I read a post the other day from a coach who made the startling claim that you don’t need a gym membership to get results.
This may surprise you, but I agreed with him, for the most part.
I am a barbell supremacist. I believe that anyone who can squat, pull, row, and press ought to, if the goal is a fantastic physique rippling with muscle.
The trick is in that “anyone who can” clause.
Not everybody can do these exercises.
There are biomechanical reasons, reasons of injury, and reasons to do with access to the equipment and the weights.
When training your body, you have to work with reality as it is, not as you want it to be.
Fact is, as much as I am a partisan of building training around extremely heavy barbell lifts, there are other goals and other ways to reach those goals.
Everything ain’t about “maximum efficiency”. People are living organisms, not robots down at your factory that you can dial in with six-sigma quality control.
That’s a hard lesson for the many cultists and fanatics who latch on to fitness movements.
The fanatic can’t think rationally or critically. He can’t accept anything that doesn’t fit the law of the holy scripture.
He has One True Path and will bludgeon anyone who says different.
Imagine my surprise when I scroll through the comments to find a Starting Strength Certified Coach, complete with a screenshot of the book’s cover, there with a helpful “actually”
Actually, this menopausal woman with osteoporosis and a bum knee, who has never lifted anything heavier than a pickle jar, should be getting under a barbell for three sets of five, three days a week, using a linear progression to add weight each session.
Says so right here on page 150.
Stupidity is not what you think, but why you think it.
Good advice without appreciation of context is bad advice. Context is the dividing line between true insight and the mindless parroting of a cultist.
I’m no genius. I’m just a guy that pays good attention and summarizes the facts in front of my face. I don’t assume that reality is obliged to suit my preconceived ideas about how it works.
There really isn’t anything more sophisticated than that going on around here.
Pay attention and be willing to tell the truth about what you see.
For some reason, that’s real hard to do. Ego and pride are serious obstacles authentic living.
Anyway. I’m no super-hero, but I can show you how to dial in your training and nutrition like few others… and I know a thing or two about why the human mind constantly stands in the way of making the changes stick.
If you’re over 40 and interested in stripping off the flab and building a nice body that isn’t tired and doesn’t hurt all the time, you can apply for one of my limited coaching spaces. You’ll need to be on the waitlist to hear about those.
If you’re interested, use this link to hop on the list:
Matt Perryman