Ideas That Need to Die

Concepts and ideas that are holding us back

Picture by Oscar Martinez

This article is drawing inspiration from Eric Brockman’s great book “This Idea Must Die” (read into the concept and his series of these, I loved them!)
Many unhelpful ideas seem to be pervasive in the health and performance fields. Some of these have aspects of truth or utility, but ultimately they are holding us back, or at least cease to be of utility to use once we are beyond complete beginner status (this is you if you’re reading this).

I Don’t Lift heavy Weights, I Just do Bodyweight

To say something like this is to completely misunderstand the physics of force and leverage.

Your body understands stress, not its source and your muscles understand tension/force, not it’s source.

Here are some examples to illustrate:

• A person who weighs 100kg (220lb) doing pushups versus lifting 5kg (11lb) DBs for some DB bench press.

• Someone doing a pistol squat vs a goblet squat with a light weight

You get the point.
This should serve as both liberating for those worried about something to do with external resistance implements and helpful to those in low equipment environments (ie travelling for work or in low resource sporting environments).

For some great books on bodyweight training and progressions check out “Never Gymless” by Ross Enamait (also if you want to lose your mind check out his training compilation videos) or “The Naked Warrior” by Pavel Tsatsouline.

I Don’t want to Lift Weights, I am Worried about Getting Bulky

Firstly: if you haven’t; see above and think about it again.

Secondly:

Many people, have paid many people, many dollars TO get bulky and it’s not happened.

Which is to say; it’s not as simple as lifting weights occasionally and suddenly tearing your pants when you squat down due to the size of your legs.

The one exception to this may be teenage boys, who can sniff the air in the gym and make significant improvements given their hormonal milieu and insatiable appetites. That said, many actually struggle to see significant hypertrophy, despite their strength gains (this should already give some insight into where this is going).

Strength gains and muscle size increases (hypertrophy) are correlated but we are increasingly understanding that this is less linear than some once thought. Of course, larger muscles generally means more contractile tissue and thus more ability to produce force, but again, this is not as perfectly related as once thought. Hypertrophy looks to be the result of volume and maybe training closer to failure, whilst strength looks to be the result of lifting relatively heavier weights - with neurological factors playing a greater role (as the above mentioned Pavel Tsatsouline says: “strength is a skill").

That’s not to say heavy weights don’t induce hypertrophy if used for significant volume, but you can see there’s nuance here in both the prescription and adaptation. This is both why there is good correlation between them and why teasing these effects out is difficult in the research.

To use an example, go look at lighter weight divisions in sports like powerlifting and compare them to bodybuilders max numbers - this is a little overly simplistic but you’ll notice the strength to weight ratio of those training for strength is better by a margin.

If it’s Not on Strava it Doesn’t Count

See above quote on the body only understanding stress, not it’s source.

This extends to the fact that whether you are tracking it or not; load is load.

There are a few ways to approach this when it comes to trackers and tracking things: quantify EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING or track relevant high stress events, using a threshold for these and then assume the rest will wash out from a stress standpoint. In the second case, things like whether you did some extra walking are assumed to wash out in the long term and likely reflect a small amount of data noise. This latter approach obviously works better for those with high training loads as training then represents a significantly higher proportion of your total load/stress. To illustrate this: if you are running 5km (3.2mi) 3 times a week, then your daily 1.6km (1mi) of walking as part of your commute becomes a significant load in contrast to if you were running 160km (100ish mi) a week.

The key here is to understand a few things:

• You need to be consistent for data quality ie don’t move the goalposts (I recently saw someone who’s cut mileage for lifestyle reasons but has started counting some mileage not previously done to bump up the milage on strava- yes, you read that correctly)

  • Another great example is stopping watches at traffic lights etc - a 40min 10km is not the same as 10x1km at 4min/km with 1min break between them - no matter how good that looks on strava.

• You cannot and will never be able to completely and perfectly quantify all load and even if you could that would be just the load imposed (external load) eg milage or intensity etc, NOT how you respond (internal load) ie given your current circumstances how hard is this to cope with for your body - useful examples being the same training at sea level or altitude for instance or in cool or hot temperatures.

The plot thickens though. The obsession with tracking brings a level of neuroticism and stress that is ADDING load and could be detrimental in comparison to being more easy going in some respects. Again the appropriate amount to care about this will track with personality type largely (Type A personalities - hello friends! - in general need to relax on this stuff versus those who are more relaxed who may need to be more meticulous). For more on this see my article on being good vs being perfect.

The Mind as Distinct from the Body

I will confess, this concept is from the book which inspired this writing BUT it is much too important not to share.
I find the placebo effect FASCINATING (side note; the placebo effect is distinct from many other things often called ‘placebo’ such as the therapeutic effects of listening or human touch) but find the way we relate to it little misguided. Generally the connotation attached to ‘placebo’ is somewhat disparaging as though it is somehow fake or similar - this is also the way the medical system looks at some patients at times. In both cases, I would say that something being “in your head” or similar, doesn’t make it fake - it makes it different, but very real. The power of the mind is undeniable and the impact of the mind on perception is beyond significant.

The separating of the mind and body has roots in germ theory prior to which, the Miasma Theory prevailed and people’s behaviours amongst other things were thought to be the source of their maladies (think: he must have done something bad that’s why he is sick). Previously I quoted William Osler’s famous saying; “It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has” (with great feedback - thanks as always to those who took the time). I’d argue this applies in this case and that to neglect the psychosocial aspects of the patient or athlete is to do a grave disservice to them.

I have fond memories of my early work as a sports trainer (read first aid and strapping) for a collision sport (ballroom dancing is a contact sport, basketball, football codes etc are collision sports). There was one player who some thought was a little soft, not quite tough enough, but was very good. He was often a little injured and required strapping many weeks, at the height of it I remember strapping: both ankles, both wrists, a knee, a thumb, a shoulder and an elbow. He played horribly that week, the next I strapped only one ankle and he played well. That was the end of his excessive strapping. Yes, to a degree this is superstition I am sure, but ultimately who begrudged Michael Jordan wearing his college shorts under his NBA uniform out of superstition. This is because impact of psychology and headspace is so well understood in these realms.

This is by no means advocating for excessive superstition and excessive use of strapping tape. Nor is it advocating for intense meditation or similar as the salve to all ailments. It is a reminder that perception is reality in many cases and the impact of the mind on the REST of the body is both real and significant.

Junk Miles

Often a term used in running, referring to higher volumes of running, specifically adding miles just to add miles. There are both reasons people (in a health or performance space) may want to add volume AND reasons that this approach may be criticised. It is certainly possible that these miles (or volume) may be detrimental or at least not helpful BUT this isn’t an argument for, or against volume.

The concept of junk miles probably has utility, though as some may have intuited from the above paragraph, the definition is probably narrower than the way it is used in practice.
Herein is where the idea needs to die. Mindlessly going through the motions to just tick a box is where ‘junk miles’ truly live and this needs to die. Yes there will be fluctuations in motivation and times where things feel a grind. But as mentioned previously in discussing lessons learned from the best in the world, HOW things are executed is of the utmost importance. There will (or at least should) be parts of the training to be focussing on which aren’t staring at the timer and wishing it would speed up. They may be breathing, form, or other facets of execution. Being mindful of these and really ensuring quality of them is key.
Yes, to the endurance athletes reading, I used the Q word. Quality isn’t about intensity, it is about how you execute and thus all training can (and should) be “quality”.

You Have to be Doing XYZ Workout Plan or Style

In somewhat of a continuation from the above, and as covered in this piece which I referenced above, the best coaches will tell you that the HOW is more important than the WHAT. Which is to say that, even badly formulated programs done consistently, with intent, will outperform ‘perfect’ programs done sporadically or with sets of instagram between sets of exercise.

This is particularly important for those wondering if their program is the right one in this age of infinite optimisation and social media hot takes/trends. Don’t forget that the enemy of good is often better and that your enjoyment is key to your consistency (which is the primary driver of success). So, no, you don’t have to do 4 hours of “zone 2” training if you’d rather Zwift race for 2 of your 4 hours of weekly endurance training, you also don’t HAVE to use deep knee angles if you love normal lunges (even though a deep squat is probably something good to do regularly).

So go forth and enjoy your training and exercise, unencumbered by these ideas and thus be part of their death. To help with the latter, please do share this article by clicking the button below.

You can also comment on the Substack platform where this article is if there’s another idea you think should die - or even if you want to discuss keeping one of the above ones on life support.