People Will Train More For Performance
If you have good genetics, eat and sleep properly you can probably gain about twenty pounds of muscle your first year of training. The next year you can gain about half that and half that again the third year.
That’s best-case scenario. After that it’s peanuts. For some people it will take 5-8 years to build impressive muscle mass.
That’s not to say you don’t make gains but it will be more of a slow thickening up process and the scale won’t change much from year to year. Huge weight increases will only be body fat.
So why waste your time focusing on that extra ¼ inch pump on your biceps when your training time could be better spent elsewhere?
Train to improve your performance and your physique will improve simultaneously.
Movement Ability Will Become More Important
The majority of people who train to get bigger and stronger make themselves worse athletically. After a few years of going too heavy, too often with less than perfect form they run slower, jump lower and can hardly get out of the way of a 95 year old lady in a wheel chair.
People will start to realize that all that size and strength is useless if you can’t actually apply it to any real world situation.
Training is supposed to make you better, not worse.
People Will Learn to Train Smarter, Not Harder
We live in a culture that breeds that “train-to-death” mentality. Crossfit, the “one more” and “hard work” commercials, and Rocky training montages all show us how cool it is to train as hard as humanly possible. If we do that we get rewarded.
The rewards are a compromised immune system, systemic fatigue, lower testosterone, higher cortisol, digestive stress and slower gains.
Continually training like a lunatic and routinely maxing out in any way does not build strength, it only tests it. Submaximal training that minimizes CNS and joint stress, along with overall systemic fatigue as much as possible is what builds strength.
If all it took to excel was hard work we’d all be pro athletes. Most people need to dial it back a notch if they actually want to see some serious results.
Health & Longevity Supplements Will Replace Bodybuilding Supplements
By now most people should be aware of the fact that there are pretty much no “muscle building” supplements that work. So let’s forget about that and focus on supplements that can actually make a difference.
Any supplement that can improve your overall health, reduce inflammation, correct any deficiencies or heal your gut if far more valuable than one that is purported to help you gain ten pounds in ten days.
I’m talking about things like probiotics, systemic enzymes, krill oil, Vitamin D and Omega 3’s, along with things like NAC, ALA and COQ10 when needed in specific situations.
People Will Realize That Only Newbies Can Eat Their Way Bigger
If you’ve been training properly for five years and are still force feeding yourself all day you’re wasting your time. You’re also causing all kinds of unnecessary digestive stress, which leads to a whole host of other problems. All that eating makes you tired and ages you prematurely.
You can only force feed your way to muscle growth as a newbie. After that gains will come at a snails pace.
The most effective diet is the one that causes the least gut stress and the one that reduces inflammation or produces the least amount of it. That’s it.
Crossfit Will Continue to Adapt
People love to bash Cross Fit. But they’ve done a better job of creating a culture around fitness than anyone ever. And they actually got regular people to want to lift barbells.
They got average females to want to lift barbells.
That’s something you’ve gotta tip your hat to. (Of course, I’m partial to another training program for females, cough, cough)
People are predicting their downfall soon because of poor programming and the overabundance of injuries.
I don’t see it happening. They’ve adapted over the last couple years by switching things up and bringing in smart coaches like Mark Bell. They will continue to do so and will answer their critics.
People Will Stop Arguing Over Paleo
The basic premise is to eat animals, plants and some starchy tubers. Those sick bastards! How could anyone recommend something so unhealthy!? As far as I can tell the big hang up is the anti-grain recommendation. So what? Robb Wolf and other Paleo authorities have completely ok’d organic white rice for healthy, hard training athletes.
So what could possibly be wrong with this diet now that would force you to sit up late night writing a five thousand word rebuttal to?
Oh, it’s too high in fat. Then lower the fat and bump up the yams and white rice. If you’re arguing about that you’re generalizing and arguing just to argue.
I think Chris Kresser’s new book will help put an end to the confusion and pointless arguments.
Supplement Companies Will Step Up & Do Their Part
In 2014 we’ll see supplement companies make the eco-conscious decision to stop sending their products out in those huge plastic bottles that contribute to the destruction of the environment. Check out www.RiseAbovePlastics.org for more on why this is so important.
Fitness Pros Will Stop Shit Talking
Years ago if Billy Bicepz recommended that people only ever do five reps per set and Jonny Gunz recommended that people only ever do six reps per set they would shit talk each other incessantly all over the web. They’d call each other names, question the other’s intelligence and basically disregard the other as the scum of the earth.
I remember being in the middle of that a decade ago. But I think what social media has taught people is that, yes, we all can get along. Many of the top guys in the fitness industry are friends and have a mutual respect for one another. No one agrees across the board on any fitness related concept. In, fact, they’re on the opposite ends of the spectrum on many issues. But they’re adults so no one cares.
Bashing people only brings you down.
What You Do, Not Who You Are
Too many young males let training define them. It’s all they do and think about. Their whole life revolves around getting bigger and stronger and they forgo everything else in the pursuit of more muscle.
These are usually the guys who get subpar results and suffer from extreme depression.
The guys who make training part of what they do, but not who they are the ones who get great results.
Every well-built professional athlete obsesses about training far less than you do. They rarely ever think about it. It’s just part of what they do.
Every workout is not a competition because games are their competition.
I’ve trained many successful executives who are in the same boat. They’re too busy to think about training or spend nine hours per day surfing the web in search of the best way to do a concentration curl. They think about training for one hour per day, three or four days per week.
To succeed in strength training it’s crucial to have other hobbies, passions and interests. Let it just be part of what you do and not who you are.
Final Words
What do you guys think?
Is any of this really going to happen or is it more like wishful thinking on my part?
What predictions do you have for 2014?
