We were having a arguement/discussion in the lab the other day about the effect of the recent influx~5-10 yrs of scientific data on weight training and training in general, i contested that the more info that you give a person the more able they are to find a path that will work for them, whilst others arguee that exposing people to too much info can only serve to hinder progress by blinding them with info, what do you lot think, has the amount of info being made available made you into a better bodybuilder/athlete or has it confused you even more and are doubting your trainings worthwhilness?, leading to no progress at all!.
Hands down, my workouts have benefited greatly from this data. You can tell those ‘others’ that I’m a big boy now and reasonably well-versed in critical thinking, so I’ll thank ‘them’ not to try to think for me.
knowledge is the key. I love every piece of info i can get. from that i can see what is bs and what is real. Only someone who is lazy, uneducated, or ignorant would get a clouded view of the information. laters pk
If you look at the pro athletes out there, they are bigger, stronger, faster and in better shape than years past. Conversely, society is getting fatter and fatter by the day. This is just me trying to illustrate my point that it all depends on who you give the info to. All of us here at T-mag crave and thrive on info. The average person however, wants to be spoon fed the bear essentials. This is what I find when training clients. the “athletes” or athletic types want properly designed methodical programs and the average “couch potatoe” is happy with the cooky cutter and doesn’t want to know anything about why they’re doing what I’ve got them doing. Sometimes I tell them anyway and the their eyes get glassy and blank. Just like the 'ball player in TC’s Atomic Dog…Then again, some athletes are stupid and sometimes want it spoon fed too.
I think it depends largely on the individual who possesses the info. Generally speaking though, I think a little information in most hands is dangerous. It kind of creates that expert syndrome. I know it has done it to me before in the past. Once you learn that little bit you think you know it all. Kind of like when you were a teen and your resoning skills finally matured, yet you lacked the practical wisdom to do anything with that ability to reason. The older I get, (I’m 25 now), the more I realize I don’t know shit in the grand scheme of things. All I can do is continue to apply what little I do know and continually learn new things. “Absorb what is useful. Reject what is useless. And add to it what is specificially our own.”-Mao Tse Tung.
I think a little Socrates comes in handy here too. You see Socrates always used to claim that he didn’t really know anything, that he was ignorant, thus never really having to take a stance. Then when one would take a stance they would always, in Plato’s dialogues of course, make a mistake and Socrates would always be sure to point out how there knowledge was flawed and that they had to unlearn what they thought was true. Then realize that the truth underlies everything if we give up on thinking we know something. It is not as if Soc didn’t think that knowledge was very important. He, as all the Greeks, thought that there was nothing higher than the pursuit of knowledge. Rather, he simply wanted to point out that, yes we may have some truth, but don’t let that cloud your judgement. There is some real truth underlying what we percieve we can’t let our own views block them. I hope this made sense and that I made my point.
glad to hear that other like minded people think the same way, of course the other other problem is that when you give someone something will thwey know what to do with it and how to apply it to themselves if they do, i spent about half an hour