more from incline benches than my upper chest. ive got big knee jjoints, and long tendons on the vastus lateralis... so ill never have that "muscle hanging over ther knee" look that some do, even though my things are 34inches. just not my structure. but i dont derail my training trying desperately to bring up what i am never going to get. sure, id like to have "prettier" legs i guess, and i would like to have smaller biceps and more upper chest and shoulder muscle (more specific to my sport)... but this is the way my body is and i cant change it. ive trained a lot of different ways and for several different sports, and with the exception of getting bigger, my overall shape hasnt changed all that much. i had big arms, a wide, fairly flat chest with more lower chest than upper chest, big traps, and wide shoulders but not as much front delt as youd think... as a powerlifter, a thrower, a highland games athlete, an olympic lifter, etc. i had this structure when i trained arms all the time, i had it when i never trained arms. i had it when i concentrated on flat benches as a powerlifter, incline benches a s a thrower, and did no benches a s an olympic lifter. i had it when i could barely military press 250lbs as a powerlifter, i have it now that im almost to 400lbs on the military press.
your never going to look like the other guy in the gymn or the guy in the magazine. your going to look like you, only bigger. but youll havbe a much better chance to get bigger if you accept your own genetics, and seek to improve YOUR OWN body... within its abilities and limitations, instead of banging your head against the wall trying to break free of what you were born with.