EstimatedEst. Read Time: 4 minutes
8 Things We DON’T Miss About 90’s Bodybuilding!

The 90’s were known for bodybuilders that rocked Zubaz pants, fanny packs and even sunglasses in the gym.  Beyond that however, there were some ridiculous training programs, beliefs and practices that we all would love to forget in addition to the fashion.  In this video, I’m going to cover the 8 things we don’t miss at all about nineties bodybuilding and what we can learn from these mistakes.

 

We start with excessive spotting.  It seems that no matter where you turned in Gold’s Gym, somebody was getting spotted through an exercise. Heck, even if you didn’t want one someone was always willing and ready to give you a lift no matter what you were doing. Whether it was curls, bench press, or even tricep pushdowns, someone was there to help you lift the weight and do at least fifty percent of the work for you. Today, your muscles are better off for your move to independence. Let’s keep it that way.

 

Next, it only takes a brief skimming of one of the most popular bodybuilding magazines of the day – Ironman Magazine – to see how too many sets were being prescribed in every workout. They literally had us doing 29 sets for chest on a Tuesday and then coming back on a Friday to finish up with another 31.  That is just pure insanity. Today we have learned how more is less when it comes to balancing out the quality of the training you do with the time it takes you to do it.

 

It gets worse however when you look deeper into those marathon workouts. For shoulders for example, it was not uncommon to be asked to perform 7 different variations of side laterals alone. From standing side laterals to seated side laterals to even machine assisted. I’m not saying that there is anything particularly wrong with any of the variations, it’s just that we certainly didn’t need to include them all in the same workout.

 

Moving on, the anabolic window is something that took an even longer time to fade away. In fact, to this day some still believe that the critical 30 minutes post workout is all you have to get your nutrients in or forever waste an opportunity to feed your starving muscles what they need to grow. This simply isn’t true, especially if you have eaten within a couple hours prior to training. The protein your body is still digesting from your meal prior to working out is still available and ready to help you after you’re done lifting.

 

The next thing that had us a bit hesitant to jump on a treadmill and do anything but walk slowly was the fear of cardio eating up your muscles. Now, a fitness regimen consisting primarily of long endurance activities at the expense of heavy explosive lifting will definitely craft a body that is less impressive. That said, a little cardio here and there is not going to hinder your ability to pack on muscle and will actually help you to get to a level of leanness that will show off the results of your hard work even a little bit more.

 

As for the local gym “pharmacist”, it seems that every gym had a creep like this. Even when you did your best to avoid him around the gym itself, he always seemed to appear when you were just trying to get changed and get home after another hard, unassisted workout.  Turn down his offers and you might just get a first hand look at his drug induced rage.

 

Finally, while I believe that functional training has gone way too far there was a time in the 90’s when bodybuilding did everything it could to be anything but functional. Every exercise was performed on a machine and the very thought of having to do something with your own bodyweight without being strapped to some contraption was nothing but inferior training. Thankfully times have changed.

 

As you can see, there were quite a few pitfalls that you wanted to avoid if you trained through the 90’s bodybuilding era. Of course, just like then there are many today as well. The key is trying to train hard and most importantly, smart.  If you’re looking for a smart training program and nutrition plan that you can use to start looking and feeling like an athlete, click the link below and pick the program best suited to your goals today.

 

If you want to see more videos on how to train like an athlete and the best workout program to get ripped and build muscle at the same time, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube and turn on your notifications so you never miss a new video when it’s published.

 

Build Muscle in 90 Days – http://athleanx.com/x/my-workouts

Subscribe to this channel here – http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Watch the YouTube version of this article
Popular & Trending
stop doing face pulls like this facepull mistake
1
How To Do Face Pulls
By Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS
September 9th, 2019
Face pulls are one of the best corrective exercises to help offset poor posture and shoulder dysfunction.  They help strengthen the chronically weak...
how to identify your body fat percentage with images for men
2
Body Fat Percentage Men
By Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS
May 1st, 2013
There are many ways to measure body fat percentage; some wildly expensive and most inaccurate. It's time to give you an alternative method that...
2 reasons your biceps aren't growing and 3 ways to fix it
3
Why Your Biceps Aren’t Growing
By Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS
August 22nd, 2019
Have you ever felt that no matter how much you trained your biceps you’re left saying… “My Biceps STILL Aren’t Growing?” I believe I know...
The PERFECT Abs Workout
4
The PERFECT Abs Workout
By Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS
July 31st, 2019
We’ll be following my ‘Six Pack Progression’ sequence as we choose each of the beginner and advanced ab exercises for each abdominal movement...
incline bench press avoid mistakes for upper chest
5
How To Incline Bench Press Correctly
By Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS
June 21st, 2019
The Incline Bench Press is one of the best upper chest exercises there is, but there's one major problem preventing us from getting the maximum...
best dumbbell exercises for chest
6
The BEST Dumbbell Exercises for CHEST
By Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS
October 9th, 2019
Today I’m going to share my favorite chest exercises… but there’s a catch. We can only use dumbbells! I’ll show you what to do whether you...
how to construct a complete chest workout
7
The PERFECT Chest Workout
By Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS
July 25th, 2019
The classic theory of "Upper, Middle, and Lower" chest exercises is a good start, but, it's not enough!! The solution to this problem is to not...
best dumbbell exercises for shoulders
8
BEST Dumbbell Exercises for SHOULDERS
By Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS
October 5th, 2019
You want to build big shoulders and you only have access to a few pairs of dumbbells. What do you do? I’m going to show you what to do whether...
how to construct a complete biceps workout
9
The PERFECT Biceps Workout
By Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS
July 15th, 2019
The classic theories of “just do curls” or “it’s not necessary to train your biceps directly” are both flat out wrong! Why? Because it’s...
Home Chest Exercises UPPER, MID, LOWER CHEST!!
10
Chest Exercises at Home
By Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS
May 27th, 2021
Being able to effectively hit your upper, mid and lower chest from home with NO equipment may seem impossible. But, I’m here to show you it’s...