The disco bodybuilder and his allergic reaction to muscle building training logs are examined. When it comes to muscle building your best friend should be a small spiral notebook called a “Training Log”. So many trainees go through their workouts one week from the next absolutely clueless on whether or not any progress has been made in their endeavors. They have no record and hardly any recognition of the numbers of reps they performed on a particular exercise, and often times they don’t recall the amount of weight they used to perform the exercise. This is especially the case when it comes to machines.

The trainee will stick the pin in a section of the weight rack in which he believes he did the previous workout. Was it 150? 160? Oh well, close enough, whatever. This tends to be the attitude, and often the trainee believes his muscle building workout only needs to achieve a “pump” in order for his muscles to build. Muscle pumps do not equate, or translate over to muscle growth. If so every flight of stairs we would climb, or steep hill we would bicycle up where our quads would be worked and in effect “pumped” would translate over to added muscular growth from our flight of stairs efforts. Hence the trainee goes from one workout to the next, simply going through the motions, no rhyme, no reason, and no clue.

Every year for the holidays I go back to my hometown and train at the local gym. And every year I see “Disco Kirk”. Disco Kirk is the type who trains mostly his upper body, with an emphasis on chest and biceps. Disco Kirks muscle building goals are big arms and big chest. Yet Disco Kirks muscle building reality is that he never changes year after year. A direct correlation to this is the fact that Disco Kirks bodybuilding routine remains the same, most notably the amount of weight he uses on muscle building exercises.

Every year I’ll inevitably see Disco Kirk from the corner of my eye, donned in bright neon stretch pants, a bodybuilding tank top-arms extended, usually wrist straps that he allows to dangle freely (even when performing bench press and other non-strap required movements, he’ll let the straps dangle), and of course the ultra tight-can hardly breath-weight belt cinched to the first hole. And no where present is a training log. Disco Kirk is the epitome of a “disco bodybuilder”, and disco bodybuilders are notorious for being allergic to training logs.

“Hey Sturge, good to see you bro, mind spottin me over here for bench..” Sure, Kirk. “Prolly go for two or three.” Every year its two or three. Every year the weight is 225. And every year Kirk will struggle with the first, get halfway on the second, and from then on I’ll assist until number 3, but sometimes Kirk will try for a fourth, which will prompt my input later, “Listen Disco, I already trained my deltoids this week, and you’re giving my arse another damn shoulder workout!” I will then mention to Disco that this is the same weight he used last year, in which he’ll reply, “well it’s a good weight.” So is the mentality of the Disco Bodybuilder.

For those unaware, 225 is the bar plus 2 large 45 plates on each side. In other words “It looks good”. But since DK can hardly lift it, it doesn’t do much for a muscle building workout. And since he hasn’t tracked his progress with a training log, he is unaware how static his workouts have become. Just the act of looking at a log, seeing how you’ve performed two reps with no assistance in your last few workouts and now mentally preparing to go for an additional one or two can do wonders for strength and muscle building improvement.

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