03-07-2024, 10:22 AM
Second thing that “worked” for me was when I actually did some strength training in gym for the first time. I started playing soccer when I was about 10 years old. Couple of years after that our team started to go to a gym once a week during offseason. That gym would probably be considered as a storage room for historic equipment today, but I think it was a pretty common gym at that time. The big gym companies didn’t really exist, at least in my country, so most of them were very different compared to todays gyms. The space wasn’t very big. There were free weights, dumbbells and barbells, cable things, pullup bar etc. And I think there was a rowing machine too.
At the time there still wasn’t an abundance of information readily available, so none of really knew what we were doing. The coach thought he did, but I’m not really convinced he did. But what we ended up doing was a some kind of circuit training system. Coach decided an exercise and then we would change exercises according to the clock. So there was a timed work interval and a rest interval, and during the rest interval you changed to next exercise. Don’t really remember all the exercises there were but what I do remember is that there were barbell bench press, cable crossovers, bench hyperextensions, squats, pullups, some cable pulley exercises and some isolation stuff for legs, leg extension, hamstring curls and hip adductors and abductors.
Positives:
- In circuit, I got to do and know many exercises in a short period of time
- Again, chest exercises worked for me well, probably because of the pushups I had done earlier
- First touch to bench press was good
- Cable crossovers felt very good
- Bench hyperextensions worked well, probably because they were kind of familiar exercise for me, like pushups
- Isolation machines worked for my legs well
Negatives:
- Timed intervals in a circuit probably were favorable for soccer, but not really for actual strength training
- None of us had no clue how to squat
- We all sucked at pullups
- Pulling exercises still sucked for me
Overall this was a nice introduction to weight / strength training. Although I wouldn’t really do this nowadays. It’s also pretty much impossible to do in a crowded gym. It’s funny that although we were young (early teens) and very athletic and most of us already had decent legs, we all sucked with squats. Same with pullups. In our team there was only one guy who was able to do pullups and we all were mad about it. He was very thin and he was also the most unathletic guy in the team. But yeah, he did probably more pullups that the rest of did together. I still didn’t really get the pulling exercises. I was able to go through the motions but didn’t really feel them.
I still felt pretty good at the gym so I started to go there in my own time every now an then. I got my father with me couple of times too. He showed my proper “manly” exercises (yeah right). We basically did bench press, E-z curls and wrist curls. So yeah, a proper wankers program. But it was still fun. One thing I got to say about soccer is that it really grows legs well. Especially later for me when I started to focus more into soccer. And as said it showed very well in the gym. We all sucked with squats but we had good legs, and it wasn’t because lot of running. I think it was the explosive stuff that did it, kicks, sprints jumps etc.
Unfortunately at the age of sixteen I suffered a bad leg injury and for my legs it was downhill since then. But until my mid teens and before the injury my legs were very good and squats etc. had jackshit to do with it. A positive thing about the injury was that after it I started to do some “real” bodybuilding stuff
.
At the time there still wasn’t an abundance of information readily available, so none of really knew what we were doing. The coach thought he did, but I’m not really convinced he did. But what we ended up doing was a some kind of circuit training system. Coach decided an exercise and then we would change exercises according to the clock. So there was a timed work interval and a rest interval, and during the rest interval you changed to next exercise. Don’t really remember all the exercises there were but what I do remember is that there were barbell bench press, cable crossovers, bench hyperextensions, squats, pullups, some cable pulley exercises and some isolation stuff for legs, leg extension, hamstring curls and hip adductors and abductors.
Positives:
- In circuit, I got to do and know many exercises in a short period of time
- Again, chest exercises worked for me well, probably because of the pushups I had done earlier
- First touch to bench press was good
- Cable crossovers felt very good
- Bench hyperextensions worked well, probably because they were kind of familiar exercise for me, like pushups
- Isolation machines worked for my legs well
Negatives:
- Timed intervals in a circuit probably were favorable for soccer, but not really for actual strength training
- None of us had no clue how to squat
- We all sucked at pullups
- Pulling exercises still sucked for me
Overall this was a nice introduction to weight / strength training. Although I wouldn’t really do this nowadays. It’s also pretty much impossible to do in a crowded gym. It’s funny that although we were young (early teens) and very athletic and most of us already had decent legs, we all sucked with squats. Same with pullups. In our team there was only one guy who was able to do pullups and we all were mad about it. He was very thin and he was also the most unathletic guy in the team. But yeah, he did probably more pullups that the rest of did together. I still didn’t really get the pulling exercises. I was able to go through the motions but didn’t really feel them.
I still felt pretty good at the gym so I started to go there in my own time every now an then. I got my father with me couple of times too. He showed my proper “manly” exercises (yeah right). We basically did bench press, E-z curls and wrist curls. So yeah, a proper wankers program. But it was still fun. One thing I got to say about soccer is that it really grows legs well. Especially later for me when I started to focus more into soccer. And as said it showed very well in the gym. We all sucked with squats but we had good legs, and it wasn’t because lot of running. I think it was the explosive stuff that did it, kicks, sprints jumps etc.
Unfortunately at the age of sixteen I suffered a bad leg injury and for my legs it was downhill since then. But until my mid teens and before the injury my legs were very good and squats etc. had jackshit to do with it. A positive thing about the injury was that after it I started to do some “real” bodybuilding stuff
.