Read this:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1454124
A bodybuilding article?! On sherdog S&P?! Teh Ban!
I have to admit something. I love reading articles about oldschool bodybuilding (also about oldschool strengthtraining). Why? Three reasons. 1. Those where the days when bodybuilding and strengthtraining werent sperated like they are today. 2. Those guys were pioneers. They didnt just simply copy. They had to find out by trial and error. 3. It reminds me of my own first years hitting the weights.
What?! You are only 22. This is ages ago.
When I did my weightlifting betwen 15 and 18 years old things were much differnet than they were now for me. I didnt have access to the internet. I also didnt read those musclemags (in fact I never heard of them). I didnt have a trainer. It was just me, later me and my friends, and this fucked up weightroom. And we wanted to be stronger, more muscular and ripped (in no particular order). We didnt know there was a differnce in training for reaching either one. We didnt know many exercises. So we had to develop some on our own. We had very limited equipment. We had not the slightest clue which role nutrition plays. Of course we didnt have access to any supplements.
On our quest to reach our goals we experimented with rep execution (like superslow or whipping). We did 30+ reps until the lactate was coming out of our ears. Adn we ate like mad not careing about wether we were getting our xxx grams of protein in (how could we? We didnt knwo about this "rule").
But we reached our goals. I just looked back at some old photos. And everyone who was part of the crew was ripped and muscular. Many other guys started working out at this age in gyms with the latest equipment and access to supplements and the latest trainingscience.
Why did I never get biased by those guys? Pretty simple. None of them even came close to the results we had. So why should I care what they were doing. We had our own system and it seemed to work much better than theirs.
Today everyone thinks he knows something about weightlifting. Everyone lifts weights or has done so. And most of them have taken supplemnts or still do (its not that big like in the U.S. but its coming up).
But I have yet to see a bunch of 16-18 year old guys that muscualr and lean we were those days.
Instead you see people with bad skin and bloated faces more and more. People drinking their shakes and consuming way too much creatin (many bloated faces are not from the juice but overdoing creatin - at least thats what I think).
We have one group in our WRC now which is like that. On top of that they come up with a new routine from mens health or whatever almost every week. They never stick to something (Well, except bench and curls). How can you measure progress if you never do the same exercise again?
So what does all that tell us? All science and all supplements are only the iceing. Maybe necessary if you have reached a certain level. But very few have reached this level so...
It all comes down to these:
Are you willing to take the pain to make the gain?
Are you in the weightroom not only physically but also mentally?
Are you a copy or a you an original?
Thats the reason why I keep on training. I love the training itself. Not only the results you get from it. I think the idea of focusing more on skilltraining now could work out.
" 
