Fitness is F*cked Ep. 5

Kegan and Lucas join Michael to discuss what is wrong with fitness culture and how to think about changing it. This conversation starts on the topic of training consistency and how folks maintain it, which requires them to define consistent training. This quickly presents the conundrum that negative feedback slows or stops consistency, that positive feedback is needed to maintain consistency, and one must train consistently in order to 'cause' positive feedback. And to train consistently one must be semi- or totally-obsessed; to excel requires obsession, you have to be thinking about it when you're not doing it.

Training, actual training, starts with a purpose, what are you training for? Why are you doing it? If the Why isn't defined, and precisely, then the work is difficult to sustain ... if you have nothing to progress toward and no way to measure or appreciate it, well, doing it isn't as easy or defensible as might otherwise be true.

The guys realize that one's timeline affects point of view but also the effectiveness of the effort. High intensity training leads to a short-term outlook; a 11-minute workout, regardless of how hard it is, does not compel or inspire you to think 72 hours ahead much less ten years ahead. How will what you are doing today influence your physical and psychological condition in ten years? Do you even care? Few actually think ahead, but we all should, because we might actually live that long. And "ahead" changes over time, with understanding. At a younger age, when an entire world was laid out ahead but our appetites were demanding, if acquiring a skill or developing a fitness characteristic took longer than twelve weeks it was too long. Later, with more experience and maturity we recognized it is totally acceptable to sit with the idea that learning to jump might take one year, and that's OK. The real outcomes take time.

Sadly, a short frame of reference and quick execution doesn't develop the habits that sustain the condition that was achieved in a short amount of time. To be sure, surface changes, appearance changes may happen quickly but deep, meaningful, lasting change takes time, it takes getting used to ... and living with it.

They discuss using competition wisely and wonder if the biggest mistakes made in business are the same ones made in fitness, which could be a launchpad for a marketing gimmick but Michael steers them back to the idea that the intent of a workout prescription affects and changes the execution AND the result of the training session.

A laundry list of exercises has no value ... but we can overwrite a lot of wrongness with a proper intention (or thesis). And more important than intent is the story surrounding it, no one remembers or cares about the science of a workout or training style, but they do recall and carry with them the story of it, the narrative built around the session or overall program ... the best storyteller might actually be the best coach or trainer. So while people chase the numbers of a set/rep/duration structure believing these to be the magical keys, others understand, and have proven that if you go long enough or hard enough stuff comes up ... and if you are sensitized and aware, that stuff might cause meaningful change.