what is ideal?
alright
so you probably read my last blog post where I was rather irritated at the people accusing me of steroids, or testosterone and whatever illegal shortcuts were out there. And yeah people will automatically jump to those conclusions whenever someone achieves something that they weren’t able to. Anyone getting accused of being a fraud is going to be pissed off and I am definitely no exception.
Now one thing one of my “victims” had brought up to me this A.M. (a lady who has strength many men would be envious of…and yes I know she is reading this :D) was that they were being skeptical…which is actually a good thing. She and millions others just like her had been victimized simply for having hopes and dreams of their ideal physique which they are simply searching for a way to do it more efficiently. I really can’t begrudge anyone for being skeptical…especially after viewing this video.
You see the fitness industry is loaded to the gills with scammers. Its right up there with the get rich quick schemes and the penis enlargement scams. Those people make it more difficult for people like me to bring you better ways of training because they automatically go into it thinking everyone is after their wallet without delivering a better service.
It is something thats been there since the very beginning of fitness marketing. Eugene Sandow revolutionized the way we look at physical culture when he started prancing around professionally picking heavy shit over his head, taking off his shirt and making all the girls go ga ga over his physique. Young men wishing they could do the same thing started following his every move. He started selling supplements he had claimed gave him his super strength (1 finger pullups and bent pressing 300lbs overhead). When he became a big hit he talked about a beef extract that helped him digest his food more thoroughly enabling him to load them with strength and power and started marketing that. Years later when steroids hit the scene they actually made similar claims. Sandow also created pieces of training equipment for selling. One was a door cable exerciser and one was a kind of dumbbell with a spring in the middle. The reasoning behind the dumbbell with the spring was that you would have to squeeze your hands tight when exercising to develop the “grit” associated with proper strength training (actually a pretty good concept and one we use while doing presses with the kettlebell). Notice lately supplements that make big promises and training equipment that makes big promises? Start flicking through the channels late at night to see both of those things. So yes it’s good to be skeptical.
On the other hand being overly skeptical has its own inherent problems as well. Sometime last year when I was trying to expand my base from the body transformation kettlebell boot camps to MMA strength and conditioning I started going to different martial arts schools in the area and started offering kettlebell classes to make their fighters stronger and more conditioned. If you lack either of those things in an MMA match unless you beat them in the first round yer gonna get yer ass beat. Well anyways I offered it do a dozen classes in the area. I got the feeling they were just yes’ing me to death and I had offered to put them through a session. I knew that if they just tried it they would immediately see the value of what I had to offer. Nobody tried it. You see as good as some of the traditions are in Martial arts many of them tend to be bound by their traditions. That comes to them at the expense of their arts because now they have a closed mind which will be a detriment to their training. If their idea of conditioning is to run a couple miles while their competitor is doing Master RKC Kenneth Jay’s Viking Warrior Conditioning guess who is going to be better prepared in the conditioning sense. Their skepticism prevented them from taking advantage of what I had to offer.
A couple years back Arnel Ricafranca had just come back from a fitness seminar where they had demonstrated Kettlebells. He had a feeling I would like them (though he admits now he had no idea how much) and he asks me if I had ever heard of one. I said “no” so he came over and showed them to me. I thought they were weird looking but I asked “How do I use it?” Arnel showed me the swing and I tried it. I immediately became a believer because I had an open mind about it and because I had experienced it for myself. I bought books by Pavel because I had an open mind.
So what is ideal? Is it skepticism? Is it trying every new thing no matter how ridiculous it sounds? The answer to both questions is yes…and also no. You see you have to have a certain kind of lens to filter things through. As much crap that’s out there there are also gems and I don’t think you should miss out on the gems because you have to shovel a bunch of shit out of your way. The crap…is the stuff that doesn’t quite make sense and isn’t based on any kind of science or isn’t proven in the trenches. The gems are based on science and make sense…a bonus if they are proven. Yeah its going to have to take a bit of research to be able to separate this from that and determine which is better…this or that but in the end its worth it. Another thing is to find someone trustworthy and take them at their word. I have yet to find either Pavel or Alwyn Cosgrove wrong on anything so typically if they say it I’ll take it at face value. Tony Little, Ryan Shanahan and a bunch of others are bullshit artists and I can smell their stench a mile away (note…I have fallen pray to Tony Little as well as supplement companies…you live and you learn).
Live, learn and for crying out loud pick up the kettlebell and press it
Eric Moss RKC over and out