What would someone need to show you so that you would see that you are wrong?

Something that I am playing around with in my head a lot recently is trying to dig down and find my biases. We live in an era of “alternative facts” and by that I mean outright lies. Unfortunately people, as well meaning as they might be, can spread mistruths at insane speeds. We all have a number of beliefs that are incorrect, but the sad reality is you see when some folks are confronted with information that shows they are incorrect they can double down on those previous beliefs.

I am a scientist by training. This means that I use the scientific method to work towards the truth whatever it might be. Sometimes that truth might be upsetting, like in order to lose weight for the long term you need to exercise and eat a sensible diet. Whereas frequently these days scientists and effectively the scientific method is under attack by politicians, new networks, celebrities, and more. This is a disservice to what a large number of people commit their lives to. To read real peer reviewed research and go to the level of scientific understanding you need to be even mildly competent in an area takes a huge amount of time. This isn’t reading blog posts and other people’s opinions on social media (this includes my blog too, I reserve the right to be wrong).

Here is what is important. Any belief that you have has to have something that someone can show you to make you change your mind. If you are to argue that your point is correct, there must be some type of evidence that someone can show you that would change your mind. This doesn’t mean a bad argument like trying to prove a negative which is impossible, but this does mean that there is something someone can show you. I come in to contact with people that want to debate some scientific information with me (like the earth is round (yes I had a student argue that the earth is flat with me)), and they tell me that there is nothing that I can show them or explain to them that would change their mind. If someone is in that situation then there is no point in arguing with them and what is even sadder to me, they will never be able to improve from that fixed standpoint. They will be mentally stunted in that area and no forward progress can occur. This doesn’t mean that they are stupid or any type of denigrating term, but instead one part of their knowledge will never be able to improve and they are a member of society and voting for who helps set our scientific and national policies.

Being wrong is a difficult thing for many people to come to terms with. It is easy to become emotional with debates and conversations with people you know and love. Understand that we need to follow the evidence, being skeptical is good, but be careful not to take it too far to where you become delusional and effectively “other” anyone with different views.

Thanks as always for reading and have a great day. I appreciate you reading this and please leave any comments or questions you have. Science doesn’t have all the answers, but it works slowly towards those answers regardless the bias that surrounds it and tries to influence it.

Please take a listen to the “you are not so smart” podcasts for great episodes covering bias and a number of other mistakes we as humans make every day.

Marie Kon Your Fitness

So my wife and I have been applying the Marie Kondo method on our home and have gotten rid of a huge amount of things we don’t need or use anymore. I got to thinking about how would you apply this to your fitness? After thinking about it for a while I came to a few conclusions about applying it.

It doesn’t work for the most part

Specifically the hard things in your training like squats and deadlifts that really get you progress often won’t be bringing you joy. Hard work is hard, and quite frequently the most productive part of how your body reacts to training. If you want to get better and make lots of progress, hard work will be in your program that you will not enjoy during, but hopefully the results will spark you joy so keep in mind the delayed gratification that is always a part of hard training. The same thing can be said about diet and eating vegetables and making good nutritional decisions compared to eating cake and ice cream. Yes you can make veggies taste better, but desserts are way better nearly any day of the week.

It can work in certain ways.

Now there are certain exercises that simply hurt your joints due to poor technique, overloading, or biomechanical limitations (can’t move well enough to do them right). Take those exercises out of your workout and put in something that doesn’t leave you in agony. Simple examples of this can be pressing with a barbell and switching it out for dumbbell work or for a specialty barbell that allows you to press with a neutral grip. You can also think about improving your diet by learning how to cook and make healthy food taste better.

Finding balance

I think the best way to apply this is with training goals. The amount of effort, energy, and focus that goes in to getting ready for an aesthetic competition (bodybuilding, figure, etc.) or high level sport competition is huge. It is taxing on not just yourself, but your relationships. Just eating right and exercising enough to be somewhat strong and able to see your abs (slightly as a male) doesn’t take a huge amount of time and rob you of being able to enjoy a number of other parts of life. This is where the bullshit “thinspo” of “nothing tastes as good as thin feels” is nonsense. Find your balance where you are in good enough shape for you to be happy, but not so much that it takes over and dominates your life. As someone who has gotten to be quite lean from hard dieting and hit high levels of performance in strength sports, yes it is fun to win, but the more important thing is the relationships you make in life and the fun you have on the way. The joy of winning fades very quickly.

Summary

Some parts of training will never bring you joy, but the results should. Take a look at your program and diet and figure out where you can make the changes to simplify where you can and make yourself feel and perform better. Understand that a lot of this is delayed gratification, but keep your head up and learn to enjoy the journey. Thanks as always for reading.

Earn Your…

Fitness, Health, Energy, etc.

One day that might actually be able to make fitness in a pill. Currently science is not there, so sadly in order to get in shape or be able to perform you need to train. If you want to feel better you are going to have to do something about that. The good news is we live in a day and era where access to information on how to get what you want is easier than ever. Unfortunately, we also live in a chronically “busy” society and there are a number of charlatans that are more than happy to take people’s money without giving them any value back. If you come across a program that says you can get the body you want “being ripped, massive, high performance, etc” from only training minutes each day that simply is not going to happen. In order to get to high levels of anything you have to put in more and more work. If you want to have lots of energy unfortunately you need to eat right and get plenty of sleep. If you want to be healthy you have to apply the same concepts of eating well, sleeping, exercising, and controlling the other forms of stress in your life. At the end of the day you have to earn it.

Arnold Education Notes 2019

Franco Columbo’s presentation notes. It was neat seeing him present. Those that aren’t familiar this is a former Mr. Olympia competitor along with trained with Arnold Schwarzenegger for years. He has been a chiropractor for years and had some interesting pieces of advice.

Dietary decisions for MMA athletes – supplementation of 10 grams of creatine each day for fighters as a means of helping cognition and as a prophylactic for concussions. Interesting facts on how meat is lower in creatine now than it was in the past so a number of people can be deficient in it.

Meal replacement shake recipe – this is an abridged version of a breakfast shake I learned about. 2 cups oatmeal, 2 scoups of protein power, one banana, one cup of frozen berries, 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, two egg whites.

Notes from a few other presentations:

Vertical Diet – prioritize good protein in 4-6 meals per day with about 40 grams per meal (sirloin steak was preferred). Like white rice for how easily they are digested. Vegetables were spinach, peppers, carrots, and sweet potatoes for their fiber source along with micronutrient profile. Be honest with your calorie intake and be sure to follow it along with modify it based on your goals. Be mindful of your physical activity and track everything that you can. Drinking high amounts of water is stupid and athletes should think about using salt as a means to enhance performance.

Jordan Moon – body comp is a moving target since hydration levels along with carb intake and supplements like creatine can massively change body comp in a short period of time. No method is perfect, but using more than one testing method is your best bet. Gaining extra muscle weight doesn’t increase calorie demand as much as you would think. Most of our resting energy expenditure is from our brain, kidneys, liver, and heart. When you lose lots of weight you can repress your metabolic rate which makes weight regain much easier. Along with when you have this regain you tend to increase your number of fat cells which in turn makes it harder to get smaller in the future.

Athletic movement – if in pain refer out to get fixed. If uncomfortable try some training methods for a few weeks and if it doesn’t work send them out. If in no pain then time to start training. Be sure to work on the feet both strength and mobility since most people suck with them and underutilize their feet due to wearing shoes.

Be mindful of the fuel source your athlete is using and be sure that they are getting in enough carbs.

 

So my notes for the Arnold are a bit short since something “came up”. After presenting in the morning my GA and I met up with my old GA to check out the floor and walk around. My GA did the Spartan race course and his time was fast enough that he nearly won 500 dollars for it by the end of the convention. He also tried out the ninja warrior course and did decent at it. We then went out for lunch and went to the high school where my old GA works as the head strength coach and got in a workout. After that it was back to the Arnold where we checked out some talks, gave a presentation at the Midway stage and then my GA and one of the lab interns who came up decided they would try out the course on the ninja warrior challenge again. My GA almost got to the end of the hanging section but fell off at the end when trying to traverse the glass table he was holding on to. Then the intern went for it…

The intern did well and got to the overhead segment where you have to go from one implement to another. He got stuck trying to go from a star to a ring. He tried to swing and get to the ring but fell off. The second he hit the ground he was yelling and when I could see what happened it was obvious that his elbow was dislocated. We immediately got over to him along with the folks running that event along with medical staff. I gave my keys and gear to the other guys and we all walk him off the floor to the med area off the main convention floor. The three of us walked through the convention center floor essentially in a flying V pattern to make sure that no one bounced off of his arm.

Once back there they get him on a gurney and get his arm supported. In his other arm they start an IV and give him some hardcore pain meds. It helped with his pain, but he was still super uncomfortable. Shortly afterwards we are carted to the back loading area for the convention center and to the side of me is the chalk bowl along with the fake stones the strongmen carried the Husafelt stone around for their competition. I snap a few pics and before we get loaded in to the ambulance out walk all of the heavy weight strongmen since they had just finished their final event for the day. I wanted to delay our leaving a bit, but obviously we had more important things like his health to keep in mind. I did manage to snap a pic from the back of the ambulance as Brian Shaw lumbered past us.

From there they drove us to the hospital. The EMTs were nice guys, in fact one of them was a graduate of our program at EKU. They quickly got us to the hospital and got us in a room. I let my GA and the intern know where we were and from there talked with the intern’s dad about what happened and helped them with the forms since he was a bit loopy from the drugs. After enough time the doc came in and assessed what we already knew and that is his elbow was dislocated. From there they gave him some strong meds to mostly knock him out and we all stayed with him until they had to put it back in and were in there as soon as they let us back in. Hands down that is the most fun I have ever had in an emergency room. We were making jokes and having way too much fun in there the entire time. I was literally crying while laughing for most of it. The intern was tough through all of it and the nurses were trying not to laugh along with us while we were joking around. We finally got out of the hospital at about 9pm and then went by Ludus Magnus to say hi to Matt Wenning and Teddy Cox before then heading to finally get some dinner. Needless to say we made sure his food and “drink” (he is over 21) was provided for that evening.

After that we went our separate directions for some sleep and in the morning we all trained at Westside Barbell. The intern was in a sling and we asked Louie what he should do. Lou said belt squats to away the guy went along with doing glute ham raises and other work while he was a one armed man. We even got a picture of all of us with Louie. After that they went back to the Arnold and my old GA and I went to Ludus Magnus to hang out there a bit and check out their equipment and then back on home to Kentucky. That was a great time, but boy I was happy to be back home and hang out with the wife. Thanks for reading and have a great day.

If you need drugs to do something, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

If you need to use drugs to simply perform or get through life you shouldn’t be doing them. This was something I was talking about with my student the other day that needs to take multiple scoops of a potent preworkout just to train. If that is how beaten down and exhausted you are; just take the day off, deload, or take a nap first. If you have to booze up just to be around your family then it is probably time to avoid them. If you need to dope up just to get through, take a hard look and give yourself a break.