Sunday Edition Article
Here’s why I’ve been posting so much about this “informational integrity” crap over the past few weeks...
Stolen Time
The one thing in life that I don’t ever want stolen from me is my time – it’s precious. We only have a limited amount of it every day, and I literally find it insulting and demeaning when people have the power to waste mine. My time is mine, not someone else’s – unless they’re paying me for it. Or, if I’m doing something unpleasant that I don’t want to be doing, I’m hoping there’s some bigger payoff involved. For example, it benefits someone I give a shit about. Other than that, I don’t want anyone to have my time.
This time issue is a big one for young people, especially athletes. I posted something a couple of weeks ago about how I got started training with weights. If you missed that, I talked about how my father had a bench and a shitload of weight in my basement growing up – and I touched on how I think I learned a ton about lifting simply by going down there with a group of kids and figuring it out on my own. This goes back to when I was about 12 or 13, and trying to get stronger for football and baseball.
Timely Information
Time factors into this equation when you think about where we get our information. Back then, we essentially figured out how to lift weights using four different techniques (in no particular order):
1. We tried to figure it out for ourselves.
2. We bought magazines and did stuff we found in them.
3. We got a book, maybe for Christmas, and learned some useful things there.
4. Someone (father, coach, older brother, guy in the neighborhood) took the time to show us the ropes as they knew them.
For me, it was a combination of all of the above. My dad was a very strong guy from doing manual labor his whole life, so he passed on the benefits of work strength to me. The band teacher at my high school (I wasn’t actually in the band, but he took an interest) was a Vietnam veteran who served in the 82nd Airborne Division and lifted weights for years. He took me aside and showed me some stuff in the gym at school – including making me jump rope with a section of heavy climbing rope he cut (which was murder on a 9th grader...try it). Someone (I’m assuming it was my mom) bought me Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding (I think we all have this), and I’d work from there, figuring out body part splits for each day of the week and trying out new exercises all the time.
Not ideal, but pretty solid, nonetheless.
Internet Hustlers
Nowadays, all that information comes from the internet. When that same 13-year-old football kid wants to learn how to lift weights, he goes online and starts surfing around, trying to find some shit to do. If he’s lucky, he lands here on elitefts™, where he’s going to find legitimate information from legitimate, highly experienced people who can help him. If he’s unlucky, he’s going to land on the webpage of some hustler who doesn’t know what the f--k he’s talking about, has never trained anyone in his entire life, and can barely even bench press his own bodyweight.
What I mean by wasting time is that when the kid lands on the con man’s site, and the con man somehow convinces the kid he’s legitimate, the kid is going to have his time wasted. If he’s really hungry, and he really wants to get better, he’s going to do whatever bullshit this hustler tells him to do, and he’s going to waste time out of his life – and his athletic career, unfortunately – that would be better spent listening to the advice of people who actually know what they’re talking about.
I take this so personally because I used to be that kid. Many of us were. These con men? Many of them weren’t that kid, and they’re just looking at this whole fitness deal as a way to make a quick, easy buck.
Stick to Your Expertise
My area of expertise is football. I played the sport my whole life, and reached a fairly decent level at it. I’ve coached it for a long time, and I’ve produced some pretty good players. I also trained football players for years, with pretty good results. I live and breathe this sport, and I think I learned a few things about it that I can share with others. What I won’t do, however, is go online and tell you how to train for a powerlifting meet or a bodybuilding show. While I learned a lot over the years, and even competed, I’m not an expert, so I’m not going to pose as one. There are much better people out there to listen to.
I’m not about to put anyone on a diet, because I’ve never been a nutritionist, either. I’ll refer you to the best people in the world, but I’m not going to come out and pose as an “expert” in a field at which I have no experience, because that would waste your time and mine.
People need to make money, so they hustle. I get that. In this economy, you have to make a living any way you can. The reason I’ve been drawn into this shit is because a specific guy, who lives in a big glass house, is throwing stones by posing as an “expert” in multiple disciplines at which he blatantly sucks and knows little about. For a variety of reasons, I’ve been irritated by this on a personal level.
The people who know the situation know the deal with this particular guy, and these aren’t blanket statements about the entire fitness industry, but since I have this platform and shit like this pops into my head, I figured I’d make a few points here. Like Dave Tate said in his Table Talk video, I couldn’t give two shits about the fitness industry. I simply don’t like frauds who attempt to practice their fraudulence at my expense.
And by the way, chief, I’d like you to come down to my gym and train with me. I believe you know exactly what that means.