No Brain, No Gain

Having spent many years in gyms, I am consistently surprised by the number of people who work out for years and never seem to make any progress.

Not changing much if you are in great condition is probably OK. However, most people who train regularly seem to do so with very little understanding of the results they can expect from what they are doing.

Nobel laurate Richard Feynman wrote that he was continually amazed at the number of people who simply did things by rote. They had no apparent inclination to understand what they were doing or why.

Over several decades in training in gyms, Im convinced that many people simply go to the gym and do a bunch of exercises without a clear objective, a way to measure their progress (or lack of it), and a reason to do one exercise as opposed to another.

Certain exercises become popular for no apparent reason.

Currently the flavor de jour in my gym is a lame version of the speed deadlift. The objective is unclear because many different types of lifters do it. I assume that someone saw someone else do it and it looked cool so they decided to try it.

Then it became trendy. Now every fourth person does italways carefully looking at themselves in the mirror.

Who knows what will be in vogue next month.

The point is that if you are going to do a given lift during a training session, it is essential to have a clear understanding of the reason you chose that lift. There must be a reason to use one lift as opposed to another.

If you select a front squat, why do this instead of a belt squat, or any of the squat variations in the power cage?

A critical question is how will you know if the exercise is giving you the results you want?

Before adopting a given move, it is important to write out your expectations in detail. Simply trying to lift more without any detailed specifications is one step above simply winging it.

Especially with power lifts, it is essential to know whether you are performing the movement correctly. It is especially important to know the patterns of muscle tension that are critical for producing maximum power.

This is the part of power sports that cannot be seen since it goes on under the skin and cant be captured on a simple video.

Given that we all have limited energy for training, selecting lifts that give you a high return for your effort is critical.

Doing speed deadlifts is probably a great assistance lift for a dude who is pulling seven wheels and has a contest coming up in six weeks.

A novice who must use lifting straps to do this lift with less than 100 lbs should probably be devoting time and energy to building their basic pulling power.

In any event, an absolute critical component of making progress in the gym (and anywhere else) is to develop an understanding of what works, when it works, and why?

Flying bind or simply doing things by rote will never get anyone very far in physics, business, weightlifting.or life.

Lift Big!

Richard