I have expressed my love for the concept of duality quite frequently in this blog, and I myself have demonstrated how it exists within me through my journey here, as many noted I started off a fan of abbreviated training, transitioned into what can best be described as “maximalism”, and have, once again, found myself on abbreviated training. I am a fan of Jamie Lewis AND Dan John, with programming and philosophical styles at opposite ends of the spectrum, much like how I appreciated Jon Andersen’s Deep Water 10x10 squats and Randall Strossen one set of 20. I’ve had nutritional protocols where I ate every 30 minutes and ones where I’ve had one meal per day. But through that all, this duality is a form of balance, which is the intent of the principle. Extremes exist harmoniously as a necessary means of counter balance. Dan John’s “bus bench/park bench” exemplifies this: periods of extreme balanced with periods of moderation. However, amongst the beginner populace of trainees, I observe a bizarre form of reverse duality, wherein somehow the negatives of the extremes manifest with none of the positives, resulting in a complete unbalancing and disruption of the system. They achieve no progress and, in fact, tend to reverse their growth as a means of this existence. Somehow, these trainees are doing duality wrong.
Yup, all the parts are there: it's just built backwards
In the
sphere of the actual training to accomplish physical transformation, I
frequently observe this in the instance of trainees attempting to make their
own programs, or modify existing ones.
The longer I train, the more the veil of mysticism around programming
lifts from my eyes and the clearer I see, which is one of the cruelest tricks
of time, because by the time we learn all these things, we’re too old to be
able to make the most of it, and all the folks that are young enough to able to
benefit from us wisdom won’t listen to us…much like I ignored those who tried
to tell me otherwise back then. But I
digress, and perhaps you, dear YOUNGER reader, will prove me wrong. Ultimately, all a (good) program does is find
a way to balance the stimulus to grow muscle (or elicit whatever specific gain
one endeavors for) against the fatigue that is accumulated in the process such
that it does not exceed one individual’s ability to recover. Sending a signal to the muscle to grow
generates fatigue as a necessary part of the process: it is fatiguing to exert
oneself in the process of sending the signal.
If we do not send a strong enough signal to the muscle: it does not
grow. If, in the process of sending the
signal to the muscle, we generate too much fatigue such that we exceed our
ability to recover, the muscle does not grow, NOT due to an absence of signal,
but due to an inability to recover from the training effort. It’s a balancing act of sending “enough”
signal without “too much” fatigue.
Beyond THAT,
the function of a program is ensuring compliance. And THIS is why there are a million programs
out there. The balancing act of the
forces of stimulus, fatigue and recovery DO require SOME degree of thought, but
not a terrible amount. If in doubt:
schedule a deload and you’re most likely good.
But getting a trainee to actually STICK to the training program is where
the REAL money is made, because we humans are fickle and stupid and prone to
chase after shiny objects. The best
program in the world isn’t worth a hill of beans if the trainee flat out won’t
follow it, so program developers will find A way to hook A populace on their
program. It’s clear what it takes to get
my attention: some sort of intensity gimmick or counter culture appeal. My instincts are ALWAYS to do what everyone
else ISN’T doing, and I’m fully aware of what a caricature of a real
functioning human I am as a result of that, but with that self-awareness I am
at least able to leverage these quirks of mine into outcomes. A simple, straight forward, percentage based
program will NOT grab my attention, but throw in 20 breathing squats, 10x10s
with reduced rest periods, a 50 rep set with bodyweight on the bar, etc etc,
and you have my attention. FULLY aware
that I’m over 1.5 years deep into Tactical Barbell at this time, but even THAT
has enough shiny objects to keep my attention.
But whatever the case may be, we understand and appreciate that
“different” programs really aren’t.
There isn’t anything magical about one program or the other. Once programs manage to crack balancing
fatigue, stimulus and recovery, everything else is just window dressing
designed to make you actually show up and DO the program.
Sometimes this means wrapping a WHOLE bunch of beef and pasta around a single serving of veggies...and classifying tomatoes as a vegetable...
Soooo, with
THAT established (that took much longer than I planned), we go into how
beginners screw up the whole process.
Beginners focus on that SECOND part FIRST. They either make their OWN program out of all
their favorite moves and training principles OR they take a program that WORKS
and chop the hell out of it to “tailor it” to themselves. In either case, they’re working on the “ensuring
compliance” portion of the training program.
However, in doing so, they manage to accomplish reverse duality: they
somehow manage to not train hard enough to send a signal to the muscle to grow
while, at the same time, accumulating too much fatigue to recover. In the current culture, the primary issue is
trainees claim they love going to the gym, so they want to lift weights 6 days
a week, despite the fact their arriving at training from a completely sedentary
state. So, already, we’re training too
much for what our body has the ability to recover from. They then operate under the premise that
training to failure is the ONLY way to send enough signal to the muscle to get
it to grow, AND that EVERY set has to be taken to failure. If you ever want a quick counter-point to
this, show them an Olympic level male gymnast and ask them how many times they
think this dude trained “rings to failure” to become “Marvel Comics” level of
jacked. Then, the trifecta of reverse
duality is accomplished because, in order to accomplish 6 days of training with
every single set to failure, these trainees select the EASIEST exercises available
to them, because attempting this with the big 3 would put you in the
hospital. So, instead, we’re doing
machine lateral raises 3x per week for 20 sets to failure, grinding our rotator
cuffs into a fine powder, feeling like we have the flu, and looking exactly the
same after months of “training”. These
trainees somehow managed to reverse duality and tip the scale the wrong way in
BOTH directions as it relates to stimulus and fatigue.
Let me
continue saying the thing that upsets the internet: if you LIKE training,
you’re most likely not doing it effectively, and if you’re lifting 6x a week to
build size, you’re most likely not training hard enough to get the results you
want. Because, again: recovery. Fatigue doesn’t just accumulate locally: it
accumulates systemically as well. The
training that causes the WHOLE BODY to grow all causes the whole body to
FATIGUE. In turn, we need to allow the
WHOLE BODY to rest. The notion that you
can somehow bypass this with bodypart splits doesn’t check, and we can prove
this with something that actually is a feature rather than a bug. Remember how we all learned about how, if you
injure a bodypart, you can STILL help maintain and even GROW muscle in it by
training the OTHER side? Why is
that? Because the STIMULUS to grow
occurs on a systemic level ALONG with a local level. This is why that notion of “do squats to grow
your arms” seemed like stupid bro-science, and we tried to claim it was the hormones
released from lower body movements and all other things, but the simple reality
is that putting a bar on your back and moving up and down with it sends a
signal to your ENTIRE BODY to grow. This
is a GREAT thing: we just have to know what to do with that information. And what to do with it is the value and
prioritize RECOVERY from training, because that is when we grow. It also means we don’t need to be slaves to
the 6x per week schedule to “hit the muscles twice a week”, because those
muscles are getting hit WHEN we train.
We can BIAS how our body grows with some focus, absolutely, but we’re
going to make the whole thing grow by training it.
There is a reason this is a meme...don't be this guy
As has been
the case with many blogs, this one got away from me, and what was supposed to
be a quick one shot is now going to turn into a multi-part monster. I intend to discuss how trainees screw up
cardio and nutrition as well by doing these same things, so stay tuned!
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