Following on from last weeks email and the conversations that sprung out from it, we have a follow-up
Today I want to talk about the dangers of black and white thinking, all or nothing mindsets, blinkered thinking or railroading yourself.
The human animal is a complex thing.
There are no real absolutes when it comes to our health and fitness.
If there has been one really clear point of learning to come out of sports science and neuroscience research it is just how complex the body and mind is.
Yet at the same time, it amazes me how well we seem to understand the needs of the human animal intuitively.
Just like all animals have an intuitive sense of themselves and how to look after themselves.
And how much we learn from our parents, peers and mentors.
And then something happened.
Suddenly information became not only incredibly easy to access but also to create.
Once upon a time it took a hell of a lot of effort to become noticed as an expert in any particular field.
Now, it's simply a matter of saying the right thing on the right platform and you can appear to be god's gift to any particular subject.
As information becomes curated by computer programs to feed consumers confirmation biases, we find peoples ideas becoming fixed, railroaded, inflexible.
With the ability to find supporting arguments with a few key strokes with your thumb.
No longer do you have to go to a library and spend time looking up information, or travel to a learn from an expert in whatever field.
Now, we simply do a search and hope the results are actually what they promise to be.
And many times they are not.
I often hear people talk about how they don’t know what to believe as there is so much conflicting information out there.
And yes, that is true. There is so much conflicting information.
No one has all the answers.
No one method or style of training has all the answers.
If it did, we'd all train the same way.
But we don't
How I train is not how I train my clients.
There was a joke in WG-FIT, I think it was the man known as Hardcore who started noticing there were fellow clients on “a la carte” programs and others on the “off the shelf” programs.
In fact, it was the a la carte stuff I became better known for.
Tailoring programs for injury rehab and/or performance training.
But one thing that can't be denied is principles remain fairly constant.
Biomechanics vary person to person, but not by much.
I may mean one person training a hinge pattern with straight bar deadlifts, another with trap bar deadlifts and another with double kettlebell cleans. But they all load the hips and hamstrings.
It may mean one person presses a kettlebell, someone else does it bottoms up, another uses an angled barbell. But they all load the shoulder complex
One person performs phenomenally on 1 or 2 meals per day, another does better with 5 or more meals per day. So long as they both hit their macros, who cares?
Is a dumbbell better than a kettlebell?
Who cares?
Does this method, with this kit get you the results you want?
Now that something to care about.
Every person is an N=1 experiment.
Every coach should be watching every client like a hawk making mental notes so as to be able adjust training at the drop of a hat if needed.
You are all individuals ( “I'm not” )
No one can, or should know you like you do.
A big part of what I teach is how to get to know yourself, the Force of Nature program being the program created specifically to do that.
When you know yourself, you find yourself unable to be hoodwinked. Unable to be railroaded, brainwashed, blinkered or sold snake oil.
You become your own expert on you.
And that's worth more than any amount of reels, tik toks, YouTube videos or even books and workshops.
Regards
Dave Hedges
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