Mattsirpeace
Level 4 Valued Member
Hi all,
I have a half-formed rant here and I apologize in advance for not posting a clear argument. What I have to say is directed at the fitness landscape as a whole, and not to the high quality of information here at StrongFirst. Dr. Judd's excellent blog post on the obsessive downside of elite performance especially got me thinking.
Average people busy with their lives have a hopelessly muddled notion of how to "get in shape." People actually don't know that in order to get strong, you should do strength training. There is a twisted psychology going on where people would rather associate with mediocrity than study success. I stay out of commercial gyms to simply not wallow in this mire. It's impossible to begin with failure and somehow ratchet that up into success.
"Success leaves clues" is a theme at StrongFirst. I think that's Dan John quoting Anthony Robbins. Here is where Pavel's reverse engineering approach comes in. Why not take a cross-discliplinary approach, examining those who have succeeded -- lifters, gymnasts, warriors, and others -- and distill the common principles? I doubt anyone has done this as well as Pavel. It's not about the kettlebell. The modern era of training is over one hundred years old, and we have ample evidence of what works. It is simply nuts for anybody to ignore what has already worked.
My generalized gripe is that although studying success is necessary, it does not guarantee success. I am thinking of those articles where a successful athlete, bodybuilder, movie star, explains "how they did it." The usual cliches about courage, perserverence, etc.. along with some specific tidbits of advice that might actually be useful. What is left out is the overall context. If we are looking at an athlete, he or she was born with an innate talent for the sport, and came along at a time and location when they could succeed, and lucked into a good training environment. Yes, they trained hard. But they had almost everything else going for them as well -- even a rough childhood can be a plus. To truly reverse engineer success would require a time machine, choosing parents, background, coaching, historical era, and a match of talent with sport.
Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" goes into this. How Bill Gates or The Beatles had many uncanny external coincidences line up, in addition to their dedicated work. In "Fooled by Randomness" Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes about financial traders. Lucky egomaniacs with little talent. He also critiques a book about millionaires. The authors note that wealth is associated with financial risk-taking. So is bankruptcy. But the authors don't mention that, because they only surveyed millionaires. Emulating Snooki will not make you rich.
Ah-nuld is an example we all know. He worked hard, and smart. But he also gambled with his health. He had the genes -- absurd natural biceps. And he occupied a spot in history -- with mentors in his hometown, and Joe Weider's need to put a white guy on the cover of his magazines. And the man didn't know it all. He wrote about muscle sculpting and spot reducing into the 1980s.
Ninety-nine percent of strong people got strong with barbells. But barbells don't guarantee strength. I have a lanky body type, and barbells have always been awkward for me. I'm not whining. I've used them, slapped the plates on, and got strong. But the barbell never quite fit, and powerlifting or weightlifting was never gonna happen. No problem now. I can lift all I can manage with a hex bar and kettlebells. But programs based on the barbell discriminate against the ten percent or so of the population with long legs. What happens is that skinny kids unconsciously are uncomfortable with barbells. And coaches aren't interested in them because they have no future in rough sports anyhow. So a segment of the population self-selects itself out of strength training.
For my lovely, unlanky friends over at the other end of the somatotype spectrum, I have enormous sympathy. There is an obesity epidemic. However, there is also such a thing as fat & fit. If a person strength trains, does cardio, is active, doesn't eat garbage, and still isn't ripped, it's OK! Ladies especially, forget about six-pack abs and just be healthy at whatever your natural weight is. Don't worry. Healthy is hot.
This also gets into causation and correlation. Fallacy soup here: Runners are skinny, therefore to get skinny you should run; runners eat pasta, therefore to get skinny you should eat pasta, etc... Taleb calls this the "Swimmers Fallacy." The notion that swimming causes a person to be tall with broad shoulders, a slim waist, and elegant limbs. Walk into a climbing gym and you'll see skinny limber people with ripped abs. Do rocks cause abs? Pullups do not cause low bodyfat, except to the extent to which strength training in general reduces bodyfat, which is quite a bit. Pigskins don't cause hypertrophy, and running fast doesn't cause citizenship in Jamaica.
If anybody wants to say that genetics is an excuse, they are missing the picture. Genes are the canvas. Every organism on this planet is a gene-propagating vehicle. We don't have genes. Genes have us. DNA was here first.
Reverse-engineering success is necessary for progress, but insufficient for success.
Sorry if this post was sprawling and incoherent. Please post replies and help me clarify my thinking.
Thanks!
I have a half-formed rant here and I apologize in advance for not posting a clear argument. What I have to say is directed at the fitness landscape as a whole, and not to the high quality of information here at StrongFirst. Dr. Judd's excellent blog post on the obsessive downside of elite performance especially got me thinking.
Average people busy with their lives have a hopelessly muddled notion of how to "get in shape." People actually don't know that in order to get strong, you should do strength training. There is a twisted psychology going on where people would rather associate with mediocrity than study success. I stay out of commercial gyms to simply not wallow in this mire. It's impossible to begin with failure and somehow ratchet that up into success.
"Success leaves clues" is a theme at StrongFirst. I think that's Dan John quoting Anthony Robbins. Here is where Pavel's reverse engineering approach comes in. Why not take a cross-discliplinary approach, examining those who have succeeded -- lifters, gymnasts, warriors, and others -- and distill the common principles? I doubt anyone has done this as well as Pavel. It's not about the kettlebell. The modern era of training is over one hundred years old, and we have ample evidence of what works. It is simply nuts for anybody to ignore what has already worked.
My generalized gripe is that although studying success is necessary, it does not guarantee success. I am thinking of those articles where a successful athlete, bodybuilder, movie star, explains "how they did it." The usual cliches about courage, perserverence, etc.. along with some specific tidbits of advice that might actually be useful. What is left out is the overall context. If we are looking at an athlete, he or she was born with an innate talent for the sport, and came along at a time and location when they could succeed, and lucked into a good training environment. Yes, they trained hard. But they had almost everything else going for them as well -- even a rough childhood can be a plus. To truly reverse engineer success would require a time machine, choosing parents, background, coaching, historical era, and a match of talent with sport.
Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" goes into this. How Bill Gates or The Beatles had many uncanny external coincidences line up, in addition to their dedicated work. In "Fooled by Randomness" Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes about financial traders. Lucky egomaniacs with little talent. He also critiques a book about millionaires. The authors note that wealth is associated with financial risk-taking. So is bankruptcy. But the authors don't mention that, because they only surveyed millionaires. Emulating Snooki will not make you rich.
Ah-nuld is an example we all know. He worked hard, and smart. But he also gambled with his health. He had the genes -- absurd natural biceps. And he occupied a spot in history -- with mentors in his hometown, and Joe Weider's need to put a white guy on the cover of his magazines. And the man didn't know it all. He wrote about muscle sculpting and spot reducing into the 1980s.
Ninety-nine percent of strong people got strong with barbells. But barbells don't guarantee strength. I have a lanky body type, and barbells have always been awkward for me. I'm not whining. I've used them, slapped the plates on, and got strong. But the barbell never quite fit, and powerlifting or weightlifting was never gonna happen. No problem now. I can lift all I can manage with a hex bar and kettlebells. But programs based on the barbell discriminate against the ten percent or so of the population with long legs. What happens is that skinny kids unconsciously are uncomfortable with barbells. And coaches aren't interested in them because they have no future in rough sports anyhow. So a segment of the population self-selects itself out of strength training.
For my lovely, unlanky friends over at the other end of the somatotype spectrum, I have enormous sympathy. There is an obesity epidemic. However, there is also such a thing as fat & fit. If a person strength trains, does cardio, is active, doesn't eat garbage, and still isn't ripped, it's OK! Ladies especially, forget about six-pack abs and just be healthy at whatever your natural weight is. Don't worry. Healthy is hot.
This also gets into causation and correlation. Fallacy soup here: Runners are skinny, therefore to get skinny you should run; runners eat pasta, therefore to get skinny you should eat pasta, etc... Taleb calls this the "Swimmers Fallacy." The notion that swimming causes a person to be tall with broad shoulders, a slim waist, and elegant limbs. Walk into a climbing gym and you'll see skinny limber people with ripped abs. Do rocks cause abs? Pullups do not cause low bodyfat, except to the extent to which strength training in general reduces bodyfat, which is quite a bit. Pigskins don't cause hypertrophy, and running fast doesn't cause citizenship in Jamaica.
If anybody wants to say that genetics is an excuse, they are missing the picture. Genes are the canvas. Every organism on this planet is a gene-propagating vehicle. We don't have genes. Genes have us. DNA was here first.
Reverse-engineering success is necessary for progress, but insufficient for success.
Sorry if this post was sprawling and incoherent. Please post replies and help me clarify my thinking.
Thanks!
.
