Get ALL your shit right = best results

I'll admit up front that very few of us, myself include, get all our 'shit' right all the time but...

The combination of rest, recovery, food / nutrition AND training work together to give you the best results. 

Training

When, as I have mentioned in passing to gym buddies recently, I see guys chatting away while training (not between sets - during) you know the lack of focus and effort will equate to mediocre results. God forbid I hear them outside the gym environment claiming either 1) this trainings easy or 2) I train hard but nothing happens.

Here's the thing - basics/compounds+hard work+intensity of effort is training. Chatting on mobiles or to buddies while you go through the motions is not.

Pick-me-ups and sleep

I've written before about either overuse of pre-workout products as a boost - starts off on fire and a few scoops and sessions later and 'it doesn't work any more', followed by 'I'm not sleeping. Join the dots guys, join the f'kin dots!!

Sleep and recovery

Others have stated what I'll state now - the newbie habit of weekends out late and enjoying themselves does not equal great restful sleep. Late night coffee or cola does not. Late night movies do not. You get the idea? A god nights kip following a hard leg sessions helps with recovery as does a good nights sleep before a hard workout. It has been said that recovery from training is as important as the training itself and you wont find me arguing with that.

Nutrition

Bare in mind I rep for a supplement company and enjoy my protein package gratefully received every month in return for my agreed work... but some young guys will ask about the latest article or new fangled product just on the market. You ask the right questions and they aren't eating the basics, their training is... shit and sleep - for girls etc etc. Here's the deal - Product X wont do shit if the rest isn't in place. I'm happy to debate and argue about said products with the informed on various forums but only from the view that you're eating right before spending £30+ on a small tub of something new and potentially wonderful.

Start with 3 square and if you can four. Eat your damn breakfast! Make sure each meal has some protein and make sure your totals for the day (so-called 'macros') workout to decent numbers. Throw a decent protein and or creatine supplement in and THEN add on other.

Oh and eat for what you wish to be and not what you are (unless that's the thing you want). So less calories for weight loss and more for gains. Take baby steps to get there - so don't be 200 and eat for 240, be 200 and eat for 205 then once there, 210 and so on.

None of what's written is new - just keep it in mind.  

Food is a tool

As an member of a few of the larger forums I see many posts and threads of the kind where in the member seems to have issues with food as a tool. Moaning and bitching about how certain products don't taste right or aren't sweet enough. Other complaints include 'it's hard to eat X amount' and so on.

  
Well you're an athlete so food is now a tool. If you're a bodybuilder and wish to weigh a set amount you need to eat, by gradual increments, the amounts required to sustain the amount you wish to weigh. It's no good whining and bitching about how you've not gained any weight when you eat for what you weight now. If you weigh 120 and aren't gaining weight - here's a clue - eat more!!! Ditto for those who weigh more than they'd like to be.

Oh and another thing - don't think diet. Sheeetttt... don't even use the diet word. Think lifestyle. What you are about to do and what you'll continue doing is now your daily habit. If you think 'diet' then it's framed by a set time: 8 weeks, 16 weeks and so on. Not 52 weeks, 2 years and and onwards.

Throw in, as above, the member who says 'I can't' or 'I find it hard to eat such a large amount of food'... well d'uh. Don't go 2000kcals a day to 4000kcals a day in a week. Not only is this a recipe to being bloated, and worse, failure it's also not going to slowly add muscle. Your stomach will complain. But throw in an extra 200kcals a day for a week, up it another 200kcals next week and so on until you hit the target. Subtract to lose. The same kinds of rules apply to upping protein. It's not different than the rules for adding weight to the bar in the gym.  

Perhaps I'm old school - maybe I am now having hit 40+ ha ha. Or overtime I've learned what the 'old housewives tale' about, for example, Cod Liver Oil - it doesn't have to taste nice to do you good. So close your eyes, open wide and neck it!!

There is, I think, occasional hints of OCD / being anal, with some of the neophytes. It's arguable that the more twitchy ecto-morphic obsessive is also the kind of athlete that will struggle. But think on - either you've made some decision to be a better, bigger, stronger, leaner whatever it is you wanted or you haven't. If you must post these sorts of comments on-line have a look before you click the button that puts it up and think... am I expecting some sort of great insight or secret from the other members or do I need to man up??