The Need to Refocus Training Efforts

".... If you travel ten miles left when you should have gone ten miles right, you've made a thirty-mile mistake: the ten miles you went in the wrong direction, the ten miles you have to go back to get to where you started from, and then the ten miles you have to go to get to where you were going."
- Dr. Phil McGraw

Frequently, I am approached by young people, on the internet and in person, desperate to gain muscle and strength. Often, there are many aspects of their training that are fundamentally unbalanced such as diet, recovery, range of motion, exercise selection, training intensity, volume, and frequency. Despite these glaring deficiencies, many are more concerned about nutritional supplements, cutting, or whatever imaginary "phase" of training they are currently busying themselves with than laying a solid foundation. They are, in effect, traveling ten miles left when they should be going right, setting themselves up for, at best, mediocre gains or, worst case scenario, injury. It's okay to take the side roads from time to time - they can give you new perspective on your training and even open up your mind to possibilities that you might not have considered had you stayed the path. But, aimless wanderings time and time again will lead nowhere fast.