HYPERBOLIC LANGUAGE IS LITERALLY KILLING YOUR GAINS

Yes, that topic title is ironic like an Alanis Morissette song, because those clickbait titles drive me nuts, especially when I see them coming from legitimate sources (Dave Tate, I’m looking at you and your Table Talk titles that have practically nothing to do with what is actually being discussed).  The unfortunate thing about popularity when it relates to a hobby is that, the more people interested in your hobby, the more people want to try to find a way to make MONEY off of that interest and, in turn, the more disingenuous and unscrupulous practices tend to come to fruition.  And in the attempt to attract the attention of the lowest common denominator (as they tend to make up the largest demographic to pull from), hucksters take to the employment of hyperbolic language to create a false dichotomy in order to leverage their own product/approach.  “This is KILLING your gains”, “This ONE movement is all you need to gain”, “THIS approach is garbage”, etc etc, it’s a world where there are no shades of grey: everything is black and white.  If we want to talk gains killers, let’s talk the REAL gains killer here: hyperbolic language is literally killing your gains.

Anytime I hear the word "hyperbole", this pops in my head

 

First of all, let’s just go after that whole “killing your gains” comment, because it absolutely drives me nuts and I was equally guilty of thinking that this was a thing to be concerned about when I first started training.  Folks, when I first started drinking protein shakes, for one, I had to mix them in a big cup with a handmixer, because there WERE no shaker bottles and protein powder was stupidly thick, and, in turn, I’d look at how the sides of the cup were coated with the powder when I was finished and wondered if I “wasted” the shake because I didn’t get every single gram of protein.  So needless to say: I get it.  It’s too easy to get into our own heads when it comes to physical transformation and wonder if all of our effort is being wasted which, in turn, is a terrifying prospect that we could put SO much energy into something and get ZERO reward from it…which is EXACTLY what these predators attempt to capitalize on when they tell you that something is killing your gains.  They’re preying on your fear and anxiety, which, in turn, makes them total a-holes.  DON’T GIVE IN! 

 

Gains can NOT be killed.  This isn’t a thing.  They are slow to accumulate and, in turn, slow to lose, as much the reverse is true: anything quickly gained is quickly lost.  If you’ve ever allowed yourself to get out of shape as far as physical conditioning goes, you know you can get back in shape in a matter of weeks.  This is why fighters have fight camps that only last 8-12 weeks: it doesn’t take that long to get back into CHAMPIONSHIP shape.  And strength athletes have 8-12 week blocks to PEAK for a competition: it doesn’t take that long to get BACK to maximal ability.  What DOES take a long time is to build up TO the state of being able to perform at these levels IN a matter of 8-12 weeks: this is the foundation building, where the REAL “gains” exist.  And, in turn, it means that nothing done in the span of a day is going to kill or maximize your gains.  It also means one single training session isn’t going to make or break gains.  Gains are the result of consistent habits, applied over a LONG duration, with sufficient effort (where have we heard all that before?)  Little and often over the long haul, as Dan John says.

Unless, of course, you're this dude and you just deadlift 500kg on a whim

 

But because of these hucksters employing hyperbolic language, we ignore the obvious (effort, consistency and time) and hyperfocus on the minutia of training.  We get overly concerned about ensuring each muscle group is trained 2x per week, that we are training ALL sets to failure (hah!), that we get the party approved number of sets for each muscle, we rest the EXACT amount that is necessary, we eat EXACTLY when we’re supposed to eat and WHAT we’re supposed to eat, and we get so hyperfixated on the METHOD that we forget to actually track the RESULTS.  We have so much anxiety about correct EXECUTION that we forget that all of this work is for a purpose: to get results.  Because we end up mistaking correct execution for goal achievement, because gains take a long time to observe accumulating, and in the absence of patience to trust the process and watch the results roll in, we week self-assurance by ensuring we did everything “right” to ensure gains.

 

Because along with this, we deal with the hyperbolic language where methods only exist in 2 realms: awesome or garbage.  Something is either THE best approach/method/idea OR it is the WORST: there is no middleground in the battle of language.  And, in turn, this creates the false perception that not only does perfection exist, but that it’s obtainable and, in turn, EVERY decision is a navigating a minefield wherein we will either pick the BEST approach or accidentally choose the only other alternative: the worst approach.  And, again, this all boils down to the typical marketing approaching of not only promoting yourself but tearing down the competition.  It is not enough that I should win, but that others should lose.  We cannot peacefully and harmoniously co-exist in the world of physical transformation: it must be a case where it’s us versus them.

At least the creators of DnD made the right choice of "Half-Orc" VERY obvious

Folks, I saw this growing up between the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, and quite frankly it looks just as goofy now as it did then.  We’ve lost perspective of the reality that most of us are, at most, going to achieve “good enough” when it comes to a method for physical transformation AND that enough time spent doing “good enough” over a long enough timeline is going to result in some INCREDIBLE physical transformations compared to the average populace who isn’t even bothering to try to do ANY manner of approach.  Paul Kelso did a fantastic job in Powerlifting Basics Texas Style of laying out his favorite movements per muscle group in a tiered system and, in doing so, explained how he felt some movements were BETTER than others, but all of them would achieve the goal of training the muscle and getting it to grow.  We saw Stuart McRobert do the same thing in Brawn, and Vince Gironda in “The Wild Physique”, and so many other credited and established authors who WEREN’T trying to fleece a bunch of beginners but, instead, genuinely interested and full of passion in the pursuit of helping others achieve their goals.  The common ground we find in the topic of physical transformation is that those who are truly passionate about this pursuit LOVE helping others “get to yes” by finding ANY means of succeeding, while those are in this game to make a profit for themselves LOVE to gatekeep by dictating that anything that isn’t THEIR specific approach is absolute garbage and totally ineffective.

 

Don’t let hyperbolic language hold you back.  Don’t listen to it, and don’t allow YOURSELF to adopt this framework in your own thinking.  Allow yourself some mental degrees of flexibility here when it comes to analyzing the approaches available to you.  If you just shut off your brain and only see things in terms of “awesome” or “crap”, you’re going to miss out on a LOT of the nuance between those two realms and, in turn, miss out on the little nuggets of gold that exist in even some of the poorest of ideas.  And if you let your own fear and anxiety overwhelm you regarding killing your gains you will, ironically enough, kill your gains due to all the cortisol this high stress ends up creating.  So relax: it’s just lifting weights.