Workout Fads That Drive You Insane

Training Bodybuilding
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people who think that getting as big as possible is the only answer to any goal, (yes, it is the answer to many goals (to an extent), and a solid strength and muscular base is key for most any athletes)

***(ps, usually coaches stress how quickness and vertical jumps and the like are the all important factor in sports today…THIS is why most ppl consider bodybuilders “non-functional” most dont train for speed, and will get slower and jump lower as a result of this,nevermind the agility factors
-of course there are sports that are different, and for some people simply getting stronger will help their other deficiencies…but not everyone…thats why they’re deficiencies)

on the flip side…people who say they dont want to get big as an excuse to being skinny, or even fat (honestly, wtf?

people who are dumb enough to think that they’re going to get huge if they’re not careful and start lifting weights

pretty much everything recommended by the Canadian health guide

people who ask for help but never take the advice given simply because its not what they wanted to hear, rather than looking for a second perspective

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[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Ah, indeed, this is a terrible one. Its just a good excuse for lazy people to “work out” without ever actually getting out of breath, and barely breaking a sweat.

“That idiot doing sprints is way out of the fat burning zone!!”

Here is what cracks me up. I have a resting heart rate of 56-58. Merely walking down the street at a normal pace puts me at 120. So if I just walk around (or even walk at a quick pace), I supposedly burn more fat than when I run sprints and get my heart up to 190 or more?

Target heart rate, like BMI, is so facially stupid that anyone who throws those terms around (too many doctors, sadly) can immediately be adjudicated as an ignorant fool.[/quote]

Well, you burn a higher percentage of fat when you’re just walking, compared to when you’re “sugar burning” for sprints.

What these people dont want to hear, though, is that your total calories burned during the sprints are greater, the amount of fat burned is greater, the EPOC is greater, and the resulting loss of adipose tissue will be greater.

All they want is reinforcement that they “shouldnt work too hard”.

The other classic case of this is the “after an hour you start burning muscle” mantra. Yes, this applies to steady state cardio, however, some assume it means if you’re inside the gym for anything more than an hour, you start burning muscle.

63

[quote]Plim wrote:
Fucking rowing machines.

I know someone who goes to the gym and only uses rowing machines. He just goes there and uses a rowing machine for like an hour or something. Then he tells people he is counting his calories and getting ripped abs.

Wtf.[/quote]

Sorry, man. I like rowing machines and I like rowing. It will take the fat right off you. But douchebags in the gym who only do Bench, Curls, and sit-ups who obsess over the six-pack aren’t really a gym fad. Unless we beat them out with an Olympic barbell, they’re staying.

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Sorry I didn’t mean to imply that rowing machines themselves are a fad. I know they are very good cardio.

It’s just a really stupid fad for my idiotic friend and it was doing my head in.

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What exactly is wrong with training outside?

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[quote]StevenF wrote:
What exactly is wrong with training outside? [/quote]

Nothing, other than the fact that anyone would actually use that as “something new” to promote as if training inside is suboptimal.

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[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Well, you burn a higher percentage of fat when you’re just walking, compared to when you’re “sugar burning” for sprints.
[/quote]

But you don’t burn more total fat calories. If in an hour I train at 60-80% of my MHR, I will burn less total fat than if I train at 80-100% of my MHR. That was my point.

This is why people need to quit worrying about small things like “percentages” and start looking at the big things like total fat burned.

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[quote]StevenF wrote:
What exactly is wrong with training outside? [/quote]

Nothing. But some douchebag has written a “book” claiming that training outdoors is something new. Because no one ever thought, “I’m going to do some chin-ups in the monkey bars today” before that “book” was published. It’s that type of bullshit that is obnoxious.

The sad thing is people are actually fueling this bullshit cottage industry.

69

I have been reading T-Nation since there were only a few months of back-issues on Testosterone.net.

Unless I missed something T-Nation has never been about leaning out to 2% bodyfat, getting a tan, shaving off all your bodyhair, covering yourself in oil, and posing on stage in trunks. It hasn’t been against show bodybuilding, but it has never been T-Nation’s focus.

As I understood it from early articles, the founding principles of this magazine were a place for people who want to be big and strong for the sake of being big and strong, or for the sake of something else. A “bodybuilding” resource for soldiers, firefighters, police officers, pipefitters, martial artists, and anyone else who wants or needs to maintain a high level of mass and strength.

This is a fad that drives me insane: A lot of show bodybuilders getting their neon pink thongs in a bunch because T-Nation is catering to the wants and needs of MMA’ists or anyone who isn’t a competitive athlete in bodybuilding, powerlifting, weightlifting, or strongman competitions.

There are many people who need to use bodybuilding knowledge for applications other than posing on stage, and this is exactly the place where those people should be. Catering to them was a key founding principle of T-Nation.

– ElbowStrike

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[quote]ElbowStrike wrote:
I have been reading T-Nation since there were only a few months of back-issues on Testosterone.net.

Unless I missed something T-Nation has never been about leaning out to 2% bodyfat, getting a tan, shaving off all your bodyhair, covering yourself in oil, and posing on stage in trunks. It hasn’t been against show bodybuilding, but it has never been T-Nation’s focus.

As I understood it from early articles, the founding principles of this magazine were a place for people who want to be big and strong for the sake of being big and strong, or for the sake of something else. A “bodybuilding” resource for soldiers, firefighters, police officers, pipefitters, martial artists, and anyone else who wants or needs to maintain a high level of mass and strength.

This is a fad that drives me insane: A lot of show bodybuilders getting their neon pink thongs in a bunch because T-Nation is catering to the wants and needs of MMA’ists or anyone who isn’t a competitive athlete in bodybuilding, powerlifting, weightlifting, or strongman competitions.

There are many people who need to use bodybuilding knowledge for applications other than posing on stage, and this is exactly the place where those people should be. Catering to them was a key founding principle of T-Nation.

– ElbowStrike[/quote]

Somewhere in your delusion, you equate people asking how to get ripped at 150lbs with athletes. You then paired “competitive bodybuilding” up with “pink thongs” and tried to degrade everyone who is into bodybuilding.

…and you wonder why it gets turned back at you from time to time?

I don’t compete. I am into bodybuilding and getting stronger, just like I always have been. What people are debating here isn’t that there are other athletes with other goals. If you can’t see that in your effort to hype whatever it is you happen to be into, you simply don’t want to.

Why has bodybuilding itself suddenly been defined as everything but “getting stronger and getting bigger muscles”? What the fuck do “pink thongs” have to do with that?

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[quote]IQ wrote:
Uncle Gabby wrote:
I think we can sum up by saying anyone or anything that claims to be “The one any only”.

Bingo.

Although I don’t know what’s worse, those that tell you there is only one way to accomplish a task or those that believe it.[/quote]

Well, those who believe it have weak minds. If I feel anything for them it’s pity. Those who tell you this are parasites, they feed on the weak, and the shit they produce obscures the good information.

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[quote]Plim wrote:

. A skinny metrosexual trains incorrectly because he functions as a moron.

Plim this one needs to be carved in stone! ROTFLMAO!!!

Fred

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[quote]Professor X wrote:
Somewhere in your delusion, you equate people asking how to get ripped at 150lbs with athletes. You then paired “competitive bodybuilding” up with “pink thongs” and tried to degrade everyone who is into bodybuilding.
[/quote]

Somewhere in your delusion, I equate 150lbs skinny frat boys with athletes.

As for pink thongs in bodybuilding, it happens.

I maintained that the site is for people like you, who want to get bigger and stronger for reasons other than stage-posing. Did you miss that?

What some people were debating here were the evil fads of barbell complexes and lifting outside. What I was debating is that yet another “fad” to add to the list is the bashing of anyone who isn’t a competitive athlete in one of the four iron-games. If you can’t see that that was what I was arguing against, you simply don’t want to.

That’s pretty much how the T-Nation philosophy of bodybuilding was defined on testosterone.net years ago.

I’ve seen pink thongs in bodybuilding competitions. Haven’t you? The thong allows more glute to be shown. As for the pink, I don’t even want to guess.

Does that answer your questions?

– ElbowStrike

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[quote]ElbowStrike wrote:

As for pink thongs in bodybuilding, it happens. [/quote]

So do blue ones, black ones, and those with the American Flag on them. Bodybuilding is exhibitionism even if you don’t walk around in super tight tank tops or shirts two sizes too small.

Anyone much over 230lbs is going to stand out everywhere they go no matter what they wear. Your attempt to relate competitive bodybuilding directly to (one can only assume) homosexuality is about as played out as you can get.

But that didn’t stop you, did it? Anyone saying they don’t care how they look at all while being focused on increasing the size of certain muscle groups in relation to others is lying.

[quote]

I maintained that the site is for people like you, who want to get bigger and stronger for reasons other than stage-posing. Did you miss that?[/quote]

Oh, I got that. I also got that you falsely separated that from people who actually compete. The truth is, much of what we know came from those guys who originally competed. Why avoid giving credit where credit is due?

[quote]
What some people were debating here were the evil fads of barbell complexes and lifting outside. What I was debating is that yet another “fad” to add to the list is the bashing of anyone who isn’t a competitive athlete in one of the four iron-games. If you can’t see that that was what I was arguing against, you simply don’t want to.[/quote]

That was basic, even for you. It was even spelled out that simply working out outside wasn’t the issue but rather the attempt to sell books by making it sound “revolutionary” is. Hey, I am all about allowing people to make money. I am also fond of pointing out straight pimping and hoaring in the industry.

You are little behind the curve if you think people are simply discussing whether kettlebells can be used at all. What is being discussed is how it gets promoted and how cluelessness has run so rampant lately that people think they are more informed on all things gym related simply because they know the flashy new acronyms or the latest regurgitated old-made-new-again training style being pushed by “insert trainer/author”.

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[quote]Irish Grip wrote:
Plim wrote:

. A skinny metrosexual trains incorrectly because he functions as a moron.

Plim this one needs to be carved in stone! ROTFLMAO!!!

Fred[/quote]

I met one metro who said he wanted to get big, but then said he couldn’t eat a high protein diet because he would get spots.

I have a real hate for these people.

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Fads like this, maybe?

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[quote]dhuge67 wrote:
I’d like to see a really hugely muscled bodybuilder play shortstop. That’s what people mean by non-functional muscle, I think. [/quote]

Silly…

I’d like to see a scrawny shortstop play offensive lineman in the NFL.

We both know he’d get demolished and then be carried off the field in a stretcher. Does that mean the shortstop has non-functional muscle?

Now can we please put the stupid idea that large muscles are useless crapola to rest?

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The one thing that annoys me more than any other is trainers naming techniques after themselves.

Yes I’ve made up some stuff that I use all the time, but never would I have the hide to name it after myself. There is nothing new under the sun and if you can think of it, chances are someone else has sometime in the last 6000 years or so that humans have been around.

79

[quote]dhuge67 wrote:
I’d like to see a really hugely muscled bodybuilder play shortstop. That’s what people mean by non-functional muscle, I think.[/quote]

I’d like to see a 170 lb. point guard substitute for a 170 lb. shortstop. I’d like to see a 170 lb. sprinter substitute for that shortstop. I’d like to see a fucking 170 lb. computer programmer substitute for that fucking 170 lb. shortstop.

Of course anyone who isn’t trained to be a shortstop is going to make a terrible shortstop. You can’t tell, but I’m rolling my eyes, right now.

80

[quote]ElbowStrike wrote:
This is a fad that drives me insane: A lot of show bodybuilders getting their neon pink thongs in a bunch because T-Nation is catering to the wants and needs of MMA’ists[/quote]

The “MMA’ists” were out in full force at the gym tonight. I think it was Karate Night or something.

I went to do dead lifts over at the dead lift station. Some 6’, 160 lb. guy was doing “shadow jump roping” and throwing kicks and punches all around the platform. Based on my educated guess, he couldn’t have been training for longer than 3-6 months. I was pretty annoyed, but figured I could go do my deads in the squat rack. It’s a public gym, so I can’t demand that people not do stupid shit. Then…

You cannot make this stuff up. There was some old guy doing Tae Kwon Do punches (those punches people do w/their arms starting at their hips) and doing those weird blocks you learn when doing your forms for your gold belt. He was right at the squat rack. Man, this shit is worse than squat-rack curls.

I literally started laughing. Don’t you “MMA’ist” have studios to train at? I don’t bring barbells to the jiu jitsu stupid I train at. Why do you bring your “martial arts” to my gym?

Pretty pissed off, I went back to the dead lift station, stood still and made eye contact with the Karate kid, and started laughing. He was too shameless to understand why anyone would laugh at him. The attention probably made him “focus” more.

Finally, the old man left the squat rack. (He kept coming back, though, and doing his “punches” and “blocks” about 3 feet from me.) So I was able to lift. At a gym. Finally. Go figure.

My wife told me I shouldn’t have laughed at the guy doing weird shit by the dead lift station, as he was just a little guy who likely needed attention.*** So I actually felt pretty bad about it.

Then I read your post and realized I was in the right. You guys are just so full of yourselves that you have to “showcase” you skills in the entire gym. (The guy was doing his beginner-level shadow boxing by the dumbbells, too.)

If you’re doing “MMA,” great. Really. It’s a good hobby. But keep that shit out of the weight room.

***At my gym, a world-cass thai boxer and a top jiu jitsu guy train there. Both are true bad asses and are jacked. I have never seen them do stupid shit in the gym. They just lift. Go figure… People actually lifting in a gym?