Sometimes I read articles over at T-Nation, and I wonder if
there are other people like me in the world; people who are left shaking their
heads in disbelief. Every week I get a spam email from the site promoting their
new products and giving me a round up of their latest articles. Usually I
scroll through them, just in case a.) there’s something funny in there or b.)
there’s an article by someone worth reading (Cosgrove, Cressey, etc…basically
the people who I know personally, and could call on the phone if I have a
training question). In the case of T-Nation, as is the case with the internet
in general, you can’t believe everything you read. But in the case of T-Nation,
at least you can laugh at it. I’ll admit that occasionally, there’s a good,
new, up-and-coming author on the site – but mostly the articles all read like a
nightmarish paint-by-numbers:
* Introduction/Snarky Comment
* Joke
* Information
* Joke
* Information
* Snarky Comment/Conclusion
* (Note: If the article is by T.C. Luoma, the Editor in
Chief there’ll also be a stipper reference and an
airbrushed photo of some
random girl)
But my real question is “does anyone actually believe the
stuff they read on T-Nation?” Does anybody care? This week (or last week, I
suppose), an author, writing about the the pros and cons of each of the
mainstream training philosophies, made the statement that a “Top-level
bodybuilders are the highest-paid competitors in strength sports.” Bodybuilding
is a “strength sport”? It has no component where any kind of strength is on
display, at all…how does that make it a strength sport? And, depending on how
we define “strength sport” I would say bodybuilding is nowhere near the top
paid.
The conclusion of the article was to mix and match various
training philosophies – a surefire way to be terrible at everything. If you’re
a rugby player, train like one. If you’re an MMA fighter, then train like one.
In another article, which described an exercise called the
“Turkish Get Up,” -look it up if you’re not familiar with the movement – the
author tells us: “Using a dumbbell is “easiest”, but it’s a popular exercise
with the kettlebell crowd and old school strongmen would actually one-arm a
barbell, sometimes using loads more than their bodyweight.” Anyone who’s ever
done a TGU knows that the leverages applied during the movement would make this
impossible. It’s not a matter of strength, it’s a matter of leverages – you
wouldn’t be able to complete a certain portion of the movement if you were the
same weight as the load you were using. Literally, anyone who has done the
movement would know this. The ignorance of the readers is implied and exploited
by statements like this (as is the ignorance of the author).
And finally, this is actually a commentary from a roundtable
article I was a participant in:
T-Nation: …is it possible to get over-stimulated before
lifting or before an athletic event?
Author: One I’ve
witnessed was a case where a guy had been working his way up to a 350-pound
bench press over a period of time. About two weeks prior to his max day, he was
easily pressing 340 for three or four reps, yet when the day finally came, it
was very obvious to me that he was all over the place. He was pacing back and
forth, couldn’t hold a thought, was easily distracted and, in
general, just
very anxious and nervous. Keep in mind this is a very calm person who’d never
acted this way on a max day.
Time came for him to start working his way up to his
potential max and I could see that he was certainly suffering from excessive
CNS stimulation. A quick sign to me was his extreme and abnormal shaking while
taking the weight off the rack with lighter weights such as 185 and 225. He
simply couldn’t focus and was so nervous he was barely able to press 315
pounds.
I finally asked him if he had taken anything. Sure enough,
he told me he’d taken 75 mg of ephedrine and 400 mg of caffeine along with
three grams of tyrosine. I finally gave him some orange juice with some lemon
and some crushed ascorbic acid to speed the clearance of ephedrine.
So, we’re to believe that a T-Nation author saw a guy in his
gym who was maxing out, and he walked up and gave the guy some O.J. + Lemon +
Ascorbic Acid. Has this ever, in the history of gyms, ever seemed possible? Do
you think this could ever conceivably happen at any gym you’ve ever been in? Of
course not.
If you can’t believe half of what you read on sites like
this, at least you can laugh at most of it.
Please make sure to visit and like our page in facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/To-GYM-603113973185732/
Source: http://muscleandbrawn.com
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire