Last Update On December 25, 2011
Paralysis By Analysis
In training and everything else it's quite easy to fall into the trap of what we call paralysis by analysis or in simple words - too much thinking and not enough doing. There is so much information out there that people may get tired just looking at it or thinking about it let alone read it and apply it. When you put the Internet on top of it all things become even harder because the access to knowledge becomes easier and easier. However more information does not always mean more progress.
Far too many are fighting to get the approval of over-hyper training gurus in order to do something. I seriously think there are cults around guys like Steve Maxwell, Pavel Tsatsouline, Mark Rippetoe, Cross-fit, Coach Sommer, Steve Cotter...etc. While most of them probably know quite a lot about training it doesn't mean that you should read every book and dig the meaning of every sentence. This won't cut it for too long because what works for me may not work for you. I personally get tired of reading 300 pages books when all can be said in 30.
We are looking for the perfect solution, the perfect program, the perfect exercise instead of just training and making adjustments according to the results. Training is a process that never ends and we all constantly have to look for different approaches but all of those plans and routines have to be based on our actual experience rather than the point of view of somebody else.
When I first started training I was constantly reading the forum of dragondoor.com looking for the perfect exercise, the perfect routine and guess what? I didn't make any progress due to all that endless research and lack of effort and action. Recently I saw an interesting post on one famous training forum. One guy listed the books he wants to buy in order to improve his programming and training in general. Needless to say that there were around 15 books in that list. Of course most of the books were written by currently well known authors but the most important book cannot be bought - the one written by your body. Your body is your main guide. If it's working it's working. If it isn't find out why. Fail to do that and even 100 books won't help you.
In order to illustrate you exactly what I'm talking about I will walk you thorough a typical training dilemma of an aspiring beginner bodybuilder. Let's call our newbie Mike just for the purposes of this article.
Mike is a young boy but with a rather not satisfying musculature. However his family has no training experience whatsoever but as you know Google is everyone's friend and he types: “build bigger muscles” in Google. What happens is this: a lot of pages made by people who only aspire to make money from advertisement of supplements and even steroids open. He starts reading and later goes to the forums where some people advise Starting Strength or whatever program for beginners. However since Mike likes to check everything two times he searches more information about the program on Google and finds out that other people prefer Power To The People and kettlebells because they were used by old-school hardcore Russian lifters and he decides to try it out. However later on he accidentally ends up at Rosstraining.com where people bash kettlebells and he decides to try something else. In the meanwhile he did not made that much progress because he has become a slave to the Internet marketing and other people's opinion. Of course everyone gets hurt at the beginning and those mistakes HAVE to be made BUT not repeated. Once you have “experienced your body” you have to build your own training vision according to your unique and special qualities. This does not mean that you should not read and be closed to new and fresh information but you have to always be ready to judge and criticize something if you fail to see logic in it or simply is not working for you.
In fact quite often people will lose a lot of time just thinking and constructing a plan rather than actually doing something and build on it. Of course there are a lot of people with experience that can offer a lot of support and wise advices but everything has it limits. Who cares if one guy prefers barbell curls while the other one thinks dumbbell curls are better? Who cares if Famous coach A disagrees with Famous coach B on a certain subject? Who cares about the training program of the professional bodybuilders? Who cares about the latest supplement? Who cares about what the functional crowd thinks?
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