Most of the programs out there will tell you what to do.I see a lot of people out there trying the Smolov program,6-weeks olympic lifting cycle,8-weeks powerlifting...you name it You have to understand that a program in itself is just a method,and following it blindly will not lead you far.Youll make progress at first and eventually go nowhere.So what happens exactly? Well Ralph Emerson said it best As to methods,there may be a million and then some but principles are few.The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.The man who tries methods,ignoring the principles,is sure to have trouble This applies tremendously well to training,doesnt it? Obviously understanding underlying principles is not an easy thing.It requires a very active mind but you can create a foundation that will help you navigate those problems. I remember reading a lecture from Charles Munger at the USC business school he called A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom As It Relates To Investment Management & Business There he talks about the mental models he uses to make his decisions.The fascinating part is that the models have very little to do with pure finance but more to do with hard science,philosophy,psychology,etc...He created a base from which his mind could grasp complicated problems and translate them into basic principles That,to me,is the key to success in any field Hard science is the base of all models as numbers do not lie.Understanding of physics will give us a good grasp of the principle of Critical Mass (fascinating idea,really),biology will help us with energy systems and evolution,math with the laws of probability.That list is endless So why for example do we need to understand the laws of probability? Let me give you a concrete example: during WWII the english government asked Alan Turing to help them reinforce the airplanes used by the Royal Air Force in their fight against Germany.He went to different air bases and looking at the bullet-ridden planes he declared put metal plates wherever there are no holes.At first the Generals were shocked by the answer as it sounded counter-intuitive but the genius mathematician had clearly see the issue.The planes he was looking at came back,so clearly the holes were not in crucial spots.Rather it meant that the planes that did not come back were hit in crucial places,hence his answer.His brilliant mathematician mind had looked at every angle of the problems before giving an answer an aeronautical engineer might have missed for a lack of understanding of the principles of probability The point i am trying to make is that just reading books about lifting will not make you a smarter lifter.Most likely it will just create strong convictions in you about certain programs and as Nietzsche once said convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.I see this as a major problem in the weightlifting community,as lifters seem to have an overgrown sense of tribal mentality So go out there and look into psychology,epistemology,hard sciences,etc... all those will form mental models from which you will get great insight as a lifter,and from there write your own program Dont be limited by someones method YOU do it by and for yourself
Posted on: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 04:23:08 +0000
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