4 Stupid Fitness Things that Need To End
June 22nd, 2010
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by Mike T Nelson · Filed Under: Gym Movements Biofeedback · Strength · nutrition
4 Stupid Fitness Things that Need To End
I have dream that the fitness world is under a revolution. Time to stop living by all the rules of how to train based on their rules.
I WANNA LIVE IN A FEARLESS STATE
I WANNA LIVE WITHOUT THE HATE
I WANNA BE ABLE TO DECIDE MY FATE
I WANNA BREAK OUT OF THIS CAGE
LET’S TAKE IT BACK
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE
–Welcome to the Future by Left Spine Down
4 Stupid Fitness Things that Need To End
1) Seeking More Sensation During Training.
Trying to actively feel everything is a recipe for chronic pain. I stole this idea from Frankie. You don’t need to actively seek it. If you screw up bad enough for your body, pain WILL find you. Trust me on this. I’ve done the experiments in my own lab. If you don’t trust me, let me know if you find it not to be true. I suggest you not test this one out.
Think of pain as an indicator light and your last line of defense. If I don’t put oil in my car ever, and my Ford pinto burns oil like at the rate of sweat running off a fat man chasing a runaway M&M, I wil have damage.
You don’t listen to pain in your body, you too will have some damage.
When the oil light comes on, I better stop the car before I destroy it (unless someone hits me from behind and I blow up anyway)
No, I am still not convinced your body will lie to you. If you can’t trust your own body, you are going to trust your body to someone else who does not trust their body either to tell you what is going on? I am all for guidance and seeking help, but their goal is to help you interpret what is going on based on your feedback.

Ford Pinto: Source
2) Don’t Learn a New Exercise Until You Can Do It Correctly
Oh boy, don’t start those dangerous deadlifts since you may just suck at them since you have never done them.
Newsflash, of course you are going to suck, you have never done them! With the exception of a few crazy athletes, you will NOT be very good at them on the first rep.
“The first rep is the worst rep!” -Frankie Faires
Did anyone not learn to play golf because they were afraid they were going to suck at it? Or did you want to learn to play golf, took lessons, stuck with it and became pretty good (or at least better).
The first time I learned to kiteboard, I got my a$$ handed to me over and over and over, even during a lesson! My buddy Rob had bruised his ribs earlier in the week and had to keep chasing the kite down as I floored it right into the ground. After about 20 minutes of this I hear “You suck!” The truth was I did suck, but over time, I got better. I also got a free trip across the soccer fiedl on my butt, complete with sexy grass stains as the kite powered up.
If you want to learn to kiteboard, take a lesson, but don’t NOT try it.
Did I never start because I was afraid I would suck? Nope.
Why would you not learn to do an exercise for fear you wil suck? Stupid idea that has got to go the way of the DooDoo bird.

DooDoo bird: Source
For the new readers, I am NOT saying load a bar up to 400 lbs and go ape $hit crazy with it and send your spine across my gym. I hate to clean up that kind of mess.
Test it, maybe you only do rack pulls. Maybe you can’t deadlift the standard way so you use a trap bar or even sumo style. Work around it, test it (ala Grip n Rip) and get better.
My buddy Brad Nelson has the perfect line with new clients
Brad to client “Are you a perfectionist”
Client “Yes”
Brad “Then today is not your day”
Love it.
Start today!
3) Perfect Nutrition 100% of the Time
How demotivating is that. Sorry, you suck and you will have to eat chicken and broccoli the rest of your life, so start looking forward to that and please pay me more money so I can tell you how wonderful it is too.
I will then spend more time to tell you that broccoli has over 300 different phytonutritents and is really not the vile weed you think it is

Broccoli-A Vile Weed or Nutrient Powerhouse? Source
That is BS on a stick and you know it.
The goal of a long term program should be to eat as many “bad foods” as you can get away with WHILE keeping your body composition and health goals.
This gives the client some friggin hope. Yes, it is going to suck for awhile as your metabolism changes, but we are working towards you enjoying food long term and not making anything off limits forever.
If 4 brownies on a Saturday afternoon destroys you for the rest of the week, there are some issues to fix.
Caveat. I am not saying that you should mainline high fructose corn syrup, eat boxes of Twinkies for lunch and order more large slurpees with no ice from the 7-11 across the street that you rode your scooter to.
If your body composition and metabolism is a wreck, you have some work to do, but the body is amazingly adaptable and a vast majority of the time we can alters its ability to convert food into fuel with few “ill consequences” Hint, you NEED to exercise. This BS that exercise does not help obesity has got to stop also. Studies has shown that with exercise we can change your metabolic flexibity in a rather short period of time (1), even those who are diabetic or borderline diabetic.
4) Isolated Exericse Cues
Why would I cue your lat muscle during a pressing movement? Last time I checked, the lat pulls the humerous (upper arm) DOWN, which is the opposite of my goal to press the darn heavy weight up! How about I cue you based on the movement I want you to do? Hmm, I see an experiment here.
Latissimus Dorsi Muscle: Source
Why can we cue isolated movement, but argue that compound movements are better?
This makes no sense. Some rip on bodybuilders for doing “isolation work” (can we really isolate anything in the body?) and say compound movements are best; but in the same breath state that you need to work more on your VMO in your quads to stabilze your knee.
Or as above, you need to contract and pull your lat down while pressing.
How can you cue an isolated movement when you just stated isolation was bad?
How about we give ONE cue (yes ONE cue) at a time (no vomitting cues on them) on what movement we want the athlete to accomplish first. Let’s start there and see how that goes. Give their own brain a chance to fix it. Their own brain is darn smart at running their own body (it has lots of reps).
How would you know the lat was the problem or maybe it was the lower trap since I just read an article that said the lower traps are really lazy bastards and don’t like to work. Or maybe it is rhomboids, etc etc. Or maybe we need more YTWLs and more corrective work.
If you are teaching better gross (large scale) movement, let’s start there by cueing gross movement. Only get finer when needed.
Comments
What do you think on these? Have I lost it completely? Let me know either way!
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
Refernces
1) Diabetes. 2010 Mar;59(3):572-9. Epub 2009 Dec 22.
Restoration of muscle mitochondrial function and metabolic flexibility in type 2 diabetes by exercise training is paralleled by increased myocellular fat storage and improved insulin sensitivity.
Meex RC, Schrauwen-Hinderling VB, Moonen-Kornips E, Schaart G, Mensink M, Phielix E, van de Weijer T, Sels JP, Schrauwen P, Hesselink MK.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Mitochondrial dysfunction and fat accumulation in skeletal muscle (increased intramyocellular lipid [IMCL]) have been linked to development of type 2 diabetes. We examined whether exercise training could restore mitochondrial function and insulin sensitivity in patients with type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Eighteen male type 2 diabetic and 20 healthy male control subjects of comparable body weight, BMI, age, and VO2max participated in a 12-week combined progressive training program (three times per week and 45 min per session). In vivo mitochondrial function (assessed via magnetic resonance spectroscopy), insulin sensitivity (clamp), metabolic flexibility (indirect calorimetry), and IMCL content (histochemically) were measured before and after training. RESULTS: Mitochondrial function was lower in type 2 diabetic compared with control subjects (P = 0.03), improved by training in control subjects (28% increase; P = 0.02), and
restored to control values in type 2 diabetic subjects (48% increase; P < 0.01). Insulin sensitivity tended to improve in control subjects (delta Rd 8% increase; P = 0.08) and improved significantly in type 2 diabetic subjects (delta Rd 63% increase; P < 0.01). Suppression of insulin-stimulated endogenous glucose production improved in both groups (-64%; P < 0.01 in control subjects and -52% in diabetic subjects; P < 0.01). After training, metabolic flexibility in type 2 diabetic subjects was restored (delta respiratory exchange ratio 63% increase; P = 0.01) but was unchanged in control subjects (delta respiratory exchange ratio 7% increase; P = 0.22). Starting with comparable pretraining IMCL levels, training tended to increase IMCL content in type 2 diabetic subjects (27% increase; P = 0.10), especially in type 2 muscle fibers. CONCLUSIONS: Exercise training restored in vivo mitochondrial function in type 2 diabetic subjects. Insulin-mediated glucose
disposal and metabolic flexibility improved in type 2 diabetic subjects in the face of near-significantly increased IMCL content. This indicates that increased capacity to store IMCL and restoration of improved mitochondrial function contribute to improved muscle insulin sensitivity.
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