Instinctive training is a wonderful thing. It involves listening to your body and developing custom routines on-the-spot in the gym based upon how you feel, and available options in the gym. You are well aware of the foundations of muscle building. You’ve been doing this for years. You know that every chest day needs to start with two compound movements. One needs to be of the flat or decline variety, and the other needs to stimulate the upper pecs via incline bench pressing or dumbbell pressing. Once you’ve fulfilled those requirements, you know you’ve completed your brute strength requirements, and it’s time to bump up the intensity. You’ll move on to more isolation movements. You’ll bounce between the Hammer Strength and Nautilus machines. You’ll make use of cables and dumbbells. You’ll work the entire pectoral muscle group, as well as the pec-shoulder tie-in. And you’ll walk out of the gym, munching on a protein bar, knowing full well that you’ve done everything possible to stimulate growth.

You can do this because you understand the fundamentals of muscle-building. You know how to monitor the feedback your body gives you. You know enough about the fundamentals of a good routine to know precisely how many sets of each movement to include. You can look in the mirror, evaluate your pump, and know how many sets you have left in you, and what angles you should utilize when completing those sets.

Beginner bodybuilders, this message is for you. If you’ve been in the gym for less than two years, you do not yet possess a complete understanding of the tolls necessary for successful instinctive training. You may think you do – but that sort of confidence can be self-defeating. You will stick to those movements you know, in the order you know them, because they are most comfortable. You will not be exposed to new angles, new exercises, new set/rep schemes, and a wealth of other variances which lead to growth. Your foundation in bodybuilding will not be built upon a wide variety of movements designed to stimulate all parts of the muscle group equally. As a result, your physique will become an unbalanced collection of muscles stimulated unevenly by the exercises you like doing best.

Beginner bodybuilders would benefit most from the use of a set program designed by a professional. This routine might include exercises they’re not exactly crazy about. It might be boring to them, as they may prefer the flashier cable movements. It may be hard for them, if they’re not used to repeated heavy compound movements. It may defy everything in their being which is calling for random chaos in the gym. However, if you’re a beginner, you must work very hard not to defeat yourself in creativity. You probably know a great deal about training. But nobody knows everything. Read about different routines designed by professionals, and employ a variety of them in the gym. Keep using one until you stop seeing results, then move to another. Keep it fresh, but keep drawing from a bank of routines designed by professionals. The time will come, down the road, when you’re ready to do it for yourself. You’re just not there yet, young warrior!

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