Critique of The Critic

Real World
1

The most-recent article on T-Nation could have been brilliant. However, rather than presenting an actual critic, the author assumes the identity of a clueless ranter. The Critic should have been called The Straw Man - because all he presented were (intentionall?) weak argument.

Here are just a few points…

Re: TBT vs. splits: The answer provided is that splits only work for people using steriods.

What about all of the people who followed the initial Body for Life program? They all used splits - and many had tremendous success. To say splits works well only for people using steriods requires one to ignore a mountain of contrary evidence.

Indeed, most of the people following routines in MM2K used some form of a split routine (usually a push-pull-leg split). It worked for us readers. Were we all crazy?

Why did The Critic not present a strong argument in support of splits?

Re: HFT and the Cirque du Soleil example. Why didn’t the critic throw CW’s logic back at him: “Those performers, like everyone using a split routine, are on steriods!”

Again, because the critic wasn’t actually interested in serious discussion. He just wanted to give an author easy questions to address.

Why? Why did The Critic not engage in serious debate and present the strongest arguments supporting his positions?

There’s also a new trend brought by the Internet that The Critic fails to address: People are being viewed as experts before they have achieved results with clients all because they’ve published a few articles.

I want my coach to be a trainer first, and a writer second. These days, it sees that here is what happens:

  1. Person writes articles.
  2. People assume person must speak with authority. (How else could he have been published?)
  3. Writer gets clients.

This new trend is certainly something worth criticizing! Of course, it’s not something I expect The “Critic” to address.

2

I won’t be able to respond to anything he may write in that thread until tomorrow night.

3

I agree, it blew. I still can’t beleive some of the stuff Chad said… “I can gain 20 pounds of muscle if I wanted to…” It sounds so stupid for some reason.

I miss the days of Cressey & Robertson, they need start writing more.

4

The Critic was designed to emulate the common everyday 135 pound 15 year old “bodybuilder” that commonly argues without facts and evidence to support their argument. Basically the entire article was written to show how ridiculous some of these people can be in comparison to how knowledgeable one of the T-Nation contributors can be.

If you want to read well thought out responses to the same questions with arguments from both sides, read the recent round table.

5

I wondered about this too. It seemed to me that “The Critic” asked the kinds of questions that weren’t too engrossing, and were more of an interview than an attack. (aka critique) :wink: I’m guessing they just wanted to clarify a couple “controversial” points on the writer’s training philosophies-

I’ve never heard of most of the writers for T-Nation, since I’m new to the BBing community, but google searches turns up heavy praise and respect, as well as experience. Just by reading the wealth of information and logic, (along with searching medical journals to back it up) as well as their confidence with what they are writing, I’m confident that these writers know what they’re talking about, so I’m prepared to listen. And, more importantly, implement the advice.

6

Oh, and if T-Nation really needed to instill confidence in it’s readers that their writer’s training methods and nutritional advice are actually sound, they could invite well-known critics from other parts of the physical training community to poke, prod, critique, and confront the writers. But I don’t think they need to.

I liked this:

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=698447&pageNo=0

7

I posted the very same thing in that thread, and I’m glad others see it the same way. What really blows me away is some people saying “Wow I like the adversarial tone, putting coaches on the spot!!!” when it’s the furthest thing from that.

Back to failing to gain muscle with my upper/lower split, since I’m not running 3 grams of Test and not a pro-bodybuilder.

8

[quote]Donut62 wrote:
I posted the very same thing in that thread, and I’m glad others see it the same way. What really blows me away is some people saying “Wow I like the adversarial tone, putting coaches on the spot!!!” when it’s the furthest thing from that.

Back to failing to gain muscle with my upper/lower split, since I’m not running 3 grams of Test and not a pro-bodybuilder.[/quote]

Don’t forget you won’t be able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded.

9

[quote]Professor X wrote:

Don’t forget you won’t be able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded.[/quote]

Wait, you can walk up stairs? But walking up stairs means combining the activation of your quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves simulatneously.

There’s no way you can integrate all those muscles together at the same time if you do isolation exercises in your training!

10

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Donut62 wrote:
I posted the very same thing in that thread, and I’m glad others see it the same way. What really blows me away is some people saying “Wow I like the adversarial tone, putting coaches on the spot!!!” when it’s the furthest thing from that.

Back to failing to gain muscle with my upper/lower split, since I’m not running 3 grams of Test and not a pro-bodybuilder.

Don’t forget you won’t be able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded.[/quote]

Of course. If I can even make it up the stairs, since training my lower body seperately means my muscles won’t work in unison.

I don’t have a problem with full body workouts at all, but I DO have a problem with saying that they are essentially the only way to go and exalting their superiority. It almost sounds like Mentzer. I’m at the point now where I have trained for enough time to know what works for me, and I have made my best progress on some sort of split. At the end of the day that’s all that matters to me.

11

It was a disappointing article. I am surprised it was placed on the main page when it could of been posted into the forum for all the other small posts/“articles”.

It could of been done better i think.

12

[quote]Beatnik wrote:
It was a disappointing article. I am surprised it was placed on the main page when it could of been posted into the forum for all the other small posts/“articles”.

It could of been done better i think.[/quote]

T-Nation has 5 (free) articles it has to put out every week.

Even infomercials are stating that in order to burn fat it is preferable to build muscle.

Frankly there is not that much new stuff under the sun. Most articles here are repackaged concepts or are aimed at the new reader.

Learn what you can and don’t worry about the rest.

13

[quote]BENXPX wrote:
The Critic was designed to emulate the common everyday 135 pound 15 year old “bodybuilder” that commonly argues without facts and evidence to support their argument. Basically the entire article was written to show how ridiculous some of these people can be in comparison to how knowledgeable one of the T-Nation contributors can be.

If you want to read well thought out responses to the same questions with arguments from both sides, read the recent round table.[/quote]

Exactly right.

14

[quote]beebuddy wrote:
I agree, it blew. I still can’t beleive some of the stuff Chad said… “I can gain 20 pounds of muscle if I wanted to…” It sounds so stupid for some reason.

[/quote]

Yeah, that was pretty gay.

15

Look at it this way: We learned that Chad really is “functional” - he can hit a softball out of the park.

16

Fire the critic. An informative (versus defensive) article is much better. Especially when the “Critic” tries to come off as being funny but falls flat on his face.

Most of the authors on here seem compelled to start off all their articles with some type of humor and then intersperse it throughout their writing. Hey guys, wake up! It isn’t needed ALL the freakin’ time.

17

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Don’t forget you won’t be able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded.[/quote]

I would think that statement was meant to indicate that some pro-bodybuilders are actually in terrible shape physically - even though they look supremely strong and healthy.

Obviously this would not apply to all of them, or even the majority.

However, it can’t be denied that some of these guys are abusing themselves with so many drugs (oxycontin, nubain, dangerous use of diuretics - whatever) that it’s actually completely ironic that they represent a healthy, fit lifestyle.

18

The article served three purposes:

  1. It was designed to keep us thinking about Chad Waterbury and discussing Chad Waterbury. Coincidentally he has a new book out. It’s marketing plain and simple. Doesn’t mean it’s bad, just realize it for what it is. Kind of like when a celebrity shows up for an event. You think they want to be there? No, but they have a movie to sell.

  2. It was supposed to be entertaining. Was it? not really. I think they went a little overboard. Had he not tried to be funny though, it would have been a really boring article and basically just a copy-job to the MR book review. I’ve read worse.

  3. It was basically just fill-in. I agree with Zap that there isn’t much new going on. When was the last new “major” training or diet article written? You know- the ones we talk about a lot and actually recommend to others. “Get Shredded Diet”, “V-Diet”, “T-Dawg” are diet examples and “HFT”, “10x3”, “ABBH”, etc. are training examples. You know- the staples?

Try not to read too much into each article published. This is an online magazine for both education and entertainment. Think of the last magazine you read- did you read every single article in it? Every single one? And did you like each one? Did you send in a letter to the editor about the one you didn’t like?

19

[quote]SkyNett wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Don’t forget you won’t be able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded.

I would think that statement was meant to indicate that some pro-bodybuilders are actually in terrible shape physically - even though they look supremely strong and healthy.

Obviously this would not apply to all of them, or even the majority.

However, it can’t be denied that some of these guys are abusing themselves with so many drugs (oxycontin, nubain, dangerous use of diuretics - whatever) that it’s actually completely ironic that they represent a healthy, fit lifestyle.

[/quote]

I would have to agree with this.

D

20

Mr.Waterbury is just advertising Weiders principle of high frequency tension! Ha ha ha!!!

On a serious note,all that weight training stuff Chad is promoting,the good all Russians have figured 40 years ago.Maybe they didnt had todays scientific studies,but they used apply it,then figure why it works later!