Overrated or Underrated

[TrainForPain]

I keep seeing this topic on YouTube, and thought it might be fun for us to play out. Rather than list topics and get votes, though, what pops up for you as overrated or underrated?

I’ll caveat by saying, for this game to be fun, I think our topics should be discrete and specific. We can all say “consistency and time” are underrated, but there’s not really a discussion to be had there. On the other hand, if I say veggies are overrated, @QuadQueen can gear up for war.

I’ll throw out a couple: I think playing a sport, even as an adult, is vastly underrated. Nothing is better at giving you a goal, exposing areas of opportunity, scratching that preference pitch, or teaching your body to actually… function. It’s one of those things we don’t talk about much, but I think most of us that have done this awhile have some competitive background.

For my overrated, that’s actually tough. I want to watch the world burn, so I’ll say detailed progression models. I think, if you’re pushing yourself, it’s hard to not accidentally get better. I think this one probably is more like the difference between calorie counters and dieters that have other methods (carnivore, etc.). The progression has to be there, but how much you want to plan it out can be up to preference.

What are yours? Or would you rather just wreck mine? Either choice is great!

[anna_5588]

Great topic!!

Overrated: Bench press, arm isolation work, following programme templates to the letter, training to failure

Underrated: tropical fruits, paused squats, cardio workout videos, not paying attention to the rules

[aholding88]

@TrainForPain

Or would you rather just wreck mine?

Hell no, I think you’ve set the standard for this thread.

@TrainForPain

I think playing a sport, even as an adult, is vastly underrated.

I’d like to add to this
The camaraderie of playing a support and making lifelong bonds is wholesome. I could add an anecdote of something that’s happened to me recently if it doesn’t detract from the theme of the thread.

@TrainForPain

detailed progression models

I feel like a lot of this is semantics in particular for accessory work

Underrated
Zercher Squats
Pineapple post workout
Direct neck work

Overrated
Standard Benching
Body part split training

[QuadQueen]

I will definitely play!!

Overrated:
Extreme diets (keto, carnivore, vegan, etc.) - I mean, they have their place but they aren’t religion and they shouldn’t be forever.
Tracking every single metric with a FitBit. etc. - steps, calories, sleep… Obsession is a thing.
Most supplements - less is more, folks. Less is more.
Bacon - I said what I said. lol

Underrated:
Rest days
Cottage cheese
Full body training at lower frequency

[Alrightmiami19c]

Underrated- Good mornings. This is recent though. They used to be big in the gym but fell out of favor.

Overrated- the current thing. Lol.

[TrainForPain]

@anna_5588

arm isolation work

@aholding88

Body part split training

This is why this is great, because those both are pretty close to underrated territory for me!

@aholding88

I could add an anecdote

Please do

[Dani_Shugart]

@TrainForPain

I think playing a sport, even as an adult, is vastly underrated.

Good one! I only got a taste of it a few times this summer, but even that little dose of volleyball with other adults was enough to convince me. Also, seeing people in their 50s and 60s absolutely crushing it was inspiring.

I’d add that the camaraderie component is another reason it’s underrated. Team sports and friendly human interaction are invaluable.

@TrainForPain

I want to watch the world burn, so I’ll say detailed progression models.

Samesies.

[Friedrich]

Overrated:
Super Foods
Brown Rice
I agree from above, the bench press
Long cardio bouts

Underrated
The Snatch
White Rice
A plain daily vitamin
Bacon
Biceps at 60

[T3hPwnisher]

@QuadQueen coming in spicy with the hot takes! Love it.

Fully concur with @TrainForPain on the “playing a sport” thing. I’ve had a LOT of dudes get upset with me when they ask what they should do to get in shape and my answer is “play a sport for 6 months before you touch a barbell”. There is SO much to be gained from engaging in just some general physical play, to include learning how to simply move your body through space, the difference between injury and soreness/pain, how to push hard through resistance, etc. We’ve SEEN what happens when these perpetual “inside kids” pick up a barbell and try to do some lifting: they look like a monkey humping a football and can’t figure out how to strain hard enough to get results, and then they come on here, blame their genetics and try to hop on gear, and THAT is a giant clusterf**k.

Here’s my grenade for the topic.

Overrated: carbs.

For a natural trainee at least. If you’re running insulin, I’m sure carbs are the bee’s pajamas, but if you’re a natural trainee and looking to get jacked, look at the diet of old school bodybuilders in an era where steroids either didn’t exist or were in their infancy. Lots of whole eggs, steaks/red meat, butter, cottage cheese, heavy cream, etc. Carbs would be limited, and they’d get pulled out once leaning out became the goal. “The Complete Keys to Progress” goes over this really well.

Underrated: faith/belief.

I brought this up in another topic, but seriously: BELIEVING in the path you’re pursuing is THE most critical variable at play. Any program will work, and any diet will work, so long as the trainee believes that it will. And, on the reverse, if a trainee does NOT believe, it doesn’t matter how “good” the protocol is: it won’t work. My most effective training protocols were the one’s I was 100% bought into, with Super Squats being the first example (Randall Strossen really makes use of his PhD in psychology in that book), alongside Deep Water, Mass Made Simple, DoggCrapp and various 5/3/1 programs. And same with nutrition: I’ve tried to “make” things work, and it ultimately ended in me binging in some way. When I found a way of eating I believed in, it was never “being on a diet”: it was just living.

[sctb]

Definite agreement with @TrainForPain and @T3hPwnisher. Here’s my take:

Overrated

• Supplements
• Dietary protein
• Yoga

Underrated

• Cardio
• Dietary fat
• Meditation

[OTay]

The idea that old-school bodybuilders limited carbs is just wrong. We know what they ate, and carbs were not demonized or limited. Did they eat a lot of eggs and meat? Sure, but carbs have always been a cheap source of calories. Eugene Sandow, Steve Reeves, John Grimek, Reg Park, etc. all ate carbs at all meals. They even included chocolate bars, ice cream, and cake.

GOMAD was first introduced/promoted in the 1930s. A gallon of milk alone has over 200 grams of carbs and is very insulinogenic.

Gironda is the only one I can think of that would “limit” carbs, but like most, milk was a staple.

[aholding88]

@TrainForPain

Please do

I’ve been involved with my rugby club for about 14 years minus a stint where I briefly played for another club at a much higher level. I’ve known, drunk and shed blood with a lot of lads down there numerous times over the years.

Last few years have been a bit stop start with work and covid lockdowns but in 2021 I was back playing weekly until my daughter started suffering full epileptic seizures. When I managed to get games in all my team mates would ask about how she was etc.

Unfortunately things got worse which led to her being diagnosed with a terminal illness at the start of last year which is very similar to childhood Alzheimer’s. A few months later I was due to play in a charity game and decided to put a message in the club WhatsApp group telling them all mainly to spare myself having to repeat the conversation a number of times when people were asking me how she was. Had a few people reach out and send messages etc and thought nothing else of it.

A couple of months after one of of they players girlfriends turned up at my house (bit of a shock initially when I was at work and the mrs said a random woman was at the house asking after me) with a card from all of them with £400 inside

Mrs was in tears, I was and still am incredibly moved that a bunch of hard faced hairy arsed blokes did all that.

[T3hPwnisher]

I’m not saying they didn’t include carbs in meals: I’m saying they don’t play NEARLY as large a role as they do in current diets. Again, going off what was in “The Complete Keys to Progress”, along with the diets you mentioned of Gironda, along with what we’ve observed from the Saxons, along with Physical Culture Study’s reports, like what Alan Stephen wrote on bulking

Tony Sasone’s weight gain diet

Rheo Blair’s “Meat and Water” diet, employed by Steve Davis and Lou Ferrigno

This advice of Chris Dickerson reflecting the pulling out of carbs for leaning out

John Balik’s dietary protocol for the endomoprh

Etc

[TrainForPain]

@Dani_Shugart

I only got a taste of it a few times this summer, but even that little dose of volleyball

You shoot, too. That teaches you to move, practice reps, break down into smaller pieces, etc.

@T3hPwnisher

play a sport for 6 months before you touch a barbell

This is a great point. A lot of times, we’re developing faulty movement patterns with a barbell. Why do that if we can’t move in the first place?

@Friedrich

Overrated:
…
Long cardio bouts

@sctb

Underrated

• Cardio

Time to do battle!

@aholding88 I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how you can possibly manage, but I do know you’re a strong man. What an incredible story. Obviously “I’m sorry” is trite and carries no impact, but I’m devastated for you.

[QuadQueen]

@T3hPwnisher

Delicious: carbs.

Fixed it for ya. lol

[T3hPwnisher]

This isn’t the “hot takes” thread, but I will die on the hill that beef ribs will always beat any other thing on the planet in terms of deliciousness.

And that’s WITHOUT sauce.

Perhaps I can save this.

Overrated: steak

Underrated: ribs

[antiquity]

Overrated: Whatever someone “got in shape” doing. By this I mean someone that’s a bit flabby and weak and decides to get into shape using something like an elliptical machine, swimming, KBs, or whatever will then think that tool is absolutely essential. It’s easy to understand why: they were fat and weak before doing that and, after doing that consistently, are now less fat and a bit stronger. But, as Dan John says, anything works for 6 weeks. Too many cling to this one method when they’d see much better results expanding their exercise selection. Running/jogging is perhaps the most common example.

Also, perhaps a bit controversial, Olympic lifting. As someone that has tried learning these over the last couple of years, I do believe that you can get better results and beat yourself up less by doing easier variations. Unless you really want to learn to OLY lift as a means to itself, you’re probably better off doing variations of high pulls, push presses, DB or KB snatches, etc… rather than spending so much time on the actual lifts which require so much technique to really progress.

Underrated: Bodyweight exercises, rings, weight vests, and consistency of effort (rather than sporadic Herculian sessions).

From the diet perspective, I’d say eating whole real foods is underrated at the expense of IIFYM, where people are relying on fake foods that mark off their macro goals for the day.

[anna_5588]

@QuadQueen

Bacon - I said what I said. lol

Grandparents sent smoked pork belly and pork jowl yesterday. After having that, I completely agree that western bacon is overrated

[burt128]

Overrated:

• Diets that have names (most people don’t need a diet with a name, they need whole foods, fruits, vegetables and lean protein)
• Optimizing training (I spend way to much mental energy thinking about this when I compete in nothing and have almost certainly maxed out my lean body mass at an acceptable level of leanness)

Underrated

• Carbs
• Long (60 minute+) bouts of cardio

[fitafter40]

Over-rated…actors, actresses and sports stars

Under-rated…nurses