Thinking Out Of The Box – by Ken ‘Skip’ Hill

Isn’t it possible that form means very little in as far as results or growth are concerned? I think we can all agree that good form is the best proactive way to stay injury free but …. that has little to do with growth. When I say form I am also talking about rep speed, balance from left to right, bouncing, loose form, etc.. Think it’s possible? What about dieting?

What if there is no difference in whether you go low carb, low fat or even low protein? We all believe that protein is an essential nutrient for growth and that protein needs to be high. What if it doesn’t need to be? I have seen people grow on very low amounts of protein. I remember competing as a natural middleweight when I was 22 and only eating 25g of protein per meal for 5 meals a day (along with carbs and some fat) and was in great shape.

Dave Palumbo gets people ripped on low carbs and Chris Aceto gets guys ripped on low fat. I get people ripped after eating a day’s worth of waffles every week. What if it was more genetically related than it was the actual dieting protocol that you are using? Just sayin’.

I see guys train hard all the time and I have seen this for years. I have also observed that some of these guys are pretty big and, yet, some look the same year after year. In fact, some of the hardest training people I have seen were nowhere near the national level let alone a pro. When I say that I want to reiterate that the majority of guys that train balls out are nobodies when it comes to competing.

At the same time, a HIGH percentage of the guys that I know that don’t train hard, at all, are huge and strong as hell. Seems odd to me so I wonder why? Do the guys that train harder than everyone else overtrain more or are most times in an overtrained state? That would explain them not growing much, right?

At the same time, that same ideology would explain why the big guys are growing like crazy – they don’t have recovery issues because they are hardly ever overtrained.

Maybe training like a pussy actually pays off. Wouldn’t that be a b***h? It might suck but …. isn’t it at least POSSIBLE? Speaking for myself I would say that my arms took off with new growth when I decided that I would train them less because they were a strong point and I wanted to give other body parts more of my recovery time and leave my arms to only a few sets at the end of my workouts.

They inexplicably grew to the point that I was getting compliments on my arms all the time. When people asked me what I did for them I would just smile and say “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you”.

I wouldn’t tell them, either. Why? They would have instantly had me pegged as an “easy gainer” and that was about as far from the truth as possible. Training less and growing more… hmmm…..

What about progression? What part does that play? Maybe progression doesn’t do sh*t, either, and is highly overrated. I mean, I have added 100 pounds to my bench and my chest still sucks. At the same time, those damned arms haven’t curled over a 100 pound barbell in 4 years and yet have grown tremendously.


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