Innovate or Stagnate- The Choice Is Yours, Part 3

To this point, we've established conclusively that many strength athletes of the modern era, in addition to the vast majority of the populace, suffer from an intellectual malaise for which there seems to be little cure.  Understanding the issue, however, might shed a bit of light on its resolution, and at worst, we can identify the symptoms of this malaise so as to avoid it in ourselves.  The prevalence of this problem cannot be understated- it spans nearly every single school of thought, industry, and sport, and has retarded the intellectual growth of millions of people.  As I've stated previously, however, the ubiquitousness of something is hardly proof of its preeminence, a statement that is even more poignant given the fact that it identifies clearly the problem I've thus outlined- people are lemmings, led around by common mis- and preconceptions, and they give little or no real thought to alternatives or consideration to ideas that fall outside the confines of their belief system.

Strength athletes grappling with the weighty matters I've thus laid bare.

It's not a lack of intellect at play here- it's society. Philosopher Richard Rorty suggested in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature that there is no absolute truth- people's ideas about truth are produced and shaped through their communication with others. Thus, if their communication lies solely with an insular group, it's likely to match that of their peers. It's then further cemented by the impersonal medium by which they communicate- the internet. Post modernist philosopher Francois Lyotard predicted in The Postmodern Condition that knowledge would become increasingly defined and directed by communication technology. The knowledge they transmit, generated for economic purposes, is guided by both economic and technological forces, and is then further refined, cemented, and reinforced by the aforementioned factors.  Though many have opined to the contrary, I have got no ulterior, economic purpose for the generation and dissemination for the information I've compiled- I write this blog because I love doing it... not because I'm some evil supergenius who's spent over a year mindfucking you into buying shit from me.  

The Mighty Atom- a strongman-philosopher who stopped a bullet with his forehead.  Obviously a fucking lunatic- you can tell by his Unabomber asthetic- but a thinking man who could kick a lot of ass.

My detractors fail to understand that even while they assert that my blog is merely the point of a spear for some nefarious monetary plot, the programs they're utilizing and lauding are precisely what they fear out me- information related for economic purposes.  As such, they're fucking idiots.  They claim that I'm the Pied Piper of unthinking, suicidal gymrats and doing so to bilk you fuckers of your money, all while they use programs like 5/3/1 for which they've ostensibly paid.  The mind absolutely boggles.  Even if these individuals based their extreme hostility to ultra-scary (unconventional) routines, there are really only two instances in which a person should mindlessly follow the advice of another person:

1. if they have found the best way of doing something
2. things don't change

Let's examine these two conditions, which are accepted by the modern scientific community as valid instances for deliberate ignorance to alternatives. (Langer 145) First, that the above parties have discovered the best way of doing things. Perhaps they have, but I can name at least one person to disprove both- Mariusz Pudzianowski. At 260 lbs, his powerlifts are elite- 924 deadlift, 836 squat, 616 bench,(WSM) which would give him elite status as a powerlifter, equipped or unequipped, at 275.(CB) He would even be considered elite at the next weight class up in both divisions with this total... all while displaying a physique upon which countless people have commented would destroy in bodybuilding. His workout is completely unlike anything either group of naysayers would utilize, as he trains 4-6 hours a day, six days a week. As such, it's safe to say that the first condition has not been met with the powerlifting or bodybuilding routines currently in vogue.  His volume exceeds even the most dedicated and extreme powerlifter or bodybuilder, he utilizes an exercise selection that could best be described as a "grab bag", and does more cardio than anyone of whom  I've heard this side of Lance Armstrong.  In spite of this, he crushes shit in every strength sport, or strength-related sport, of which one could think.

Next, the idea that things don't change is absurd when considering a workout routine. There are more variables at play in determining the possible efficacy of a given workout routine than play into predicting the weather, yet blowhards will uniformly discredit anyone promoting a workout outside of the extraordinarily narrow bounds of their reality, into which they must compress their tiny brains. Thus, Langer's words again ring true when she states that "while it is true that [experts] might know more about the [subject of their expertise] than we do, that does not mean we should not be aware of the circumstances of our own situation.' (Langer 150) Had people like Arnold Schwarzennegger, Franco Columbu, or Mariusz simply blindly adopted the programs that were in vogue when they embarked upon their journey in strength sports, they likely would have failed to achieve the greatness they did.

When examined more deeply, the second condition becomes even more interesting. People often agree that the world around us is a fixed, static thing, although they'll concede that it's not in theory.  This discrepancy is due to the fact that there is a distinct difference between an absolute fact (the idea that reality is an absolute, static, unchanging thing) and a situated one.(Langer 42-43, 45)  Take, for instance, the concept of wood. Most people would describe wood as an organic mass of cellulose that comprises the majority of a tree's mass. It can be petrified, however, and thus becomes rock.  Additionally, if you asked someone what eleven times eleven equalled, they would insist that it could only equal 121, and that it could not possibly equal anything else. This, however, is only the case when using a base 10 mathematical system.  Had you asked someone who used shitty math and notated his results badly, you might get the answer 151 (thanks to anon for pointing out my mathematical fuckup).  It'd equal 1, however, if you were combining wads of chewing gum, or 441 if you asked an Inuit, ancient Basque, the same Mayan, an Ainu, or an ancient Celt, as they all used the vigesimal system. (Don't believe me? Check my work here)

Don't act like you're not impressed.

Reality becomes even less fixed when we examine various scientific "truths" that have been replaced over time. Take, for instance, the following: 

• as recently as the 19th Century, scientists thought that a massive continent, called Godwanaland, sunk at some point in the distant past, creating the Atlantic Ocean. We've since discarded that theory for the plate tectonics.(Grant 60)
• Pliny asserted that moonlight "causes a water to evaporate with a gentle and imperfect force, and indeed increase its quantity."(62)
• scientists thought until recently that the Earth was at rest in "luminiforous aether"- i.e., the Earth was floating, stationary, in a solid mass of aether upon which light travelled and the Earth sat. This theory was supported by none other than Lord Baron Kelvin and other prominent physicists until Einstein released his theory of Special relativity in 1905.

As you can see, reality is very rarely static.  Instead, reality is completely dependant upon one's perception of it.  Lyotard cautioned at length against blind acceptance of the products of science, and gave the following scathing rebuke thereof in The Postmodern Condition:

"That scientific and technical knowledge is cumulative is never questioned. At most, what is debated is the form that accumulation takes – some picture it as regular, continuous, and unanimous, others as periodic, discontinuous, and conflictual.

But these truisms are fallacious. In the first place, scientific knowledge does not represent the totality of knowledge; it has always existed in addition to, and in competition and conflict with, another kind of knowledge, which I will call narrative in the interests of simplicity (its characteristics will be described later). "

Thus, the workout programs already discovered are not necessarily the best that can be produced.  Similarly, those that are in vogue are likely only so due to the method in which information is created and exchanged, rather than because they are the best humanity has of yet produced.  Just as the ancient Greeks, among other civilizations, knew that the Earth was a sphere of approximately the size we now know it to be, the theory that the Earth was a disk prevailed for a considerable period of time thereafter.(Read more)  The knowledge that the Earth was round was only regained once people shed the blinders of groupthink and began thinking for themselves once more.

Shed your blinders, and start looking at everything with a critical eye.

And I do mean everything.

Sources:

"Powerlifting Equipped and Unequipped Elite Classification Charts." Critical Bench. Retrieved 10/26/10. http://www.criticalbench.com/powerlifting-elite-classifications.htm

Gardner, Christopher. Reuters. March 4, 2010.

Grant, John. Discarded Science: Ideas That Seemed Good At The Time... Surrey: Facts, Figures, and Fun, 2006.

Langer, Ellen.  Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility.  New York: Ballantine, 2009.
Lyotard, Jean Francois.  The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.  Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984.
"Mariusz Pudzianowski." The World's Strongest Man.  Retrieved 10/26/10.  http://www.theworldsstrongestman.com/mariusz_pudzianowski.php