Even the word disaster fails to really describe what an utter failure the Iraq War was from the U.S. standpoint and the subsequent despair it has caused for the citizens of Iraq, which continues today. Of course, this is excluding the Big Oil industry and all their shareholders, who profited immensely from the invasion.

The biggest issues:

• According to the UN, corruption in Iraq’s government is on the rise, with the average civil servant paying 4+ bribes per year.
• Women are less free now than they were during Sadam’s reign.
• Sectarian violence is still raging, with May of 2013 topping the list as the deadliest month since the 2006. Over 1,000 people were killed
• Iraq’s infrastructure is in shambles, with power outages still the norm, no schools, few modern homes and a water supply that has been decimated since the war.
• Furthermore, the $60 billion in American taxpayer funds that went towards reconstruction were more or less a complete waste, according to the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq.
• U.S. influence in Iraq is virtually non-existent, while it appears that Iran is now calling the shots in Baghdad.
• China, our greatest diplomatic opposition, now owns most of the oil coming out of Iraq, and is making moves on the oil fields themselves.
• Finally, gas and commodities in the U.S. still costs more than ever, terrorism has increased, and citizens are out $700 billion total, with crumbling infrastructure of our own and a government that is again threatening to shut itself down

Hans Selye’s work on the General Adaptation Syndrome has monumental implications for resistance training techniques and principles.

Every stress leaves an indelible scar, and the organism pays for its survival after a stressful situation by becoming a little older.

At its fundamental level, fitness training is nothing more than applied stress with the purpose of eliciting neuromuscular adaptations. Too much physiological stress will certainly lead to overtraining, with subsequent negative effects. In this sense, you need to take into account any other types of aerobic or anaerobic training already included in the program, as well as the your daily schedule outside of that.

Maximal or near-maximal loads require more recovery time prior to the next session. The same is true for the type of exercise, i.e., multi-joint movements may take longer to recover from.

Sometimes these factors can be avoided by alternating light and heavy training days. Ignore the exercise order here, but otherwise, a light/heavy split would look something like this:

Furthermore, there is evidence that upper body muscles can recover quicker than lower body muscles. Of course, the amount of recovery needed is often dependent on the individual. None-the-less, if you are untrained, it might take time to get a sense for your body’s needs so it is important to approach this aspect carefully.

The general rule of thumb, for trained and untrained individuals, is to have at least one rest day between sessions that stress the same muscle groups, but no more than three. The frequency with respect to training status might look something like:

• Beginner: 2-3 days a week
• Intermediate: 3-4 days a week
• Advanced: 4-7 days a week

For athletes, training status is especially important because of the effect that high intensity training can have on performance in-season. Research suggests that one day a week is sufficient for strength maintenance. Different seasonal phases call for different phases of training. The recommended frequencies per season are:

From: Essentials of Strength Training

Frequency refers to the number of training sessions per muscle group in a given time period, usually one week. It could also refer to the overall number of training sessions, which may be limited depending on experience.

Below is an example of the common upper/lower split. Here, the individual would be training each muscle grouping (upper/lower) 2 days/week each, for a total training frequency of 4 days/week.

When time is limited, you have to seriously consider exercise efficiency. This includes things like multi-joint vs. single-joint, core vs. assistance, as well as the time it takes to prepare the equipment for each. An otherwise great exercise might not be preferable in the case that performing it costs you two or more other exercises that could have been done in the same time frame.

Work with what ya got…

When choosing an exercise, you have to be practical. Sometimes this requires lifts that are less sport/movement-specific than you would like, but that’s how it is sometimes.

Although creativity is invaluable, don’t overreach by new exercises or using unsafe equipment. For example, if you don’t have access to olympic-style barbells with revolving sleeves, stick to something more basic, like front squats.

This is a pretty simple idea: never assume that you, or anyone else, can perform a movement based on its apparent simplicity. The most common lifts are often times the lifts being performed incorrectly.

That isn’t to say you should avoid a lift if it looks too difficult or that you shouldn’t challenge athletes to perform at a certain level, but it is imperative that an individual demonstrates the correct technique unloaded (or with very low loads) before considering adding any load.

In the event that any musculoskeletal imbalances are detected, changes need to be made in your program to ensure they are corrected and that you are not depending on any imbalances to perform high-load, especially structural, movements. Imbalances are extremely common in the general population.

You should note that “muscle balance” does not necessarily mean equal strength; more often it refers to an appropriate ratio of strength. This distinction is crucial because of the tension relationship between an agonist muscle on one side of the joint (e.g. the bicep) and the antagonist muscle on the opposite side of that joint (e.g. the triceps).

In other words, if you need to increase your vertical jump during your off-season, there’s really no point in wasting any time doing bench presses.

Again, this is the oh so crucial principle of resistance training known as specificity