Strength training fads

Version 1.30

It's important to look for good information. You can depend on false advertising laws and comment sections to keep you from getting dangerous information, most of the time. However, one can still charge $50 for a crappy book, and those that buy these books immediately run out and post 5-star ratings on websites such as amazon.com. The people that write those 5-star ratings can be deluded by the 'buy in value' discussed later or just plain ignorant. Some of the most recent fads that I have seen are the 'Russian warrior' and the Kettle bell fads. It's important to realize that without steroids, strength training is a slow and moderate exercise. If you want to get 'buff' your probably better off dropping to 8% body fat then you are lifting things. Now, if you want to be able to lift your body off the ground, run, jump, and swim like an athlete, then the techniques have already been developed. It's just a matter of finding them. Here are some rules on how to avoid scummy books.

-Read the '1-star' reviews first
The 4 and 5 star reviews are going to be sparkle eyed newbies who have just discovered weight training. They are so excited with their new commitment to fitness that it makes them feel good by recommending, (bragging), to others. However about 50% will drop out in the next month, but their post will still be there, shining the path to a new generation of one month fitness gurus.

Reading the lower levels gives you some idea about what the book or video lacks. It's also smart for a more logical reason: There is no such thing as a 5-star book. Okay, well maybe there is, but if it exists, the statistical probability that it was written in the last 2 years is very unlikely. The one star level of review can almost be pessimistic, but your comparing the tier one levels of a bunch of books, looking objectively at the dissatisfaction. You should not taking a straight number of dissenters, since the publishing dates and thus the number of reviews can vary.

-Avoid Russian, warrior, and 'old world'. While there may be many incredible Russian body builders out there, everything that they know probably comes from exercises shared by the world. There isn't anything incredibly genetically diverse about Russians so the same exercises that work over there, work over here. Plus, someone may have explained how to do those exercises better in English, over here. Russian bodybuilding seems to be the most current fad, and fads are bad!

There is one exception to the warrior rule, Bruce Lee, Bruce Lees books are an excellent addition to your normal martial arts class. His books mainly teach the philosophy of self improvement. He dictates that you should note your body type before beginning any training. Bruce Lee was a short and stringy God of martial arts. If your a tall and chunky naive of the internet, you might take his training exercises with a grain of salt, which is exactly what Bruce Lee recommends. He isn't a God of Martial Arts and fitness for nothing!

Leonardo Davinchi was an awesome man. If you want to be like him adopt his scientific curiosity, not his exercise routine. There's no reason to do an old world style of body building. You can study Davinchi's methods for creating such a system, and make your own, with the benefit of modern day knowledge of nutrition and another ~600 years of improvement on techniques.

-Don't buy in
You know those commercials on the TV and internet. Buy my new procedure and/or exercise machine and you'll have great results! Well there is some psychology to those commercials the first of which is impulse buying. When you buy on impulse, very rarely do you get the best. On top of that you tend to pay more. However, you would feel really bad if you admitted that to yourself, so humans will say the craziest things just because they got suckered out of $150. The best way to not buy in is to find someone that has and use their stuff. Make sure they aren't around to tell you how great their $200 ball of iron duct taped to a stick is, it will influence your analysis. Then you just ask yourself, "What does it do, how well does it do it."