BLUNT FORCE INSTRUMENT

People seem fond to repeat the phrase “when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”, but they seem to lack appreciation for the fact that you can solve a LOT of problems with a hammer.  A hammer is inelegant and unprecise, but as a blunt force instrument it is fantastic, and many MANY issues can be resolved through its implementation.  Oh sure, they won’t be solved in the best, more optimal way possible, but they’ll be solved alright.  In this, we recognize the real value in a blunt force instrument as a means of diagnosis.  If applied to every problem as though it’s a nail, we can discover, in the aftermath, what problems really DID require something elegant versus which ones needed to be hit just a LITTLE harder than the others.   So what are the blunt force instruments in your life?

Billions of dollars in the latest of scientific technology cannot overcome being big, green and angry 

We apply the blunt force instrument of intensity in our training.  Once again, for my lifting nerds in the audience, I utilize “intensity” in the bro-sense to mean “working hard” and not in the glasses pushed up high on the nose sense of “percentage of 1rm utilized”.  Intensity is a true blunt force instrument because, when in doubt, we can just throw that at our training and see what it does.  AND, like most blunt force instruments, it’s honestly rather amazing how many problems intensity can solve.  If your only tool is intensity, every problem looks like a lack of intensity, but really, think about how true that statement is?  Think about how many times you observe a trainee “stalling” in their training, and it’s abundantly clear that it all stems from a lack of intensity in their training.  They simply need to try harder, work harder, eat harder, etc etc.  They need to employ a blunt force instrument into their training.

And think once again of the VALUE of this blunt force instrument as it relates to a diagnostic tool.  So many trainees attempt to address stalls via programming sorcery and recover manipulation.  They’ll add or remove sets, play with rep tempos, change the split around, eat more, sleep more, etc etc, BUT, in the absence of necessary degrees of intensity, it’s honestly impossible to determine the effectiveness of these methods.  Perhaps they’re simply STILL failing because of the lack of a blunt force instrument to implement them.  BUT, if you simply up the intensity with your current approach, you can measure the effectiveness almost immediately and determine if this is the right course of action or if a more elegant solution is in order.

Maybe we shoulda just tried harder first

But blunt force instruments exist outside of our own training as well, instead occupying the world of leaders and mentors.  My favorite blunt force instrument is Steve Pulcinella.  Steve is my spirit animal, he is my Id, his words and thoughts are what go through my mind when I am forced in other situations to remain polite.  If you’ve never had a chance to observe Steve interact with people on or offline, it’s ultimately worthwhile, because Steve’s personality personifies a blunt force instrument.  Why is that?  Because Steve got to the highest echelons in his sport by utilizing a great deal of effort and not a whole lot of magic, and he’s not afraid to bring that up with any chance he gets.

My favorite response I’ve ever seen him offer when someone mentioned the dire importance of some new wave in training (I forget if it was foam rolling or undulating periodization or whatever was the topic du jour) was “Funny: I didn’t need that when I competed in the World’s Strongest Man.”  And how does one respond to that?  How do you withstand the blunt force instrument crashing into your fragile logic and knowledge?  It shatters your paradigm and causes enough cognitive dissonance that you have to rebuild from scratch, and the only parts that remain were those hardy enough to withstand the force of such a harsh blunt force.

Steve is also literally a blunt force instrument

And, once again in turn, we can apply these blunt force instruments among the pool of eligible mentors.  Much like how Steve can fall back on what it took to get to WSM, you too can sort through the charlatans from the real deal by implementing a blunt force instrument of criticism.  “How do I know who to listen to?  Everyone sounds so credible!”  By employing the blunt force instrument of saying “Oh, this person is a coach?  Great: who did they coach?”  It’s not about where they studied, what they studied, how smart they are, how many books they’ve written, how popular they are: show me the results.  Your blunt force instrument of criticism smashes everything else and only the outcome remains.

Identify the blunt force instruments available to you.  Identify what tools you have that, when applied, allow every problem to look like a nail.  Smash through the delicate, precise, elegant parts of the equation so that only the hardy and strong aspects remain, and rebuild with what is left behind.  That which can survive the assault is genuinely worthwhile.