Beyond Brawn - The Insider's Encyclopedia on How to Build Muscle && Might

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. Get yourself some little gems—get your name engraved on them, treasure

them, and exploit the magic they possess to add loads of muscle to you over

the long term. Slowly, steadily, safely and surely is the “slow cooking” success-

ful way to go—it is not spectacular over the short term, but it is spectacular

over the long term. Successful hard-gainer training, except for raw begin-

ners, is about the long term—forget the claims for safe quick fixes.

. Suppose your bench press is currently  pounds for  reps. Compute add-

ing a mere half pound to your bench press each week. Too little to matter?

Baby stuff? You are in a hurry to gain and cannot afford to waste time on

such tiny increments? Progress at that rate for ten years and you will add

 pounds to your bench press, taking you to . Impossible you say, and

it is unless you are blessed with a phenomenal genetic inheritance for build-

ing muscle and might. Okay then, progress at that rate for only five years and

you would add a “mere”  pounds to your bench press. I bet there are few

trainees beyond novice status who would not settle for adding  pounds to

their bench press over the next five or even ten years.

. Many people want gains fast, and their effort to get them fast end up leav-

ing them behind the person who settles on progressing in the slow and sure

way. Of course, if you could add  pounds alternate weeks while maintaining

good form, and keep it up for a year, that would be magnificent. You would

make the  pounds gain in a single year. But progress does not happen that

way for genetically typical and drug-free people who are beyond the novice

level.

. Poundage progression cannot be linear indefinitely, even at a mere half

pound a week. If progress could be linear indefinitely, there would be lots of

people who would eventually end up bench pressing + pounds. ere

are limits, though precisely what they are for you, only you can discover.

Conservatism

. Now to build on the conservatism that Peary Rader urged early in this chap-

ter. Here are some “rules” for applying conservatism to your training, and

Get your own set of little discs, or make improvisations, and then

you will be able to make very small poundage increments, and thus

slowly, safely and surely accumulate success.

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