Everyone has a weakness. In the beginning, everything is lagging. But the more you grow, the more your own unique liabilities emerge. Your body parts don’t all expand at the same rate, nor do all areas of individual muscles. So everyone has a weakness. The key to successful bodybuilding is eliminating, to the best of your abilities, lagging areas so all parts are nearly equally developed. The proven way to do this is with prioritization.
THE WEAKEST LINKS
Prioritization is a fancy word for emphasizing your weak points and deemphasizing your strong points. The first thing you need to do is determine what those are. The best way to get an accurate assessment is to pose in front of a judge, a competitor, or just someone who knows physique symmetry. However, because most of you either can’t or won’t ask an expert to watch you flex, digital photography and mirrors are invaluable tools for seeing yourself from multiple angles.
The important thing is to get or give an objective opinion, because pinpointing your shortcomings is the only way to target them correctly.
Although everyone has a weakness, sometimes this is something—like narrow clavicles or high calves or murky conditioning—not easily corrected via hoisting metal. You may not have a flaw that can be addressed in workouts. If you’re one of those lucky and rare people, you can still emphasize specific areas—such as shoulder width or leg sweep or back thickness— for periods of time. Prioritization is a great motivator. Phil Heath, in consultation with Hany Rambod, and Flex Lewis, guided by Neil Hill, both come up with at least one physique area on which to focus their training in preparation for their annual Olympia defenses. Sometimes this is not a flaw but a strength used to fend off others. By emphasizing its training, they make certain it remains a key weapon and never becomes a vulnerability.
