NETFLIX AND STALL

 

To the surprise of no one who is familiar with me, I don’t watch much television.  I get up before 0330 on most days to be able to get my training in, and the remainder of my day is filled up with work, cooking, eating, cleaning up from those activities, and spending time with my family.  If I do watch TV, I get about 30 minutes to do so.  I have TONS of streaming services to pick from, and with that TONS of new series and movies to watch.  What do I end up watching?  An episode of “Nailed It” or “House MD” or “Futurama” that I’ve seen about a hundred times before.  Why?   Because I KNOW it will deliver. Because you never feel more sheepish than when you have a half hour to watch TV and you spend that ENTIRE half hour deciding what to watch.  Why do I even bring this up?  Because all you folks looking to be optimal are just scrolling Netflix right now: just pick a show you like and watch it!

"But he was better on Daredevil..."

 

Oh yes: we’re running with this metaphor.  I’m too proud of it to let it go.  The comedy of pursuing optimization is that, in the PURSUIT of it, you end up with SUB-optimal results, and, through sheer irony, even WORSE results than those who just picked a plan and went with it.  The person scrolling Netflix watched NO television: the person who picked something they had already seen before watched SOME television.  FOMO (Fear of Missing Out): was there a possibility that one of those folks could have watched something AMAZING?  Sure: but we observe the opportunity cost inherent in the pursuit of that. 

 

It's no different with training.  So many dudes are out there chasing the optimal dragon that they never get a chance to actually sit down and watch TV.  They’re always changing, tweaking, modifying or completely jumping ship to the next shiny object that they don’t ever actually get to TRAIN and get some results.  Meanwhile, the dudes that just picked A program to follow, put their head down and followed it GET results.  They actually get to WATCH TV.  And again, there’s your irony.  People want “optimal” because they want the most results with the least effort…and they put in a TON of effort in the pursuit of optimal while getting NO results.  The dudes going with “sub-optimal” protocols get MORE and BETTER results, because we constantly forget to factor in time and opportunity cost into the equation.  For every day you spend NOT committing to a plan and moving forward in your pursuit of a “better way”, that better way needs to be able to compensate for that amount of time lost.  The difference between optimal and sub-optimal is so insignificant that this is simply a losing battle.

It ain't like this

We’re gonna keep going.  “How do I know what to do if I’m a beginner?”  There are some CLEAR classics on TV.  The whole world knows about them.  Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, House MD, Futurama, etc.  It’s no different in the world of training.  Super Squats, 5/3/1, Juggernaut Method: programs that EVERYONE succeeds on.  “The rate of progress is TOO slow!”  It’s faster than what you’ve got now dude!  So far, you’re moving in REVERSE.  Let’s at least get moving FORWARD and then we’ll go from there.  We’ve got 30 minutes: let’s go pick a show we KNOW we’ll like.

 

And if we DO decide we want to watch something different, these streaming services have cool little algorithms that can figure out something we may like based on our interests.  Hey: we have that in reality too!  If you like a program, you can look at other programs from the same author (5/3/1 Forever has 50 programs in it alone), or you can look at programs from the person that mentored that author OR someone that author mentored.  You can look at programs that the author THEMSELF has run or promoted.  Or you can find other people that have run the program you like and, if those folks display success, ask them what else they like (it’s like when you ask your family and friends for television show recommendations: oh my god this metaphor!)

 

Somethings go together like peanut butter and jelly...this is not one of those things

But I get it: sometimes, we get sick of the rut, and something looks REALLY promising on the “you may like” list, so we dive in to a new series.  That’s fine, but here’s the thing: we MUST accept the consequences of this decision.  If it’s a bad show: we wasted our half hour.  BUT, if it’s a good show, maybe we picked up a new favorite!  And maybe a middle ground occurs: the show itself wasn’t great, but it linked us up with a show in that genre that we discover BECAUSE we took that risk, and we like THAT show.  In all instances, we MUST learn lessons from our experience.  That’s the value OF experience.  If the show was awful, we say “no more from THAT director”.   If the show was good, we can explore deeper.  If there was an element we liked but we didn’t totally fall in love, we learn to look for that element.

And give new shows a chance to GET good!  When I first started watching Breaking Bad, I couldn’t stand it.  I had heard what an amazing show it was, but the first half of the first season was SO slow…but I had heard from ENOUGH people that it was worth it (OH MY GOD, slow progression, trusting the process, listening to people who have “been there”, you can’t make this up!)  Once I got to the end of season 1, I could NOT STOP WATCHING.  Had I abandoned the show at the first sign of it sucking, I never would have been able to have that experience.  It’s the same with your training: give new programs a fair shake.  Give new methods a fair try.  You never WASTE time training IF you learn from the experience.  The only way it can be a waste is if you refuse to accept responsibility for your decisions and try to pawn it off on some external entity.  It’s ok to make a “bad decision”, so long as, from that, we now have a new tool in the toolkit to help us make good decisions.

Still a great album

 

Because here’s the dirty secret that no one wants you to know: all programs work.  They absolutely do.  Some work for longer durations than others, some are more sustainable than others, but they all work: it’s simply a matter of if they work for YOU.  It’s a question of matching up your personality to the program that suits it.  Much like how not everyone likes to watch cooking shows, not everyone is going to jive on a program that is based around Rate of Perceived Exertion.  Some folks will, no joke, have a meltdown if they do NOT get to bust out a spreadsheet and a sliderule to be able to plot out their exact sets and reps for the next week.  I am of the meathead inclination, and want as little math and numbers as possible, and will instead just slap plates on a bar and squat it until blood comes out of me from where.  BOTH WORK!  …just not necessarily for the same person.  So go find the shows that you like to watch and go watch them!