It Doesn't Need to be Complicated

My brother, Dom, and I have considered ourselves iron warriors since I was 13 years old. We stumbled upon two books that really shaped the rest of our lives when it comes to training. First was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. We flipped open this textbook, and the first person we saw was none other than Lee Priest. Our jaws flung open and hit the floor. “Dudes really look like this?!” we asked each other as we stood in the basement that we would turn into our own iron sanctuary in the weeks to come. He was so cut up, muscle definition and size were something we had never seen before, even in cartoons and comic books (this was way before we were on the internet, so our research was rooted in those). We imagined meeting him in person and just getting dwarfed. I’m sure you can guess what section we flipped to after that picture: arms. 

No, we didn’t use the table of contents; we just flipped through the dust-covered gains manual until we found it. We saw pictures of Arnold, Franco, Bill Pearl, Reg Park, Flex Wheeler, Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler, Paul Dillet, Dorian Yates, and another one of our favorites, Tom Platz. We didn’t bother wasting time trying to read any of the information in the book other than exercise names (thankfully, there were pictures of these giants performing them). We tried every single arm exercise; we thought that’s how Lee must have gotten so big, and if it was good for him, it was good for us. 

I walked upstairs out of the basement, which was just slightly too short for us to stand straight up in, and attempted to get a glass of water. I picked up the empty cup, and the skin on my arm felt like it was going to rip open. As water filled the cup, it felt like it was hundreds of pounds. I readjusted my grip and continued filling the cup. As it got to the brim, I felt like I was holding Excalibur; I couldn’t hang on anymore. At the last second before I could reach the countertop to rest the cup and my now limp arm on, my arm gave out like a cooked noodle. Spilled water all over the floor. I look over, and Dom is sitting on the couch contemplating life. 

“Are you alright?” I asked. “I can’t move my arms. Does this mean it’s working?” Dom replied. “It has to be.” I assumed. We were sore for at least a week. Daily simple tasks like brushing my teeth, picking up my backpack, and even buckling my seat belt became so difficult. All in the name of growth, I kept telling myself. 

Once we could finally move normally again, we found Strength Training Anatomy by Frederic Delavier. Since we learned nothing from our first go around, you guessed it, we did every arm exercise in the book. Reps? All of them. Sets? Yes. Rest time? Just long enough to look at the pictures and understand the next exercise. Back to prolonging using the bathroom because wiping became very difficult for the next week. 

Fast forward a few years, and we made it to the big leagues. We learned how to look up workout routines on the internet, and got a real gym membership this time. We were armed with a crumpled piece of paper with the latest workout program I printed from a website, URL included at the top and bottom of the page, and all. We had a burning desire to grow, to fill out our shirts, so we would have to cut the sleeves off to prevent cutting off circulation (bigger-sized shirts were not an option). 

We would people-watch from time to time to see what crazy techniques people were using to get big and strong. We would then pencil them into our printer paper workout plan. The workout that started out taking us an hour began taking 2 or 3 hours with all of the additions we had after our shifts of people watching. 

We noticed one guy in particular. Came in every Tuesday and did a workout routine that only had 5 or 6 exercises, and they were pretty similar. I never understood the saying “built like a brick house” until I saw this man walk into the gym. He was as wide as he was tall, but not fat. He had dense, chiseled muscles. Big, brawny shoulders, thick and powerful legs, arms that were the size of an average man’s legs. Barely taller than we were, but he out-sized us by four or five times. We called him Big Hoss. 

Every Tuesday for Big Hoss was deadlift day. He would come in, do a quick warm-up, and then immediately get right to work. It would only do a handful of sets once he got to his working weight, but man, could that guy train. He ended up with roughly 600 pounds on the bar, but would place it down so gently you would have no idea how much weight was actually being lifted. And every week, he would put a little bit more weight on the bar and get a little bit stronger. Over time, we realized that in addition to his strength, he also gained more size, and we couldn't believe it because he was already a monstrous man. Big Hoss had no idea who we were and had no idea that we were taking such detailed notes of his workout program. 

We started filling out our shirts more, and we were adding weight every single week to our lifts, and we were ecstatic about it. Somewhere along the way, we stopped chasing every “secret” exercise and trying to reinvent training every week. We focused on getting brutally strong at movements we enjoyed, training with intensity, and staying consistent.

That’s something I think a lot of people overcomplicate now. You don’t need the newest hypertrophy study every week to grow muscle. You don’t need insanely complicated periodization to get stronger. You don’t need to micromanage every variable to make progress.

Most people simply need consistency, effort, progression, and enough patience to let those things work. There are times when advanced methods, higher volume phases, nutrition tools, and detailed programming matter. But none of those things replace hard work and consistency. The basics still work, and they probably always will.

At the end of the day, the people who grow the most are usually the ones who find training they genuinely enjoy, push themselves hard, and keep showing up year after year.

Photo credit: Lee Priest Tricep. (2025). Animalia-Life. club. https://animalia-life.club/qa/pictures/lee-priest-tricep

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