You have to understand the principles of working out. Why? Because if you just want somebody to come along and hand you a program to follow, then you need to know this, a program is set up according to a rigid set of principles. It has to satisfy all the requirements of these principles in order to be a good program.

What’s more, most programs have to also satisfy these “other” requirements: 1. They must be easy for you to follow immediately without making you go through any technique training session, 2. They must make sense to what little knowledge you have about training (which are mostly wrong), 3. They must be quick and easy so that you can gain tremendous results after just a few quick workout sessions, etc.

The thing is, these two sets of principles are not complementary, meaning: No program can satisfy both sets of principles. Simply a big NO.

Even when you’ve found a great program that satisfies all of the fundamental requirements, it cannot give you much gain unless you understand the principles. Training for muscle gain is consisted of more than just time in the gym. In fact, working out is only 10% of what is needed, sufficient nutrition and rest time for proper recovery is the other 90%. Thus, even with a good program, many factors go into determining whether or not you will get bigger and stronger. It is simply impossible to control for all these factors without understanding the principles.

Everyone is different, and also, things happen and keep you from training properly. By understanding all the principles of training:

• First of all, you know which program is the right one for you for your purpose (strength training at first, then muscle gaining, then fat burning).
• Second of all, you will have enough knowledge to tweak the program a tiny bit here and there to your specific need and also to react to the changes that happen to you along the journey.

(The fact is, most people mess too much with the original program without realizing it. Tweaking a training program requires a great deal of work actually).

RECAP: Without understanding the principles of training, you cannot make progress even with a great program.

Sources:

1. First photo (self-mixed): http://www.hahastop.com/
2. My own
3. My own