WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER MY QUESTION?

“Allow me to clarify that my question is not rhetorical” is a phrase I have been forced to use way more often than I reasonably should have.  It’s honestly frustrating as a fan of philosophy, as quite often it is the answering of questions that leads us to a greater understanding of a subject matter, and while a rhetorical question certainly has its place, to treat legitimate questions as though they are rhetorical is denying a learning opportunity.  But in addition to that, I have been writing in this blog for nearly 8 years, prior to which point I received my Master’s degree in a writing intensive field (political science with an emphasis on western political theory), before which I got my Bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in philosophy.  I don’t say that to express that I feel I am intelligent (I had roommates who could make my head spin with the knowledge of mathematics and the hard sciences), but moreso to convey that I have had to write a LOT to express my thoughts over the course of my life, and I like the think that I’m accomplished enough at it that I can convey myself without ambiguity.  Thus, when I ask what I feel is a blatantly non-rhetorical question and it gets treated as though it were rhetorical, I find it difficult to assume that the reader misunderstood me and more take to theorizing that they simply WISH my question was rhetorical.  Which in turn leads to the (non-rhetorical) question of: “why won’t you answer my question?”

Somehow I doubt this is the reason

What I am writing is the spiritual successor to my infamous “How Much Ya Bench” post, and suggested (brilliantly) by Will Ruth in a continuation of my series on questions, and I couldn’t be happier to discuss this subject.  A most recent exchange I had on this very premise was in regards to the incredibly silly (and fake) drama over the world record deadlift attempt to be performed in the upcoming weeks.  Specifically, I expressed a sentiment that strongman records were silly and no one really cares about them anyway, to which an individual asked me why I was even posting in a strongman subreddit in the first place if I felt that way.  I answered their question and gave them a question back, specifically, I post at that location because I compete in the sport of strongman: does the person asking me this question compete in the sport?  And to add more to this, I clarified before my question “legitimate question here”, and then asked.  And this individual STILL went on to not answer that question before proceeding too ask me another question (something along the lines of who am I to decide what does and does not matter in the sport).  I pointed out the rudeness of this person to not answer my question and ask me one of their own, to which they replied that they thought I was being rhetorical.  Right…

Why wouldn’t someone answer such a question?  In truth, much like “How Much Ya Bench”, they don’t answer because they understand the ramifications of such an answer.  Specifically, that it discredits them.  But here’s a thought: if you’re embarrassed to answer a direct question, does that mean shame upon the question asker for asking such a question, or shame on you to put yourself in a situation where such a question is asked of you?  Why did I ask this person if they competed in the sport?  Because I could tell, based off how they conducted themselves, that they did not.  If the answer was somehow an affirmative (which, as you have guessed by now, it was not), I would have been so completely off guard that all I could genuinely do is agree to disagree and walk away.  In much the same way when I see someone saying something that so radically conflicts with my understanding of how to get big and strong I’ll ask “How big and strong has this approach gotten you?” and, most often, such a question is ignored.  Make no mistake: you are free to think, feel and say whatever you want, but if you choose to exercise your right to remain silent when asked a question, that’s because you don’t want to self-incriminate.  And in the court of public opinion, it makes you guilty.

Next time, get a better lawyer

“I don’t see how that’s relevant”, well of course you don’t: that’s why you never bothered to ask the question in the first place.  However, the person who is ASKING the question certainly sees how it is relevant: hence why they asked.  If you’re only in this conversation for yourself, the kindly go away, but if you are genuinely engaging here in good faith then you answer the questions that are asked (within reason of course: don’t give someone your credit card info).  Be honest: it’s not that you don’t see how the question is relevant, you simply don’t like what your answer is to that question.  And once again wonder: why was this question asked of me in the first place?  Would this question have been asked of me if I were saying something intelligent?

But this goes even further than the shame of being unwilling to admit to a lack of success: this includes those that present the façade of being WILLING to learn, when the truth is they’re completely unwilling to take any of the actions necessary to do so.  I refuse to argue online: my inherent solipsism makes it such that I don’t care if someone think I’m wrong, thus I have no stake in proving myself right.  Often, when someone disagrees with me, I’ll ask flat out “What evidence can I provide you that would convince you that you are wrong and I am right?  If I have that, I will provide it to you.  If not, I will not.”  …silence.  Or sometimes, anger.  “How am I supposed to know what will convince me!?”  Well if YOU don’t know what it’s going to take, I CERTAINLY have no idea, and I’m not going to just keep shooting in the dark in the hopes I magically discover it, because there’s a VERY fair chance that there is no such evidence and this is a fool’s errand.  Why won’t you just answer my question?

Whereas some people seem willing to be convinced of just about anything...

And finally, this extends to “what can I do to help you?”  Another fun story for you: at my work, we had suggestion boxes.  They were always full, and those of us in a management position would pour over them each week, see tons of suggestions and complaints, and none of us could figure out how to solve them.  We started wondering if maybe we were just stupid: the people with these problems saw something we didn’t, and we just needed their input.  So I suggested we change the box: from a “suggestions box” to a “solutions box”: bring any problem you have and then let us know what solution you’ve come up with to solve it.  The boxes ran empty until, after 8 months, we finally got rid of them.  Ask YOURSELF before you ask your question “is this a question that HAS an answer?”  “How do I make someone motivated to train?”  You can’t.  Unless you possess supervillain levels of hypnosis, you can’t make people feel a certain way.  “I want to work out and eat better, but I just have NO time to do it.”  What can I do to help you?  “I want to lose weight but I hate being hungry.”  What can I do to help you?  It’s not a rhetorical question: I legitimately don’t see how I can help.  I’d love to help: I’ve love to pass on everything I learned over 20 years so that you don’t make the same mistakes I did and you can learn from me and grow bigger, stronger, faster and better than I ever was or will be, but seriously: what can I do to help you?

Ask yourself why you won’t answer my question, and ensure that, when you do, it’s not a rhetorical question.    

DID YOU HAVE A QUESTION?

I am notorious for asking the question “did you have a question?” at a variety of locations online. I enjoying answering questions about training, part of it out of a love for helping others get situated (I get genuinely excited at the prospect of starting training from the beginning and all the adventure that comes from growth) and part of it is simply because it’s something that helps me pass time when things are going slow otherwise.  I will venture to locations online that are specifically dedicated for new individuals to ask questions so that experienced trainees can answer them.  Yet, frequently, I need to ask the question “did you have a question?”  Why?  We’ll let’s play a game at home and see if you can spot the issue with phrase such as these.

“I have a question.  I’m 6’5, 210lbs, and my TDEE is 2600 calories.  I’ve been eating 2200 calories a day for a week, but I’m not losing weight?”

“I have a question.  I want to get started on 5/3/1 Building the Monolith, but I just saw a youtube video that said that doing more than 1 set per bodypart is “junk volume?”

“I have a question.  I want to start squatting, but I train along and I’m worried about what happens if I fail a rep?”

You have no idea how often I have felt this response was necessary

Did you figure it out?  Even though these were sentences with question marks at the end, none of them were questions: they were simply statements.  And don’t mistake this for me just being crotchety talking about how the current generation is murdering the English language: I’m sure I’ve already done that rant before, and will do it again.  No, today I’m being crotchety about the passivity people employ in their dialogue, in an attempt to remove onus from themselves entirely.  People don’t even want to be the one responsible for asking the question in the first place: they simply want to put information out there in the universe, have OTHER people form their question for them and THEN answer the question that they made up.

Why is this?  Because it is HARD to admit ignorance, and especially so in this day and age, and especially so on the internet.  Believe me, I get it.  The internet has made cruelty incredibly easy to the point it’s practically the default setting of every human, to the point that no matter HOW much I try to make my communication as direct as possible online, it’s almost always interpreted as being sarcastic.  People are needlessly ruthless, and the instant someone shows any degree of ignorance on any topic, they are lambasted, typically by people whose sole advantage is that they wikipedia’d an article mere seconds before the other individual.  So yes, absolutely I understand that it IS hard to stand out in the public forum of the internet and declare “I don’t know.”

Believe me: even if you don't say it, people can tell

However, this admission of ignorance is necessary in order to begin the process of learning.  Socrates, love him or hate him (whole lotta folks went with the latter during his time), was essentially famous for being one of the first people to admit that he didn’t know ANYTHING.  It was because he was willing to operate off this initial premise that he was able to start unraveling a lot of presumed knowledge in the world and start getting down to the root of ideas, concepts, and the things that we all “knew”.  Once one operates off the premise that they don’t know anything, they’re very much able to fully learn and absorb brand new ideas, whereas trying to reconcile new information off previously established dogma most often runs into some manner of cognitive dissonance wherein that new information gets distorted to fit into the current paradigm, resulting in little value.

A fun story from my own youth comes from when I went to high school.  I was in public schools up until high school, at which point I was enrolled in a Catholic school.  I was raised without religion, and required to take Catholic education courses each semester for all 4 years.  I graduated high school as the top theology student of my graduating class, beating out kids that had attended Sunday school as children and received Catholic education courses in elementary and middle school.  What gives?  My theory is that you educate a pre-school student SUBSTANTIALLY different than you would a high school student on the Bible (such as maybe leaving out the bits on incest, concubines, genocide, and a whole lot of the new testament), and that previous education now has to reconcile with the “new” education given in high school.  Absent that previous “knowledge”, I was able to just start absorbing the information being given to me straight away.  My mind was clean: I was ignorant.

I gotta admit though: my initial image of priests resulted in disappointment when I met my first real one...

In turn, one must acknowledge the empowerment of ignorance: it is an admission that one does not know, and, in turn, they are ready to be filled with knowledge.  And think of how awesome that is: because if you made it THIS far knowing nothing, just imagine the damage you’ll do once you know something?  This, in turn, is why those that cling so desperately to the idea that they know something serve to damage their own egos in their attempts to protect them.  When you argue until you’re blue in the face that you DO in fact know something, it’s pretty goddamn embarrassing when someone looks at your results and says “So wait, you know what you’re doing and you STILL haven’t succeeded?  What the hell?”  Reference my “How Much Ya Bench” argument.  But when you’re willing to finally admit that you don’t know something, you’re now set up and primed for getting better. 

It also means that there’s no shame in not knowing, so long as one is willing to make such an admission.  The only shame is when one does not know something but refuses to admit it.  As much as I am notorious for asking “Did you have a question?”  I am also notorious for saying “I don’t know”.  People mistakenly believe that I have knowledge on all things training and training adjacent when, in fact, my scope is honestly pretty small.  I know how to make MYSELF bigger and stronger, and I tend to answer all questions with what I would do, rather than what an individual should do, but even then I will get asked questions about micronutrients, mobility exercises, Olympic lifts, specific diets, etc etc, and in all cases I am willing to say flat out “I don’t know.”  And not only do I unburden myself from having to answer that question, but I alleviate that individual asking that question from having to employ the drivel I would have spouted in an attempt to save internet face. 

See these people get it.  And sweet: TWO Futurama images

So please, if you have a question, ASK a question.  Be willing to fully admit to your ignorance, express that you don’t know something, that you would like to know more about it, and what specifically you would like to know.  Admit it to yourself and to your audience, and be willing and able to receive the new information without previous “knowledge” getting in the way.  You’ll find that the joy of growth will outweigh the minor sting of having to admit to being imperfect.

(EDIT: As I went to post this, I just realized my previous week’s work was about “Questions Strong People Don’t Ask”.  How about that?  Haha!)

 

QUESTIONS STRONG PEOPLE DON'T ASK

Today’s topic idea comes by way of u/ZBGBs on reddit, a frequenter of r/gainit, r/weightroom and r/fitness among other subreddits, and a monstrously strong human who boast a 505lb bench press and 315lb strict press.  I’m going to admit my guilt in that he’s actually pitched me SEVERAL topic ideas over the years and I’ve been negligent on employing them as I typically discover them while I’m on my phone and then forget what they were by the time I sit down to write, but I really wanted to try for this one.  So, without further ado…

-“Will a strong back make me bench press more?”  This was the question that formed the catalyst of this topic, and its absence in the conversation of strong people speaks volumes.  Specifically in that, no strong person is going to decide to let something be weak simply because it may not directly contribute to a specific lift.  If one’s goal is to be big and strong, there’s ZERO benefit in letting a muscle be small and weak: even if it’s immediate benefit is not readily apparent.  I frequently see this question asked of neck work too: why do it?  Because a strong neck is better than a weak neck: duh!  Or the creatively lazy people that ask “why train abs directly when they get trained with compound lifts?”  To make the abs bigger and stronger: duh!  If your goal is to be big and strong, making your muscles bigger and stronger is a great way to get there.

While the rest of you were to busy asking "why?" Louie Simmons was over there asking "how?"

-“Will I look weird if I do X?”  This is two pronged.  The first comes from people who premise it by saying something absurd like “I’m 6’4 and my ankles are 7.364915286 inches in circumference: will I look weird if I make my quads bigger?” or “If I go to the gym and do ab wheel, am I going to look weird?”  In the instance of both, the answer remains the same: does it matter?  But also, let me ask: are you a human?  If you ARE one, use your powers of human judgment to determine if YOU would think this would look weird.  That’s the answer.  If you LACK the ability to determine what does and does not look weird, good news: you can stop caring, because you’re so completely unaware of basic social norms that you should be well beyond the point of needing to worry about them.  But specifically on the instance of “will I look weird if I build muscle” front, allow me to offer this advice: if, during the course of you gaining muscle, you start to notice that you’re looking weird: stop gaining it.  It’s just that simple.

-“Is this safe?”  I’ve rallied against this many times already, but I’ve flat out never heard a big or strong person ask that question.  The question they DO ask is “does that work?”  Based off THAT answer, THEN they decide ON THEIR OWN if something is safe or not.  And, specifically, what they REALLY decide is “is that worth the risk?”  Allow me to answer the question for those in doubt though: no, nothing is safe.  Everything has risks.  Now that we’ve established that, you need to decide how much the risk is worth it to you.  Here’s a good example on my front: if I have a competition coming up, axle continentals and yoke training are worth it.  If I don’t, they’re not.  Your mileage may vary.

-“Is it worth the money?”  Once again, never a question I’ve heard from a big or strong person.  For one, literally no one can answer that question for you, because everyone values their money differently.  For some people, the extra $1.46 to upgrade your nachos from “supreme” to “Bell Grande” at Taco Bell is entirely inconsequential: for others, that’s a decision between eating 2 days in a row or just one.  But along with that, when it comes to being bigger and stronger, everyone I know that has accomplished it has simply MADE it work when it comes to finances.  They never looked at something and asked “is that worth the money?”: they decided it was and then figured out how the hell they were going to come up with the funds to get it.  And don’t take this to be some sort of Randian-rally against those in a poor financial situation: people have gotten big and strong without a lot of fancy toys or cash.  But those on both sides of the financial situation didn’t hem and haw on price points when it came to achieving their goals: they figured out what they needed and then figured out how to get it.

-“Can someone review my program?”  Hey, just being honest here: never heard a big or strong person ask that question.  And no, don’t be stupid: I mean over the course of GETTING big and strong, so that you don’t pull that whole “well they don’t ask NOW, but bet they DID ask when they didn’t know any better”.  And also, let’s not be stupid by talking about coaching here, because I’m saying what I have never heard asked by a big or strong person.  I’m not a coach, so I’m not going to hear this question if it gets asked by a big and strong person to a coach.  And that’s the difference: these big and strong people are trusting their programming or program review to those that are WORTH TRUSTING.  They hire a coach and get coached.  Is hiring a coach worth the money?  Oh wait, sh*t…

In this case, it was not...

-“Can I do X?”  Never heard a big and strong guy crowdsource permission to train.

-“Does creatine REALLY cause hair loss?”  Never heard a big and strong person ask that question.  Or a smart person for that matter.

-“What muscle does that work?”  I’m not picking on people that don’t have an understanding of anatomy (I got Ds in my hard science courses): I’m picking on people that won’t just do it and figure it out.  And ALSO on people that ask this question when it comes to things that are blatantly full body exercises: cleans, snatches, stones, etc.  It works the EVERYTHING.  Not everything gets fit into a neat little category.

-“Am I just not built for X/do I have bad genetics?”  Again, yeah: you can argue this is reductionist and that big and strong people would never be compelled to ask these questions BECAUSE they have superior genetics and are built for everything: but perhaps it’s BECAUSE they never felt the need to ask these questions that they BECAME big and strong.  By all accounts, I have awful genetics, yet I never felt compelled to ask about them because I had seen enough training montages growing up that I KNEW that all you needed to do to get big and strong was train hard and drink raw eggs.  And also, I know I’m not built for high bar squats because I TRIED them and figured it out quick.  And since I practice what I preach: I quit.  Because I’ve known big and strong guys that allowed themselves to say “I tried that, it didn’t work for me” and let that be it, rather than beg OTHERS to tell them that something wasn’t going to work for them.

-“What’s the point of cardio?”  It keeps you from dying.  Big and strong people know that.  They also know when they’ve been neglecting it.  It’s one thing to know it’s something you SHOULD be doing and not be doing it: it’s another thing when you pretend like it’s unimportant because you don’t want to do it.  See also: conditioning.

-“What’s the point of vegetables?”  I want to take a moment now to explain that EVERY single question I am posting here is a question I have actually seen.  I have had accusations levied against me in the past that I make things up to get upset about just to have something to write.  Let me assure you: I am not that creative.  If I was, I’d write like Paul Kelso, because it’s FAR more enjoyable to read how he wrote than how I do.  So having said all of that, I have NEVER heard a big or strong person ask about the point of eating vegetables.  So I’ll let you imagine the kind of person that asks that question.

Maybe it's just the influences I grew up with... And yes, this is the end of the blogpost, but I wanted to use this picture

WHEN I CAN'T THINK OF WHAT ELSE TO WRITE, THERE'S ALWAYS BULLET POINTS

-Everyone is so quick to say “pull deadlifts from a dead stop: it’s how you’ll do it in a competition”, but I RARELY see this same thing said about the bench press.  For some reason, a touch and go bench press gets far more forgiveness than a touch and go deadlift, despite the fact that, in competition, a pause is required when benching.  What’s more, a touch and go deadlift will always have at least ONE deadstop rep (the first one), so the guy doing a set of touch and go deads is STILL getting in some “competition practice” (especially when one considers that it’s typically powerlifters [or should I say “powerlifters] making this claim, where one only NEEDS to do 1 rep in competition), whereas the trainee that does a set of touch and go bench press NEVER gets in that critical paused rep ala competition.  How interesting the lines we decide to draw in the sand.

Wouldn't it suck to bench and deadlift touch and go and all you ever do is get as big and strong as this guy?

-The best conditioning exercise is the one that you’ll do.  I got an airdyne bike off the facebook yardsale site because everyone swore to me it was the bee’s pajamas and would change my life.  I used it 3 or 4 times and then sold it again.  It took up too much space and I just plain didn’t care to use it, primarily because I didn’t care about riding a bike.  Meanwhile, these days I’m jumping rope in my basement and have a Bas Rutten “Body Action System” on order, because I still miss my fighting days and will retap into that era to get in some extra exercise.  It won’t have 100% carryover to lifting, but it’s far better than NOT doing conditioning.

-I was on r/strongman on reddit and told a dude that I thought strongman records were silly.  He asked why I even bothered to post there if I felt that way, since strongman records were “half the sport”.  I replied that I was on the subreddit because I competed in strongman, and then I asked him if he did as well.  He got VERY defensive at that question.  There’s nothing wrong with being a fan of a sport, there’s nothing wrong with being a passionate fan of a sport, but when you start deciding that what you as a fan enjoy matters more than the people actually doing the sport think, you’re being a goober.  This is why most legitimate sports have players unions.

-The pandemic has been an illuminating experience to find out who REALLY “lived training” vs who just wanted to be seen going to the gym.  There are dudes getting after it with a big rock and some resistance bands, and there are dudes sitting on their thumb in a home with a doorframe pull up bar, adjustable dumbbells, cardio equipment, a bowflex, etc etc, absolutely NOT training because “I don’t have a rack or barbell”.  Winners find a way.

Please kindly stop whining

-Speaking of “winners find a way”, shout out to Flappinit over at t-nation, who starting 5/3/1 Building the Monolith about 2 weeks before the world shut down and has continued to run the program without interruption, to include the 1.5lbs of ground beef and dozen eggs a day, by jerry rigging a rack together and hustling to get a bar and plates together.  Read his log over on the site if you get a chance.

-No: I don’t care what Eddie Hall has to say about Thor.  Folks: this is kayfabe, plain and simple.  Perhaps I take it for granted, since I was born in the mid 80s and professional wrestling was huge when I was a kid, but I can spot manufactured drama to sell a storyline pretty easily.  I feel like a lot of folks that grew up in the absence of that influence are now having their innocence played against them in their adulthood.  But suffice it to say, you look pretty silly when you’re thinking it’s real.  Appreciate the show for the show that it is.

-I put some fat gripz on my ab wheel and my persistent elbow pain has vanished.  About the only good thing I ever found to do with them.

-Hey, speaking of fat, could people PLEASE quit memeing their nutrition when it comes to strongman?  If you can’t push press 200lbs, you don’t need to eat 8000 calories a day.  And maybe we could try to put on just a LITTLE bit of muscle with all that bodyweight?

-Someone on the starting strongman facebook page just asked me if Ironmind was a “reliable source” to buy equipment from.  Learn your history folks.

Ironmind AND MHP: some REAL history there

-I got my bodyweight up to what was most likely one of my highest points in prep to compete at 220 before my comp got canceled.  I’ve been losing weight now, and once again marvel at how simple it is: eat less food.  I also find it easy, as much as that chaps people when I say it, because all you have to do is…nothing.  Its inaction: how easy is that?  You have to put in effort to eat.  If you wanna make losing weight easier, do ALL the cooking and cleaning in your house, and suddenly meals will be sparse.

-One of my more recent posts “Maybe you should just quit” gained a lot of attention, with MANY folks upset with the message.  Some of those folks even called for me to stop writing, as apparently I’m quite bad at it.  How these people didn’t choke on their own irony boggles my mind.

-Ok, seriously, say it with me now: axle and log.  Not “axle bar and log bar”.  Why would you say the latter?  Do you say “barbell bar”?  “Weight plate disk”?  “Katana sword”?  “Boot shoe”? 

-Hey, you got some downtime right now?  Why not read “Powerlifting Basics Texas Style”?  And if you’re a diligent follower of the blog, I mean, why not read it again.

-I am teaching my kid Tae Kwon Do during this downtime, so I’ve taken to stretching again after a 20 year hiatus so I can kick above my waist.  I’m honestly excited about the first injury I get in this post-stretching era just so I can go “see: stretching doesn’t prevent injury”.

Hell, stretching can even hurt OTHER people

-People tell me “fitness is for everyone” and that I’m myopic for feeling otherwise, but really reflect on that.  It’s VERY short-sighted to say something is for everyone, because this is assuming that ALL people have the same end goal.  Specifically, in this case: longevity.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live as long as possible and to do so as pain free as possible, but to assume it’s everyone’s goal is ridiculous.  To assume it SHOULD be everyone’s goal is egocentric and mothering.  Some folks aspire for hedonism, some sacrifice the end for the beginning or the middle, and some folks are willing to take risks.  For some folks, there’s no room for fitness if they want to accomplish the OTHER things they want.  To assume only your goals are the ones everyone else should have is silly.    

-The pandemic has also illustrated another pandemic in thinking, or, specifically, an inability to think.  Trainees have been so used to always having a rigid structure and plan that, when removed of the ability to comply with it, they literally have NO idea what to do.  Back before everything was mapped out and there was an app for everything, people would just throw stuff against the wall and see what stuck.  Creativity was our ONLY tool in the weight room, and we came up with some wild stuff.  Now is the time to start doing that again, but the fear of doing anything “sub-optimally” has reduced many trainees to a state of refusing to do anything.  What could be more sub-optimal than no training?  Now is the time to do all that stuff that “doesn’t work”.  Stupid high volume bodyweight work, HIT (that’s how you make light weight heavy), pre-exhaust, isolations before compounds, mega high rep sets, etc etc.

THE TAO OF HARD TRAINING

I’ve shared this line a few times before, but the opening line of the Tao Te Ching is “The Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao”, and this paradoxical opening is meant to convey the idea that even what is written within the Tao Te Ching is not an adequate explanation for “the Tao” or Taoism as a whole.  It’s this notion that the Tao CAN be understood, but that this understanding of the Tao is not something that can be put down in words and understood academically.  One can’t teach someone to understand it, nor can one read an explanation and suddenly “get it”: it’s something that can only be understood individual by individual on a personal level. In much the same way, I find that the notion of “hard training” seems to hold this same distinction: those that understand it completely understand it, and when speaking to those that understand it, the idea transcends language, but when one asks for an explanation, it’s impossible to put into words.  “Hard training” is simply something one must understand on one’s own accord.

Example: Both programs require hard training, but the one on the left is one set of 20, and the one on the right is 10x10

I bring this up because, on many occasions, I’ve been asked by a trainee to explain hard training, and I’m baffled both by the question and by my inability to explain it. This is primarily because most modern trainees seem to want all explanations to be quantifiable and numeric.  “Does hard training mean 4-5 sets of 10-15 reps with 30 seconds of rest between sets done 6 days a week?”  I mean, yeah, it CAN mean that, but you can also do all of that stuff and still not come close to hard training.  Hard training could also be 1 set for the day, done 3 days a week.  Or it could be 10x3 with 15 minutes between sets.  Or it could be circuit workouts or crossfit WODS, o 10x10s, or a whole bunch of different things.  What makes the training “hard training” isn’t the program design itself, but the amount of effort put into the training.

“But I’m always panting at the end of my sets and feel like I’m going to throw up ALL the time and I came down with rhabdomyolysis in my first week of training and I STILL can’t get big or strong.”  Well hey: maybe you’re just in too BAD of shape to actually train hard.  Because I hear those complaints a lot by young trainees lacking results, and they always assure me they are training as absolutely hard as humanly possible and eating perfectly, but you gotta go “no true-Scotsman” on this one: hard training and good eating get results, so if you’re not getting results, you’re not training hard and eating well.  All your complaining is telling me is that, whenever you actually try to even come CLOSE to training hard, your poor conditioning and general physical ability limit you from ever actually reaching meaningful levels of intensity (meaning intensity of effort in this case, and not the nerdy definition of percentage of 1 rep max).  Hard training may, simply, be too hard for you.

Perhaps as a result of a childhood spent like this

In turn, young athletes turn to the well of volume to compensate for an inability to work hard.  Volume APPERARS to be what this “hard training” is all about, because it takes a lot of effort and you feel exhausted when you’re done, but what if this is simply an illusion.  What if these trainees deceive themselves into believing that they’ve finally figured out what “hard training” is, when, in fact, by definition they CAN’T be training hard BECAUSE the volume is so high.  I’ve written before about how I can’t fathom the currently en vogue push/pull/legs split that has trainees lifting weights 6 days a week, because everything I grew up with and experienced emphasized the value of RECOVERYING from training insofar as growth was concerned, and, in turn, training tended to be so hard that one could not reasonably expect to lift weights 6 days in the span of 1 week.  If one wanted to train the whole body twice a week, it was done with an upper/lower split, and if they wanted to do it 3 times a week, it was done with a full body program.  If they wanted to have muscle group focused days, the muscles got focused on ONCE a week, because an entire day spent training a muscle was going to be a HARD day of training.  One from this mindset would make the argument that a trainee training 6 days a week is training lightly, and that hard training done less often would be far more productive.

So again, what the hell IS hard training?  It’s training where you put ALL of yourself into each rep, into an entire set, into the whole workout.  No: stop thinking I’m saying slam pre-workout and crank heavy metal and mainline nose tork: you’re STILL not getting it.  All that crap is EMULATING hard training: not BEING hard training.  Here you are speaking of the Tao.  Those things are there for those that can ALREADY pour all of themselves into the training, but if you CAN’T already do that, those things aren’t going to make you do it: they’re just going to trick you into thinking you can.  One that can train hard can do so ABSENT of any psyching up: they’re simply able to dig deeper and bring forth more of themselves into their work.  They feel the same fatigue and exhaustion of the above mentioned early trainees, but also know that they possess a second gear, and a third, and a forth.  They know that, while holding your breath between reps to stay braced, the first thing that happens is that your lungs feel tight, then your cheeks burn, then your face hurts, then the corners of your vision go black, then you start to feel the pressure building behind your eyes, and then, SOMEHOW, you swallow a mouthful of air back into your gut and are able to get out 2 more reps before you breathe fire.  They know the distinct feeling of breaking blood vessels in their face.  They’ve heard their music start skipping despite the fact that they’re listening to digital audio.  They’ve sat down after a set and then realized they don’t even remember doing the set in the first place.  They know that, in between “almost blacking out” and “blacking out” there’s about 6 more reps.  And when they talk with each other and go “How’s training been” and say “I’ve been training hard recently”, they exchange a knowing look, as they both know EXACTLY what that means without having to explain it. 

Hint: it's not this

If you don’t know what hard training is, keep pushing until you do.