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By Phil Stevens
The human race over time has become,
as a whole, less and less active. It’s human nature, we are
as a whole naturally lazy, our minds and bodies want any activity
we have to do on a regular basis as easy as possible. We evolve
and progress over time. It’s the main reason we are the top
of the food chain. We figure out new and inventive ways to make
our life easier, less physically, mentally and emotionally demanding.
Accordingly as we have made these
advancements and our daily lives easier our general physiques and
physical readiness of our bodies has naturally followed suit. Our
bodies have regressed in physicality to match the lower demands
we place on them.
Today we in general are obese slobs
who get the majority of their activity on a couch or at a desk pushing
buttons. Even the so called blue collar working class is largely
now mechanized so even those who do work “manual labor”
are a shadow of those in days past.
Follow this lineage back in time to
the industrial era, the agricultural boom, the advent of gun powder,
the iron age, and early history of cave men throwing rocks and building
houses with their bare hands. For each step back the general physique,
athleticism, and physical condition of the population as a whole
goes UP. Interestingly independent of the poor nutrition, lack of
medical advancements, and housing of the time. Just think what could
be created if the two were some how merged.
One can take this same evolutionary
lineage to identify the hierarchy of training disciplines. The more
advanced, condensed, and mechanized the training, The less effective
the results.
The Training Devolution
Hierarchy
Staring at the bottom rung you have
the average couch potato. You then progress to the infomercial sheeple
looking for the next magic contraption or pill that allows the least
amount of non daunting work to keep them in “shape.” Next
you have the aerobics junkies who spend mindless hours on a treadmill,
jogging, or whom consider walking a great form of overall training.
Then come the exercisers who go to the gym and bounce from machine
to machine, pounding out rep after rep in search of the “burn.”
Plugging away on machines that allow work, but work in a uniquely
comfortable and less way effective way.
The devolution continues to a precious
few who venture into free weight training. More effective, but largely
still blinded by the latest fad, gimmick or personal trainer. They
are made to grind out slow reps, standing atop a bosu ball, with
their eyes closed making a some what effective exercise unsafe,
less effective and more painful.
Of these a few then escape and transition
to actual training. Athletes and the like who adopt multi-joint
compound exercises with the most simple and effective equipment.
Squatting, pressing, deadlifting, cleaning, snatching, and throwing
big weights in a fashion that has them defeating the task at hand,
not the task defeating them.
Lastly in the devolution process
I would add those who get really primal, and move on to training
with things that arent designed at all for a person to “exercise”
or lift. Training with things like rocks, trucks, logs, big tires
etc…Strongman types events that command the body to be used
as a whole as the great machine is it.
With each recession the training
and equipment become more and more simplistic, yet they demand
more form our bodies. Simple activity demanding that our bodily
response become more complex. We have to recruit more and more of
our body in a powerful and explosive fashion just to complete the
simple task at hand. In return the payback from each simple repetition
creates the stimulus for greater bodily adaptation and potential
progress.
You need more proof simply take a
look at each group as a “WHOLE” who take part in the various
training methods. I guarantee you as you move down the line from
couch potato, to exerciser, to competitive lifters and those who
work hard manual labor or lift odd, heavy, and/or demanding things
on a regular basis the physiques, as well as their general physical
condition and athleticism, rise dramatically.
Sure, even the couch potato group
will have some genetic freaks who still look and perform well. If
you take the whole of these populations and what they do on a regular
basis as the standard, the answers to what is the most effective
use of your training time will become VERY clear. If you desire
to be big, strong, hot, confident, and athletic, devolve, get more
basic, more simplistic and more effective.
Like most things in life, If you seek
the best way to do something I suggest you look at what most people
aren’t doing, not what they are. Great success is the minority,
not he majority.
Lift heavy,
lift fast, throw things, sprint, chase things, have fun.
Adopt the goal of you inflicting your power on the task at hand,
not having it inflict pain on you. Then smile, go home with the
empowering feeling of making said activity your bitch, have a big
plate of meat, rest up, and recover for your next bout.
About The Author
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Phil, while attaining both his
Bachelors and Masters degrees in studio art found another
passion, that of training and nutrition. A constant student,
his real-world under-the-barbell and behind-the-fork approach
has led to many an opportunity, experience, and change in
his life as well as those he has worked.
Phil currently, aside from his
varied work with Team Staley, is a working and showing artist
(http://www.philstevens.com).
His current personal fitness goals are to become a competitive
force as middleweight strongman competitor, while building
upon his power lifting experience in which he has seen as
high as a top ten national ranking; with a two year goal of
obtaining an elite ranking as a 242 or 275lb weight class
RAW power lifter.
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