[ Chris C ] I was browsing through Krista's site for the umpteenth time (don't worry Selene, I am still pledged to you). One of the pages I found the most fascinating was the "What do you know now that you wished you'd known five or ten years ago?" I would like to resubmit that question again now. I found the responses people posted to be useful, enlightening, and highly entertaining. I'll start:

1. Lifting weights leads to fitness far more surely than any other physical endeavor.
2. High carb diets are just ridiculous (Krista said this too, but I have discovered this on my own as well, so I offer it here)
3. When I think back on all the countless episodes in my life that pissed me off so bad or worried me so sick that I thought I'd never, ever forget them....I can only remember two or three of them. Why can't I learn from that?
4. Free weights are where it's at. I wasted a number of years on those damn machines.
5. Money cannot buy you happiness, it really can't. But it can buy a heck of a lot of convenience.
6. Convenience does not equal happiness.
7. But if you're happy to begin with, money is just fine, no matter what they tell you. :-)
8. That laser corrective eye surgery is totally worth it. Of course, the technology wasn't perfected 5 or 10 years ago.
9. That my mother-in-law....aw hell, let's just not go there. Haven't I learned *anything* in the last ten years?
10. When you combine EC with norephedrine, norephedrine is *not* a highly effective anorectic. It's a highly effective nausorectic. And I pray it doesn't become a highly effective barforectic. Shit, dudes, I wished I'd have learned this 5 *hours* ago.
11. Pagers suck.

Who else has wisdom they've learned?

Chris C

1. People make things too complicated. The longer I've trained the simpler it gets.
2. Women like men with muscles.
3. So do men
4. Protein rules
5. The strongest guys in the gym, are normally the biggest.
6. It's never fast enough.
7. Training abs makes negligible difference.
8. Train each bodypart once a week with less sets than you think you need
9. Keep track of your PBs

:George UK

[ Stephen Mulholland ] I've been training less that two years, so forget the five or ten year thing!

In no particular order, and with no deep meaningful insights...

1. There is no absolutely essential lift. If you can't do a lift safely and without pain, forget it and do a different lift. It's taken me a while to accept this.
2. Not all protein powder tastes like skunk discharge.
3. Don't try to work through an injury.
4. Always carry a decent deodorant in your gym bag.
5. Don't take all the advice you're given. Some of it may be complete nonsense. Learn to discriminate.
6. Don't be afraid to look like an idiot in the gym, if you're trying something different or unconventional. Really, no-one else gives a shit.
7. If you need help, ask for it. If you can help, do it.
8. Never arm-wrestle a Rwandan mountain gorilla. This is just an instinctive thing with me.

Stephen Mulholland
mulhollands@rocketmail.com

[ Mike Lane ] I have learned that bodybuilding is

1. First and formost it is a LONG TERM commitment to a VERY HARD endeavor that may NEVER yeild the results you want. To enjoy the "game" you have to accept and know that and work within your limitations or risk injury or overtraining.
2. It is an activity that requires a LOT LOT LOT of calories. Now mind you this is from the prospective of a naturally skinny person. When you are that kind of person you have to eat till it hurts, all the time, every day. You have to count your calories or you will let your stomach fool you into thinking you ate 4000 calories when you really ate 2500.
3. It is something that is valuable in and of itself as a way to center my mind, relieve tension, and generally make me a happier person.
4. Had I a time machine I would go back and give the 22 year old me a copy of Brawn, Lyle's book, Will's book, a general anatomy book and a script for gallons of T.

ML

[ Eric Midkiff ]

1. I am not indestructible.
2. Build good nutrition habits early, so you do not have to fight to develop them when you start to slow down.
3. I am not indestructible.

Eric

[ Scoob ]

Training

The single biggest factor in making long term gains is remaining injury free.

People

It is not possible to change someone's behavior by talking to them.

Money

By the time you have heard of a hot stock tip - it's too late.

scoob

[ Elzi Volk ]

1. That most people can't help it afterall that they are stupid; therefore, they are more tolerable (genotype vs. phenotype) (thank you, EO Wilson :),
2. That it is fun to lift more weight than many of the men in the gym,
3. That there is still a today after today,
4. That chocolate muffins have a soul. (see upcoming article in Annals of Improbable Research, "Molecular Biology of the Chocolate Muffin: A Review"), and
5. Reality is merely a figment of our imagination.

Elzi

[ Dean C. Harris ]

1. Weight lifting is an evil addictive hobby leading to body growth and a complete change of lifestyle.
2. On a more serious note- everything is relative so just learn to compare yourself to your own history and goals...nobody elses. If you learned you had just 5 years to live and had to change your life to do the things you wanted then you are not living, but existing though your life.
3. The little things are what count- the seemingly big stuff means shit.
4. I find it *much* easier to carry grocery packages these days
5. My back problem is no longer
6. My posture has improved
7. I'm mentally healthier and more even tempered since I have a place to release any stress
8. Moving furniture is no big deal
9. Not only can I eat more- I SHOULD and it's good for me.
10. FAT is not evil and it's very essential. I'm actually paying money for quality FAT.
11. So-called medical experts and nutrition experts cater only to couch potatoes and are to be ignored at all costs.
12. Proper physical form and mental focus is a common theme which works for many things...martial arts being just one example.
13. What could be more elemental than learning the basics of body mechanics and proper leverage?

Press On...Always:
Dean C. Harris

[ Kevin Haggerty ]

1. You must eat to lose fat
2. Fat is good
3. It is possible for me to see my abs, if for only 3 days last summer
4. 20 rep front squats ROOL... and they make me DROOL
5. Lift weights for me, be myself for the ladies
6. Sometimes you just need to quit trying so hard
7. A LOT of people are on AAS
8. I didn't have to be a fat ass for my entire life, however I do still have to be an ugly motherfscker
9. You donut have to do cardio to lose fat (thank freaking god)
10. Don't worry about everyone around you
11. Oh yeah, one I learned today: DONUT EVER, under any circumstances, no matter how low on food reserves you may be, eat an entire can of pork and beans for breakfast.

Kevin Haggerty
kevhagg@purdue.edu
ICQ: 21045492

[ Mistress Krista ]

Harrrumph!!

One which has really struck me, and one which I have never seen anywhere in any text, is the importance of the metaphysical "rightness" of training. By that I mean the importance of desire, drive, yearning, love for what you are doing, and that it must have a clear direction (which can change, and you have to be okay with that). Like, you can go into the gym wanting to be a bber, then discover that your heart is really with strength training, and a particular kind of training at that, and you have to be prepared to change.

One of my worst self-designed workout programs was not really so much about the exercises, but about the philosophy behind it; I couldn't decide whether I wanted to be a PLer or OLer, and wound up getting pulled in every direction. You have to really want to do what you're doing, and you have to (on some level) enjoy what you're doing. At the end of the day there is something unnameable, some reason why we get up off the couch and go to the gym, and we have to nurture that little seed of interest to succeed over the long term.

You can start off going to the gym and have it be about someone else, but eventually, for you to stick with it, you have to make the experience your own in some philosophical way (even if you don't acknowledge it on that level). You have to ask why you are there, and I don't mean why in the sense of, "Well, I want to look hyuge and today is my bench day", but really why, like what is it about this that you ultimately value? And if you are not driven to be there, why not? What would make this activity right and desirable for you?

Krista