There are a lot of people that write, talk, and share ideas about their own training experiences online. I’m one of them. I might not seem like it, but this is a problem — a problem you’ve probably never considered, which makes this article all the more important to you. What you’re about to read [...]
There are a lot of people that write, talk, and share ideas about their own training experiences online. I'm one of them. I might not seem like it, but this is a problem — a problem you've probably never considered, which makes this article all the more important to you. What you're about to read was a beacon that helped me turn the corner and make better progress. Will you let it do the same for you?
The culture problem
The problem isn't with the mass of people writing, nor is it with the quality of people writing. We are flooded with more information than any point in history, but that's not the problem. The problem is that most of the people that have the cojones to write in a coherent manner never really fully dissect culture.
Physical training is becoming more and more popular. I don't mean exercising either. I mean hard physical training with a barbell, gymnastics rings, and other similar equipment. Save for old time physical culturists, “normal” people taking an interest in muscular and performance pursuits isn't exactly normal.
There's a good chance you weren't in the gym training unless you competed in a sport: powerlifting, bodybuilding, or Olympic weightlifting. You had a clear cultural category to choose from.
But now?
Not all of us belong to said cultures.
And that's the problem.
The different cultures and stories
If you want to get as strong as possible, you might take an inkling to the powerlifting story — the story that says it's all about the bench press, back squat, and deadlift. If you have aesthetics interest, you might take an inkling to the bodybuilding story — the story that says it's all about proportion and feeling the muscles work. If you want to get as powerful as possible, you might take an inkling to the Olympic weightlifting story — the story that says it's all about the quick lifts.
These sports are clear, distinct cultures.
Culture is a big reason why we do certain things. It's why some monks shave their heads. It's why tribes still do rain dances. It's why we check for rain on our iPhone app. It's why just about everyone above the age of 40 has a very very tough time understanding that fats aren't bad and that eggs are good — they're entire lives they were told a story to the contrary. They had a different culture.
Culture anchors us. If you abide by the powerlifting culture, you can stay still in a sea of ever flowing information. The powerlifting culture is about lifting as much weight as possible on the back squat, bench press, and deadlift. There's nothing about aesthetics, or even performance away from the barbell. Given the chance to reveal another abdominal muscle or put another 20 pounds on the bench press, there's no question as to what's better for a powerlifter.
But for anyone else? The story changes.
The new age of culture and physical training
Like I mentioned before, we live in a new age. For one of the first times in history, people pursue physical training for the fun of it. People want to look good, but not be bodybuilders. People want to be strong, but not be powerlifters. People want to be powerful, but not be Olympic weightlifters.
The problem is that we're failing to acknowledge the “but not” part. So if you want to look good, you're going to get thrown into the bodybuilding culture. If you want to get strong, you're going to get thrown into the powerlifting culture.
When you're a casual student of physical training, you're stranded at sea. The popular sports are islands. Most people end up swimming to an island that kinda-sorta fits their goals just because they don't want to drown in a sea of unknown. They like the comfort an island delivers, so they become immersed in a culture that doesn't quite fit.
I hope you're bold enough to realize this (and it's tough to do, so I feel ya), but the only reason to be on powerlifting island / bodybuilding island / Olympic weightlifting island is if you're going to become a competitive athlete in said sport. Even if you only share a part of the goal, you shouldn't be fully immersed in the culture. You can want to look good naked, but that's different than gaining muscle and losing fat in a way that has you peaking for competition.
This may seem a little off, especially because my recently underground released Myomutant program is a mesh of Olympic weightlifting and gymnastics training, so let me explain: Unless you learn how to create a backbone of why you're doing this, all of the information you take in will fizzle you in different directions. You'll program hop. You'll fall for gimmicks. You'll do everything you shouldn't and nothing you should.
For the sake of analogy, I'm going to use CrossFit as a beacon for reference here, as I see CrossFit as the ultimate activity for people that don't know what the hell they're doing.
CrossFit and culture…good or bad?
CrossFit is the heart of a lot of heated debates these days (I've had a “Clunky CrossFit Convenants” post slated for a long time, but I haven't got around to posting it…). Most people trash it because it lacks sound programming. It's a bunch of random stuff placed together to get people “fit,” in the broadest sense of the word.
The reason people hate CrossFit is because it creates a cultural disconnect.
For someone looking for a personal challenge — something that's going to tax them mentally and physically — then CrossFit is magic. Who cares about a lack of programming when you aren't programming for anything? The cultures match.
The problem is that CrossFit brands itself as the ultimate strategy for any physical preparation. So when professional athletes that are preparing for a specific sport do CrossFit, the cultures don't match. Specific sports aren't random.
CrossFit prepares for random physical challenges (that's their words). If you want something specific, why train randomly?
These are all culture problems, so let's set this straight.
Culture needs a backbone
You need a backbone. You need to find out who you are and why you're doing this. If you want to become a competitive powerlifter, bodybuilder, or Olympic weightlifter, you have a clear cut culture.
The first question you need to ask yourself is, “Why am I here?”
There's a fundamentally different approach between someone training to be a barbell athlete and someone simply borrowing the methods for their own goal. If you're in the latter group, you don't own anyone anything. You don't have to live on an island. You can sail, borrow things you enjoy, and sail again.
Culture creates dogma. You have to bench press if you're a powerlifter. You have to snatch if you're an Olympic weightlifter. You have to bulk to gain muscle. And pending on the culture you end up believing in, certain things then get downplayed — things that aren't in the have compartment.
This cultural dogma can essentially be deemed “categorical thinking.” Dr. Robert Sapolsky, in his infamous Stanford University lectures, puts forth three problems with categorical thinking:
1. You underestimate how different two things are when they fall in the same category.
2. You overestimate how different two things are when there is a boundary in between them.
3. When you pay attention to categorical boundaries, you don’t see big pictures.
But more and more of us are just dudes cruising in this realm of physical training for our own psychedelic desires. We are culture-less, yet torn by cultured thinking. It's easy to say, “I want to look good naked, so I'll just go with the bodybuilding culture,” but that's a mistake for some that doesn't want to fatten up during a bulk.
We're playing by rules we don't need to play by. The reason the bench press is more popular than parallel bar dips is because most training facilities center around barbell equipment, not gymnastics equipment. Imagine if you gym was a gymnastics center, not something outfitted with dumbbells, barbells, and treadmills. How would the rules change? How would culture differ?
Popularity determines what you're exposed to, not necessarily effectiveness. The overhead press was much more popular back in the 70's because it was a contested event. Now? All but gone, save for underground strength circles.
It's culture.
An example of my own realization
The turning point in my training came when I stopped thinking that I need to have all of my limbs on different islands, and when I just decided to create my own based upon what I enjoyed doing and where I wanted to go.
- I wasn't a powerlifter, so I could take my time developing strength given that I wasn't competing. This meant I could keep my legs fresher for other activities (like tricking), because I didn't feel like I needed to fatigue them to hell to progress.
- I wasn't a bodybuilder, so I could take my time building muscle given that I wasn't competing. This meant I abandoned the bulk-cut model, and just decided to let the muscle slowly pour on without getting fat.
- I wasn't a barbell athlete, so I did bodyweight exercises with just as much attention and vigor. This meant that no one exercise was more important than the next; they were all equally important, otherwise, I wouldn't be doing them.
- I didn't owe anyone anything — I pursued the skills I wanted to develop for athletics and aesthetics. Everything that I did, I did for me.
- I wasn't a competitive athlete, so I didn't need to prepare for tricking. I just needed to trick and let the adaptations fall into my lap. Tricking in itself is rather “plyometrick.”
And all of this personal reflection is how I came to mesh a gymnastics-bodyweight ethos in with an Olympic weightlifting-esque ethos to deliver the physique and performance I wanted. (In other words, training that I enjoyed rather than training I was told to do by others that didn't fit my “culture.”) It's also how I came to terms with a slower rate of progression that coincided with the fact that I didn't want to consistently shove food down my face and get fat.
Culture is holistic
Nutrition and training are culturally intertwined. You can't do Smolov and eat like a bird. Want to progress faster? Better match your nutrition to those demands. But culture is more than matching these two. If you have trouble getting to the gym, you'll need a different culture than if you have no problem showing up.
In my case, I had no problem showing up consistently. What I had a problem with, however, was gripping the reality of making progress and feeling like I did enough. So I combat this by doing more warm-up sets, getting in a decent amount of work, and keeping my meaningful reps low. This means most of my work is finished before I find out whether or not I made tangible progress.
The cultural conclusion
To be honest, I'm not sure where else I'm headed with post, but I do know the value of identifying your culture. Ido Portal, who is essentially the handsomer, shorter, and more talented version of myself, recently said:
Let me clarify:
I am NO gymnast.
I am NOT the bodyweight training guy.
I do not protect any dogma besides…. Movement.
I think that, perhaps, the first step in finding culture is figuring out what you aren't. I'm not a bodybuilder, powerlifter, or Olympic weightlifter. I don't hold myself to their standards. I'm not very muscled compared to a bodybuilder. I'm not very strong compared to an Olympic weightlifter or powerlifter. But I don't care all that much, because I'm not those people.
It's truly a unique time because you need to stop yourself and think: why am I training? What does a bench press really mean to me if I'm not a powerlifter? What does being 200 pounds mean as opposed to being 190 pounds? Is it worth sacrificing injury for the sake of five more pounds on the bar? Is the squat really more important than a muscle-up or any other exercise?
So the questions to ask yourself: Who aren't you? Why are you training?
What's your culture?