Chapter 22

 INDIVIDUALITY

 The hereditary differences between individuals are such that some men who have never trained will be actually stronger and more muscular than some men who have trained properly for years -- but it does not follow that neither type should train; without training, the individual with very poor potential will literally remain a weakling, while with proper training he can usually reach a point of strength and muscular size at least above average -- without training, an individual with very good potential may well be far above average in strength and muscular size, but with proper training he can probably become almost a superman.

 But while it is perfectly true that the potential for growth varies enormously, it is not true that such differences require different methods or systems of training -- the best methods and the best style of training will produce best-possible results in ALL cases, regardless of what individual potential may be in a particular case.

 The fact that an individual has finally managed to produce "apparently good" final results proves absolutely nothing -- since it is never then possible to determine just what that same individual might have done if he had trained properly; since almost anything is at least possible, it may well be true -- and probably is true, that at least "some" bodybuilders, somewhere, are training properly, or at least in a fashion that is in some ways close to being proper; but if so, then they have so far managed to evade my attention -- since I have yet to meet such an individual, not even one such individual.

 Nor have I yet encountered an individual that seems capable of directing his own training properly -- even after he clearly understands what is required, and fully realizes that the involved factors actually are required; left up to their own devices, even such apparently aware individuals almost always permit their training schedules to degenerate into something more closely approaching what they would like a proper training program to be -- and then usually make all sorts of attempts to rationalize their actually irrational actions.

 In practice, some individuals suffer badly from such traits -- and other individuals suffer worse -- but all seem to suffer to some degree; for that reason, we tried to make our machines and exercise systems as foolproof as possible -- which, quite literally, means "proof against fools." Which, apparently, all of us are to at least some degree -- and some of us to an actually great degree.

 A .600 Nitro-Express will kill no elephants if it is left standing in the gun-closet -- and it will kill no elephants if you merely shoot them in the tail (the actual "tail," not the backside); you must muse it properly for proper results -- and the same thing is true in regard to any tool. Properly placed, one bullet from a .600 will literally knock a charging elephant to his knees -- like sticking a pin into an inflated balloon, one second it is there, and a split second later it isn't; properly performed heavy exercise will produce a very similar type of result -- and no amount of improperly performed exercise, no matter how heavy it may be, will produce an equal result.

 But just as a .600 rifle has an understandable tendency to kick the user a bit, heavy exercise performed properly is not an entirely pleasant feeling; and in unwise attempts to produce the same sort of results in a more comfortable fashion, quite a few people have been stomped to death by elephants that they tried to kill with light rifles -- and millions of weight-trainees have been almost literally beating their own brains out for years in attempts to produce good results from actually-light training, even when they had access to the tools for heavy training they almost always used the tools incorrectly in attempts to make the exercises more comfortable.

 Within the next two years -- and perhaps sooner -- we fully expect to have both the tools and the required knowledge for the proper use of these tools that will make it possible for anybody, regardless of their individual potential, to produce the best-possible results for themselves, as individuals, from a training program that will be almost completely standardized for EVERYBODY and very brief for ANYBODY; then all we will have to figure out is a means to induce proper utilization of the tools and system -- and that may well, probably will, prove to be the biggest problem of all.

 If for no other reason -- and for no logical reason in any case -- than people like to consider themselves individuals; but shooting yourself through the head with a .600 will produce certain results no matter how "individual" you are.

 Twenty years ago, I finally learned that an actually-proper workout with barbells had to be brief in the extreme -- so brief that I was always tempted to increase the number of exercises or sets, since the workouts never appeared to contain "enough"; but when I did increase anything in the workouts, the production of results was always reduced, ALWAYS.

 Twenty years later, with a total of at least a million active weight- trainees in the country, it is doubtful if as many as a thousand (or literally one out of a thousand) trainees have any slightest idea of what a proper style of training consists of; in the meantime, almost all trainees have moved firmly in the exactly-wrong direction -- constantly increasing the amount of their training, and decreasing the intensity of their training, which is WRONG for ANYBODY, regardless of his potential.

 During that same "meantime," several parties have made themselves far richer -- and millions of other people far poorer -- by preaching outright nonsense; well knowing that most people are more than willing to lend an attentive ear to "what they want to hear", in this case that good results can be obtained by the use of some "easy" factor.




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