As I mentioned in a blog earlier this week, my wife and I got a puppy last weekend.  “Tank” is absolutely awesome and we (and all the CP clients) love him.

Like any puppy, though, it is going to take some time to housebreak him.  While he’s going to crap on the floor and pee on the carpet quite a bit over the first few months, we have faith in the fact that if we praise him like crazy and give him treats consistently each time he “goes” outside, he will get the point eventually and make great progress.  This “faith” has been present in every single pet owner with whom we’ve talked over the past month.

Nobody uses electroshock routines to try to “get through” to the puppy faster, and there aren’t thousands of supplements out there to expedite outdoor crappy progress.  People are patient and trust in the system.

Wouldn’t it be nice if those beginning strength training programs were like this???

I am fortunate to know a lot of people who have made ridiculous progress in the weight room and dramatically changed their bodies.  And, I can tell you that just about all of them chalk up a big chunk of their success to just consistently busting their humps – both in the weight room and the kitchen – for years.  I’ve never met a world-class bodybuilder, powerlifter, or other athlete that devotes a huge part of their success to a supplement they use, or radical training program they did in their first few years of training.  It’s funny, though; when I meet an up-and-coming lifter or athlete (and particularly professional baseball players), the first question is “what supplements should I take?”  I generally recommend “Shut up and Train” in softgel form.

I’ve commented before on how I attribute a big chunk of my success to the fact that I didn’t miss a single planned resistance training session in roughly eight years – and to end that streak, it took 32 inches of snow in 24 hours (and I made the lift up the next day).

Consistency is the most important thing – especially in beginners.  You don’t need reverse undulating cybernetic periodization with quasi-isometric inverted wave loading and contrast training; you need to shut up and pick up some heavy stuff, as anything will work as you begin as long as you are consistent.  Heck, I did garbage weight training programs straight out of bodybuilding magazines when I first got started and made great progress because there was no place to go but up.  All that mattered was that for two years, I went home after lifting and shoveled down about 1,500 calories of quality food each and every time.  My diet and training may not have been perfect (or even close to it), but they were damn consistent.

So, the next time you think that you start thinking that you’re super special and physiologically different from everyone else, imagine me standing out in my backyard at 5:30AM freezing my butt off while I wait for my puppy to drop a deuce so that he can take one more step toward awesomeness while you spin your wheels.  It might put things in perspective and have you back to the basics before you know it.

To take the guesswork out of your programming, check out Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better.

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