I ran across an interesting line in a blog the other day. The writer was praising the skills of a former D1 decathlete while he talked about his (very nice) black iron gym. I don’t know the writer, I don’t know the person he was discussing; all I know is that one line caught my eye. The gym owner believes ‘a good lifter can easily become a good coach’ but he believed a coach struggled more becoming a good lifter.
Uhhhh…whatnow?
Walk into ANY gym and watch trainers/strength coaches who’ve watched redunkulous videos on the internet or trained in the past in the most ineffective, unsafe way and you’ll see them repeating the exact same thing! Do they get a pass because they were a D1 athlete or (worse) played sports in high school and haven’t competed since? Any coach worth muster understands the fact that even if someone has an uncanny ability to DO, it doesn’t necessarily mean they have the ability to TEACH. Duh.
It’s even likely that the higher ability of an athlete who learns quickly, visually, and is extremely coachable may have a harder time being able to understand how to simply break down movements to a novice who does not pick things up quickly. I’ve seen it. It’s painful to watch. I’ve even had other coaches ask me, “Why aren’t they getting it!?” with a LOT of frustration. Because coaches who are worth a shit understand that this stuff takes time, patience, and the ability to COACH.
I know. I’m hard on the coaches of the world. Deal. There are so many useless coaches/trainers and many of you become their victims based solely on the fact that they once (or even now) compete(d) at a high level. Are ALL high level athletes useless? Of course not. I personally know some very talented coaches who compete at a high level (higher than I ever will) and have aquaintance with a few others. It could be that the person mentioned above is one of the good guys/gals. I dunno. That’s not the point.
The point is: it may be fun to be trained by Captain America, but only because he’s an excellent coach, not because he is Captain America. Duh!
BTW…Friday.
“The Batman can’t die. He feeds on evil like yours.”
Batman
An interesting thread appeared on Rip’s forum the other day about someone who started the program but was concerned about his growing belly. My favorite (tongue in cheek) quote by Carlos Daniel is: “You can’t have abs if you have a big fat belly and then chicks won’t fuck you because you’re not ripped and you’d be obligated to become a non-practicing heterosexual.”
Heh. Funny. Because men, if you don’t realize by now that a big, strong belly=big, strong man, you’re missing the point of strength training. It’s true. Chiyonofuji (above) is one of the winningest Sumo wrestlers of all time, despite his (in comparison) small belly v. his opponents. However; the size of his belly would make most current day “males” cringe.
A thick belly=strong. Yes? Are you going to have a 400+ pound Log Press or a 340+ pound strict press without a belly? Nope. Is there muscle in that belly? Yup. Duh.
Kaz had a great belly. So does Kanstaninovs…
Big. Thick. Strong. These men didn’t care about abs, they cared about strong. As for me? I call it a win/win. (Rip calls it Juli porn. Both work for me.)
“A strong body makes the mind strong.”
Thomas Jefferson
