Rebuild Your Mind; Rebuild Your Body

So this week I switched to the Hardgainer Project X. It’s time to put it through its paces and see what it’s really made of.

Now, normally you should never stop a program half way through – you’ll never make progress unless you stick with what you are doing. Flipping programs is one of the biggest reasons people don’t see gains. But as it happened, my previous program was an extension of an older one and the trap tear injury meant that I’d had two weeks out so it was perfect timing to try something new.

On that note, here is a training tip I picked up from a friend of mine who you may have heard of – Vince Delmonte (you can read more about Vince here). If you’ve been doing a workout for a while then your gains are going to start slowing down. One reason for this is that while you’ve grown the muscles you are targeting, the other muscles which you use have not grown as much. Take as an example shrugs which target the traps. It’s not unusual to reach a point where your grip strength isn’t up to the loads that you need to keep improving on the traps. So, take a break in your program, target the forearms for a month, then go back. This time you’ll be able to hold onto the bar or dumbbells long enough to start working those traps. You can do this with almost any exercise.

Back to the Hardgainer program. When you start a new program always drop back on the weight. The first time through is always a case of feeling your way to find the right balances. It might take two or three weeks to work up to the right weight, but that’s OK. Now for me, this program has a lot more volume than I’ve been working with, and it’s very intense. So I’ve dropped back on the weight and not really pushed myself.

I started out with too much weight on the squat, I’ve trimmed it back now and today was much better. Other exercises such as the shrug I was too light, but as a result I know a better weight for next time.

The first day is a long workout, and it took me more than an hour. The others I completed in comfortably less than that. Now I know what I’m doing, I can shave time off and certainly I expect to bring the others down to about forty minutes. That first one I’ll get under the hour, beyond that I’ll have to see.

Got any training tips you’d like to share? Add a comment below, I’d appreciate your thoughts.

Now that the program is live, Hargainer Project X that is, it was time to buy it and review it.

The program is nicely laid out and is very well thought out. It’s very tightly focussed on the hardgainer, either skinny or skinny fat. Now I’m not saying that it isn’t controversial in some areas especially in the supplement section, but until I’ve had the chance to put it into practice, I’m reserving judgement on it.

You can read my review and watch the video of it here:

Hardgainer Project X review

Having come back from a weeks holiday where I will admit that I didn’t eat according to any proper sort of nutrition plan. I was careful when we ate out and we were self catering so I was able to influence what we ate. But we had pizza twice and ready meals as usual. We did only have a cream tea once…

So this morning I get on the scales, which I only do once a week and and I’ve lost a couple of pounds. Was it muscle? Was it fat, water or what? I only exercised once while I was away which was bad and I’m ready to start back on Monday into my programme.

Truth is though that gaining weight for me is difficult.

Which is why I was interested to come back to see that a friend of mine has just issued a couple of free reports (audio and pdf) about the research behind the new program which he is launching next week.

One thing I did do while I was away was to do some people watching, and I was surprised to see just how many guys, mature guys that is, who are frankly skinny. At least that is in terms of musculature. That creeping middle age spread starts coming in from the early thirties so there are a lot of men who fall into the skinny fat category.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am adding muscle even though I do easily fall into the hardgainer category, but I’m waiting for the launch with interest. Jeff has given me copies of the free reports and I’m suitably impressed so far with his logic. He isn’t revealing all to me just yet, but I can say with confidence that I will be getting a copy of the programme and seeing how well it fits with my own.

Click Here to get your own copies of the free MP3 and ebook

Check it out and let me know what you think. I had to laugh though because I am guilty of telling hardgainers that poor nutrition is a primary cause of them not gaining weight. I’m not going to back track on that, but I am willing to consider if I’ve been wrong on the subject – at least in some cases. I’m more interested in finding something that works better than in being embarrassed by being proved wrong.

Click Here to get see the guinea pigs who tested Jeffs new three step training programme.

I really recommend that you go and check the free reports out and see if you recognise yourself in any of the guys there. One of them is the skinny fat shape which I think many of us fall into, so I’m going to be very interested in seeing how he gets on.

Site link once more.

From personal experience, there is little that it more crushing to motivation than having an injury. You’ve set goals, perhaps have created milestones on the way to get there, and now you’re sitting in your broken down car on the edge of the highway watching the traffic speed past.

The answer is that you never give up. Everyone suffers setbacks, even the best. Think back to the last season of your favourite sport – how many sportsmen suffered injury?

Setbacks are what defines those who will succeed and sets them apart from those who will fail. Setbacks are there to challenge us. Do not ever let them get you down.

OK, now there are some injuries which will put you back a long way. If your wheel falls off then you need to wait for the tow truck, but otherwise it’s time to start pushing. This is where a social network really helps because if you’ve got a friend to step in and help push then it gets a lot easier.

Some injuries you need to sit and wait on. I pulled a muscle on my ribs, don’t ask me how, but it made almost every exercise impossible until it had healed enough. With my current one, there are going to be exercises that I can’t do, so instead I’m going to work on gentle stretches on the damaged muscle and then exercise around it. I’ve had a few days off and next week I’m away on holiday for a week so it’ll be a complete break from the weights.

Tomorrow I’m going to see what I can do with my normal routine. I’m pretty sure that I won’t be able to do overhead press, so I’m going to try bench press with lighter weight. While I’m away I’m going to switch over to a bodyweight routine.

Bottom line – don’t give up.

Sometimes I wonder why I’ve not learnt by now. I know the rules and yet still I push the limits. Running the kettlebell swings on Saturday, I had a twinge in my back as I used the right arm. I ignored it at first, but it got progressively worse.

So I stopped of course and did some more stretching. Did I then leave it alone? Heck no! I mean we aren’t going to drop out of a session we’ve been looking forward to, a session marked down in our planning with targets to hit now are we?

Well of course not. Which is why I’ve now got a small tear which is going to need to heal before I can start to push again. So instead of missing just one session, now I’m weeks behind.

So, you’d think I’d learn wouldn’t you? Maybe just maybe, next time I get that sort of pain I’ll know to stop. There is a difference between the sort of pain caused by working hard and the pain from injury. It’s worth getting the difference into your head so that you can take appropriate action.