Thoughts on Stuff and Things - Exercises Don't Matter. But also they do.
It’s been one of the busiest, “heads down” weeks I can remember. It was unplanned - one of those “when the muse strikes or inspiration hits” things combined with launching The Arena and all that jazz.
Given all of that, it was easy to stay on track with the fitness stuff in large part because it was built to be simple and full “MED”.1
Today is the longest I’ve spent in the gym since starting this new methodology. The workout itself was 15-20 minutes, at most. But today, a small group of people wanted to talk - which is typically a problem because my criteria for choosing a gym is: wherever people are the least likely to try and talk to me.
This same group has been there every Saturday at the same time as me for a few weeks in a row. One of the dudes mentioned to me today that they have noticed two things:
I don’t workout for very long
I look drastically different than just a couple weeks ago
And… we got to talking about how I think about this whole fitness thing. They at least seemed to be intensely interested in the logic, reasoning, etc so I spent some time thinking about loud. Below is a summary/bullets of the conversation.
Remember…what I do is unique to me and my goals. The principles can be applied to anyone and their goals, but because the person is different and the goal are different, the details of that program will be different.
Also remember that I am not formally or classically trained as a medical professional or physicist. This is just how I think through things as a layperson.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Everything below is in regard to changing aesthetics. I’ll try to address is below, but there is a big difference between training a skill (getting good at something) and changing your body. When developing a skill, you’re generally looking to develop mechanical advantages and efficiencies, when trying to change your body you’re generally looking for mechanical disadvantages and inefficiencies.
For example, if you want to bench press as much as possible, you’d want to create the shortest range for the movement possible and keep the tension where you have the most strength and stability. You’d also want as many muscle groups engaged as possible. If you wanted to build the biggest chest possible, you’d want a full range for the muscle and have as few other muscles involved in the movement as possible.
Okay… so in regards to aesthetics…
Learning How To Pick Exercises Is Important… But Exercises Don’t Really Matter
People focus way too much on exercises. They don’t matter the way people think they do. What you want to focus on is the muscle. If you’re training for aesthetics, you’re training the muscle, not the movement.
So exercise selection is important in the sense that you are unique - your height, weight, arm and leg length, clavicle length, rib cage and pelvis shape and size, relative proportion of upper leg to lower leg are all unique to you.
An exercise that works for me to keep tension on a muscle and work through an appropriate range might not do the same for you.
Learn to pick exercises that fit your body.
If you’re trying to get bigger muscles, train the muscles.
If you’re trying to get better at a movement, train the movement.
Picking Exercises - What’s Helpful To Know:
A muscle “pulls” in a straight line when it shortens. When you curl, the bicep pulls in a straight line. The weight does not move in a straight line, it moves in an arc around an axis (the elbow)
Every muscle has two “ends”. If you wanna geek out you can go google the insertion and origin points of each muscle group. From a functional standpoint, it’s pretty simple:
Biceps and triceps: shoulder and elbow
Hamstring and quads: hip and knee
Lats: shoulder and tailbone
**again this is being written to be easy to use in the gym. You can look up the insertion and origin points of every muscle - it’s readily available.
Ideally, one end should be as stable or immovable as possible, the other end moving closer to the stable end.
If you can add resistance to the muscle, you will build more of it.
Once you’re picked an exercise that works for your body:
Eliminate all necessary movement/stabilize yourself
Initiate the movement with the muscle you are targeting
One of the reason this is important is that the stimulus must be standardized.
It’s super basic physics…
Remember where the bicep is attached? When it shortens, weight is moved in an arc (with the elbow as the axis).
If the dumbbell is held just a little farther from the elbow joint, it travels around an arc that is multiple times larger. This increase in range of movement occurs because the resistance arm is multiple times longer than the force arm.
Nowwwwwwwwwwwww, pay attention to the picture above. The F arrow and the R arrow will come into play shortly.
Okay, so why must the stimulus be standardized?
Because if your reps are not identical, you’re not doing the same movement. Even if the you use the same weight, the arc is different, the distance traveled is drastically different and the work being done is different.
Most people go to the gym and think they are making progress because they use more weight than the week prior - when in reality, they changed their mechanics. They didn’t get stronger, they made the movement easier.
Note: it was much easier to show them all of this. It proving to be tougher to share in this format than I thought it would be.
I don’t have the patience to write out the rest so I made quick video do demonstrate
Distance From Axis, Tension, Mechanics and All The Jazz
Thinking about progressive overload in regards to playing the long game and a quick overview of distance from the axis.
Again, just one way to look at things.
Remember, if what you are doing is working the way you want it to work, keep doing it. Your data/reality is better for you than mine.
Live to learn. Give to earn.
Resources:
Doing The Least Possible (MED)
Unrelated, but I think you should check out Dan John’s stuff. It’s really good stuff.
This is so helpful. Wish I knew this years ago.
Would like to see how this is applied to their exercises or muscles to make sure I understand the concept