Words of Wisdom from Jim Wendler

(pic of Jim generally being awesome)


Here I’m paraphrasing comments that Jim Wendler made in his “Big” seminar, footage of which can be found on Youtube. He discusses the commonalities between all the programs followed by all the really strong, successful lifters:

1. They all bench, squat and deadlift
2. They all have the right attitude
3. They’ve all trained hard and consistently for a very long time

Otherwise, he says there is no “magic” program to follow. Foremost, have a plan and have a goal. Pick a sets and rep scheme that’s appropriate to meet your goals and that allows you to make progress from day to day and week to week.

He goes on to say that, when it comes to training, there is nothing new under the sun, so to speak. To illustrate his point, he talks about Georg Hackenschmidt’s The Way To Live In Health and Physical Fitness, published in 1941. In it Georg writes: before you begin a workout session, perform a general warm-up including full mobility work; always eat moderately and drink plenty of water; that bodyweight exercises are good but they won’t get you strong; always use full range of movement when exercising; and rarely go to failure on any set. These recommendations haven’t changed since Hackenschmidt’s time, Wendler points out, and training need not be as complicated as most popular exercise programs make it out to be.

Next, Wendler states that the best motivation is to lead by example. If you fucking practice what you preach, then others will fall in line and do as you do. End. Of. Fucking. Story.

Training should be balanced, front and back, posterior and anterior. In other words, we don’t—or shouldn’t—have favorite muscles when we train.

His final word of advice is to read a little book written by one Mark Rippetoe and one Lon Kilgore: Starting Strength (Wendler says he was “blown away” by it). And since Jim Wendler said you should read it, then you’d better fucking read it. I’ve been recommending it for a while, but, goddamnit, no one listens to the shit that I say. It’s harder to ignore someone with traps the size of Wendler’s, I guess.

I highly recommend that you visit elitefts.com and buy some cool swag and shit from Dave Tate, Wendler and their crew.