BodyBlitz Fitness Solutions

Take a deep breathe and sip on your coffee and coke, because I have to let this out.

The madness of functional fitness has to stop somewhere and a line has to be drawn on reality and stupidity; it seems rather crazy to put it mildly.
Seriously, when will it all end?

Lets talk about functional in terms of everyday life – it is dictated by genetics, lifestyle, work life and even personal preference.
As much as we try to make things “functional” there is only a few axis/planes a body can move in, the rest are just variation within the planes.

However Idiots try their best to make an exercise out of nothing, of which I have no clue how or why but that of a person’s creativity at play.

How functional can a office worker be?
If I had to think of a functional exercise for them, it’ll be sitting on their butts with their hands stretch out with a keyboard typing, “Exercise” over and over and over again.

You see, there isn’t much function yet many are trying to sell it with some weird contraption to make it look cool.
Yet it dies out almost as fast as it comes in and you wonder why…?

WTF is this?!

I know, I know, Hater’s gotta hate but whatever…

But when you get knee benders of a squat, you’d have to question what really is their purpose of which they’re trying to sell you..

Holy sh…

Okay, thats about enough of a rant.

I’ll just end off with a quote off their site, google it if you want to know more -

10 years on, it is this same kind of precision and technical expertise that Nelson carries over from his days as an engineer into his work as a Functional Training Specialist.

We’ve  all have come to this stage of life before, one time or another we’ve done it.

Some of us won’t admit it because it’s just plain embarrassing, but I believe truly that one needs to make mistakes to learn. Without mistakes, there can be no room for improvement and frankly we’re not perfect beings.

If I had to choose a middle name, “Mistake” will be it because I’ve made alot of mistakes in my life and in my nutrition and lifting program to gather my experience that what makes me what I am today.

I believe truly also that there is no such thing as a mistake, but the best decision that you made with the available options prior to your experience and ignorance of  a subject that you have not thought about.

However don’t let that be an excuse but a stepping stone to understanding a subject.

What is a Mistake?

Mistakes are just that Mistakes, so don’t have to over think it or beat yourself over it. Before I start addressing my views on mistakes, I’ll like to throw out a great step by step guide to correcting mistakes -

1. Admit that you’ve made a mistake.
2. Learn from your mistake.
3. Don’t do the same mistake again.

Alot of us fear mistakes because we don’t wish to be wrong and thats a wrong way of thinking. It only shows that we’re a lesser of a person who do not want to be humbled to learn something new, something  that we’ve never thought about. We are only humans and have finite resources to understand and learn things.

It is a shame that people will not admit mistakes because it only shows that they don’t wish to learn more, and to stop learning would be a demise of one’s intellect, thought process and even integrity to their profession. No body can truly say they know enough however one can also know too much for their own good but I digress.

In all honesty, nobody can say they can stop learning if they bothered to upgrade their knowledge and seek knowledge.

However this is different from plain stupidity, making a mistake doesn’t mean that you’re stupid it just mean it was a best decision that you’ve made with your current level of intelligence and understanding; do no confuse the two.

Sometimes ignorance becomes bigotry and being stubborn is somewhat like a side effect of it. I believe too that some people are just plain stupid, and I will not lie about it or try to be polite. There are many people who are just plain stupid because they ignore common sense even when there are tell tale signs to stop it.

What does stupidity means to me?

Well its simple… If you completely ignore common sense even with obvious hints and advice against it, then you’re stupid enough not to act against it.

If you know you could get injured, hurt or even kill yourself yet do it because you thought it was cool, fun or wasn’t put in a position where you had to choose, then you’re just plain stupid.

Being stupid sometimes can be fun, but it ain’t fun when you have to pay for the consequence dearly.

If I could quote an urban phase, it’ll be ” it’s all fun and games till someone loses an eye.” Again, I digress but seriously it happens and still is happening.

What is just plain craziness or insanity?

The last degree of stupidity to an extreme level is just plain craziness.

Einstein made a very interesting quote, ” Insanity: Doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result.”

This level of ignorance and stubbornness that is a forced mistake and stupidity combined; Completely devoid of intelligence and willful intent to ignore common sense and obvious hint.

So how does it relate to lifting, nutrition and all that jazz?

• You made a mistake to eat that cream puff thinking you can afford it when you’re dieting, big deal.. move on and deal with it by not doing it again.
• You are stupid when you make that same mistakes every other day and don’t see results of your dieting after 8 weeks and ask yourself why?
• You are just plain crazy thinking that its because you’re just having  too much carbs.

Mistakes are a dime a dozen, it happens everyday but we learn from it.

• You made a mistakes by training too much this week, resulting you to be over reaching and fallen sick from the episode.
• You are stupid to continue training even when obvious signs such as a flu and a running nose is telling you stop.
• You’re just plain crazy to go all out and get injured from forcing yourself to train.

Stupidity is devoid of common sense, maybe common sense is not so common for some.

• You made a mistake by estimating your body fat level visually, you correct it by having someone else more experience do a body fat caliper  measurement on you.
• You are stupid to insist that you’re around 10% when everyone else says you’re 15%.
• You’re just plain crazy to believe everyone is wrong and you’re correct.

Plain craziness happens, and sometimes people just need to get a smack of reality to realize that.

You see I could go on and on but you get my drift, so make a mistake and continue  to make one but learn from your mistakes.

Don’t beat yourself over it because It isn’t worth  the time to cry over spilled milk, simply think to yourself…how did I spill that milk and what can I do not to spill it again?

However the most crucial take home message here is that, don’t be stupid and lastly don’t be crazy, simple isn’t it?

The word “foundation”  have many meaning to many people, though many the end result is somewhat the same.

It entails some form of  low level support for building something else . Take for example foundations for a wall is the steel bars(re-bar) that are inside to hold the concrete, and it is as strong as how many bars are there to reinforce the wall.

The foundations of physical fitness is no different from a building; gravity affects us all and no matter how many ways you cut it, its going to lead back to same thing.

I won’t go as far as to speak about athletic community and specific sports because as of now, I have not specialized in any sport as of yet but I train the general population more. So I have a better understanding on the average Joe or Jane on the street, whom for some apparent random reason wanted to get fit.

First of all, I don’t try to make up my own rules and views on the definition of fitness. I try to fit the definitions within conventions if its reasonable and for more obvious reasons, that its just common sense.

I view physical fitness as the ability to do a physical activity well – short, sweet and most of all simple. I don’t want to use big words which makes no sense at all, things like broad time and modal domains whatever…

So what is physical activity for an average office worker like? – wait that was a rhetoric joke, because it almost nothing.

Clicking on the mouse and staring at the screen 10 – 15 hours a day, and another 2- 3 sitting front of the computer/television screen before finally hopping into bed. Maybe, just maybe once in a while,  your boss dumps you a huge stacks of file or some pretty chick/handsome dude needed help with carrying some stuff, and you’ll volunteer.

Doing nothing at all, won’t cause problems right? I mean you did nothing but sit on your ass all day, what problem can there be?

Well quite a bit, depending how bad it is. The best part is that when the idea of getting fit suddenly pops into their little sedentary minds, the first thing they do is engage in some vigorous form of sports or put on a trainers and start jogging 2-3 km then start to think they can do a marathon already…

Don’t get me wrong, I believe something is always better than nothing but when most sedentary slugs do this, they’re actually trying to build the top of the building without laying the foundations, building the ground floor or the floors underneath the roof.

No one with common sense will try to build a peak without a foundation; a roof without anything to support it, stuff don’t just float in the air. Yet, this is whoever who have no clue where to start does. Maybe not so common sense after all.

I know alot of people will say, “Don’t be a wuss…just do it!”

Which is fine if you’re 15 to maybe mid 20 but when you get older, things that you damaged while doing physical activity don’t heal as fast and you need to work to pay bills or your mortgage.

Before someone quotes me out of context, and “over” comprehend my point and start putting words into my mouth -

• All I’m saying is that, unless you get paid while injuring yourself, then fine go ahead and stop reading.
• If you can run your life with a sprained ankle or a bad knee, more power you!
• If being in pain all the time with injuries is your fetish, then what can i say?

If you don’t have such  luxuries, fetish or method to work around it then read on…

The foundations of fitness is laid with bricks of strength -

As  I said before – you’re up against gravity; your friend, nemsis and alibi all rolled into one.

Gravity is the one thing that makes the difference of a 150kg (mostly fat) vs a 50kg man landing from a jump. I don’t have to expand the magnitude of a “Richter scale experience” by the 150kg man on his ankles, knees and joints.

He could even kill a person if he landed on the right spot.

If your joints/muscles are not strong enough to take such abuse, it is impossible to hold up a structure (your body) with ample support.

Getting stronger is the first priority to cardiovascular conditioning, because seriously… how far do you need to run everyday from your MRT station to your office? Or bus stop to home/flat?

I’m not saying that cardio is useless but in terms of priority, conditioning would depend on the kind of physical activity needed for your everyday life. Doing simple metabolic conditioning in terms of body weight circuits and supersets is ample for a beginners as long as its low impact and moderate intensity.

But a full on 5km run or a hard interval training all the time isn’t the solution in the beginning. Getting stronger is, and if you get stronger everything else will improve together with it.

Strength is the key element to anybody’s fitness, without it you’re just fighting a losing battle with gravity.

When in doubt, do less -

There is a saying – “what doesn’t kill, makes you stronger.”

That is almost true on most parts but what doesn’t kill you also may cripple you. What cripples you make you crippled, period. Unless you plan to compete in the para-olympics, then ignore what I wrote and stop reading.

Laying the foundations of your fitness need not be a competition to fuel your ego, just because you can do 10 doesn’t mean you have to do 100 to prove your worth.

Although I am a firm believer that practice makes perfect and practice is at least 25 reps or so as a minimum however it must be with good form and done with quality movement.

If you’re killing yourself by forcing repetitions and doing bad ones, do less of it because you’re doing yourself a disservice by teaching yourself the wrong things. Also if you’re not doing it properly and with too much volume of work/load, you’re going to injure yourself.

Less sometimes is more, exercise is like a drug; ample dosage provides a cure, too much and you’ll over dose on it.

Always train with movements and not muscles -

I’m not going to go as far as to say that muscles are not important, because they simply are.

But going to a gym and then doing only bicep curls isn’t  going to improve your life and fitness level a whole lot. We don’t use the bicep a whole lot in everyday life.

There are different planes in space that we move our bodies – front and back/ up and down / left and right.

As a newbie,  your biceps or chest muscles should be the least of your worries. It is like tweaking the rims of a car when the problem is the chassis and the axial that rotate the wheels if you catch my drift.

Sure you can argue that the rims are equally important but you need not worry about that now, that can come later when your foundations are strong.

So aim for full body compound movements – Squats/Deadlift/ Chin ups / Shoulder presses/ Bench presses / Rows – Oh quick question – Does the chin up have a bicep curl within the movement?

These are the basic and most fundamental movements everything else spans from this and are variations, if you can’t master this then all the “functional” exercise in the world won’t save your life.

Most of it is too exaggerated and reeks of B.S, seriously…what is so functional about moving your mouse around the desk? But thats what you do for a living…

And for your information, doing squats and deadlift don’t injure you… doing it wrong does.

Trust me, I’ve seen many who do and they think they’re doing it right…

Summing up -

These are just a few points to take into consideration.

Lets face it, everyone was a newbie even myself, everyone had to start somewhere. However opinions differ as to what you should do when you’re starting out and it is no different with mine.

The only thing I’d like to point out is that if you have to listen to someone, make sure it makes sense to you and not kill yourself doing things that are stupid.

The simple rule of thumb to follow -

• If it hurts, stop doing it.
• If it doesn’t progress you nearer to your goal, assess what went wrong.
• Do not let yourself get sucked in; everything works(if its sound), just that some things work better for you
• Don’t get injured but don’t stop yourself from progressing with unfounded fears.
• If you want to be cheap then you progress slow. If you want more efficient training, hire someone who knows what he’s doing. (everyone needs a coach)

So there folks, my view on how to lay the foundation of fitness.

I’ve almost completed reading Dan John’s Book and I have this crazy idea of just trying to study his techniques and evolve it to modern times and adapting it to my situation.

I am going to start my Dan Johnology cult and begin paying him pilgrimage by studying the text of this book as scriptures and it’ll be a full fledge theology of this lifting life of a sage.

If you want to call me a Dan John fanboy, so be it…doesn’t matter to me anyway because I’m quite proud to admit that I appreciate his work.

Why?

Because it works and its simple yet easy to understand but far from easy to do.

I think it is a great guide to draw inspiration from and I can do it simply by doing what he says and off load my responsibility to him – sounds like me shrieking responsibility I know but who cares anyway?

I’ve started my “Plus one and” programming and focused on getting stronger, so far the progress is slowly improving.

Currently I’m doing 80kg front squat for 5 and 85kg for 3.  I’ve brought my total back squat volume up to 100kg for 3.

Broke my PR of my military press of 65kg and felt that I could maybe push it to 67.5kg, abit above .75 of my BW.

I count the last set of 5/6 to determine my total best.

So folks, if you want to get something done… just do it everyday, you’d get better at it. No need for fancy smancy programming.

I’ve been also upping my weight on the accessories – Core – Roll out with a barbell/ Decline half get ups with 2 x 15kg plates and Back extension of 4 x 5 reps of BW +20kg

All in all the accessories hurt like hell because I’m so weak at it but when I do get stronger at it, my lifts improve slightly. I fear accessories more than the main lift itself – so it shows how weak I am.

Since I’ve increased my lifting days to 3 times a week, I’m rotating my accessories to hit all the parts -

Flexion – Extension is the main theme – Which means isolations are being used -

• reverse hamstring curls/leg extensions
• Half get ups/Back extensions
• Curls/skull crushers

The rest of the other movements will be hit with the normal push pull configuration anyway so I don’ bother to waste time with it.

I need to however shed the stupid idea that isolations are for bodybuilders, because it’s not.

I find that isolations are the icing on the cake that makes everything click together, doesn’t do alot but when you’re at this stage where you’re trying to push through a plateau, anything helps.

Though maybe I’m just weak, but well I won’t know till I’ve tried.

Recently I got off the diet and was thinking to myself how I weak I’ve become, with my gymnastic research/met con days.

Basically I got sick of the iron, took a sabbatical and came back with new ideas, but the truth was frankly I got bored of doing the same thing over and over again.

Taking a side step once in a while helped me realize a few things that I took for granted.

Being weak sucks, having too many goals at once sucks even more.

Again I’m going to make reference to Dan John’s book, because to me it is something  like a religious class study textbook. Each time I read 2-3 articles/chapters and just stare out into space to reflect on my life and lifting life.

Maybe I have no social life which could factor into the equation but anyhoo…

I was quite intrigue with the idea of the “One Lift a Day” Program; Take 1 lift and go to the gym, lift it for 45 mins with ample intensity/poundage and go home.

See, simple right?

So I thought about it and I felt there was some obstacle and pet peeves that could turn me off from this program… I realize I hate spending 7 days in the gym and rather spend that time in my bed relaxing to music or reading a book.

Call me lazy but thats how I roll, because I can’t justify being heterosexual or not being a pedophile and having almost zero hot ladies working out and watching a bunch of teenager and sweaty men work out.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to lift but I hate to hang out at gyms because especially community ones like Singapore Sport Council gym’s are just a play ground for idiots who go there to pass time.

But I digress; simply put, I have a problem with stupid, I try to avoid it as much as possible.

One thing stuck with me for a long time ever since I read that article as a neophyte in lifting on T-nation was “If its important, do it everyday. If it isn’t then don’t do it all.”

Motivated and somewhat fedup with complexity because I don’t even understand it myself, I started a “Plus one and” Program.

My goals were simple, lift 3 days a week, do an important lift plus one other exercise and an accessory.

Rep scheme was a simple 5 x 5 reps, 5 x 3 reps alternating each week just to shake things up and fuel my adrenaline for lifting heavy stuff so I don’t feel like I’m a weakling, and also people don’t steal my weights when I’m going heavy or bother to ask me because they get intimidated when they see me the next time round.. I kid.

So my weakness is in my squats, strangely enough I could do 2 times bodyweight for deadlift but can’t get anywhere remotely near that for squats- I’m peeve and somewhat curious why.

So I do Squats plus 1 upper body movement and core/arms.

A real simple template which I use now is this -

Monday – Back squats + Military press & Weighted sit ups

Wednesday – Front Squats + Cable Rows & Weighted back extensions

Friday – Overhead Squats + Bench press & some curls/skull crusher

Principles are really simple – keep adding weight and go as heavy as I can while  lifting with proper form and never lift to failure – I have no friends in the gym you see, and I don’t want to kill myself.

Having feel of how much you can realistically lift is very important, don’t go just by numbers but always try to push for progress. If for whatever reason, you can’t do or complete the last set of 5, finish it off at 3 and strive to make it 4. If you can’t get to a certain weight like you use to, then forget it, try it another time. I could go on and on but what I’m just trying to say save your ego for another day.

Another thing to note is how fast you recover is how much volume is optimal, what you want to strive for is frequency not PRs in every lifts. If you can’t recover within the next schedule gym session, scale down your workout or increase your rest days. Don’t be stupid and again save your ego for another day.

So its that simple, take one important lift and do it all the time, add on the secondary lift from the other half of the body and add your accessory lift in at the end.

This just in, this is for those who have not subscribe to his newsletter.

Enjoy!

The Great Eades Smackdown, 2010!

Part 2: The Fairy Godfather of Low-Carb Strikes Back – and Strikes Out!

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for the much awaited sequel of The Great Eades Smackdown, 2010!

In Part 1, we warmed up by slapping Eades around a little – now it’s time to send him to the canvas!

Join me as I continue the unmerciful obliteration of the fraudulent claims made byProtein Power author and incurable low-carb shill, Dr. Michael Eades:

Click Here for Part 2 of The Great Eades Smackdown, 2010!

Cheers,

Anthony Colpo.

I had a dream, the dream of owning a top notch facility with all the equipments that you see in the modern ones in the US. All the cool contraptions and device for testing, the amount of free space in their warehouse gym. It is just a sight to behold.

However I was jaded that I could never have the chance to play with the weights like how the people across the globe did, my dream became less optimistic.

The only time where I found it decent was when I was working in the now defunct Optimum Performance gym. But reality has made it such that  Singapore Sports Council was okay, but the freedom that is lacking there is seriously a drag to work with. The only other place which I thought was great was at woodlands, at Republic Polytechnic. Dumb bells going up to 50kg, bumper plates with a spin bar, a great platform to train with and lots of space without much crowd.

The main draw for me was that it had a Kaiser Functional Trainer, which is driven by air pumps. The  other best place to be lifting in a old skool manner would be Singapore Weightlifting Federation which has quite decent equipment and a whole lot lesser rules. All in all there are great places but non of them are really accessible to me due to my location and work schedule.

Home gyms are great and are also a seriously affordable investment but the problem is the lack of space and living in a HDB doesn’t really cut it to do such things. However reality is such, there is no perfect environment to train in and basically you have to make do with what you got. I was dealt this lesson when I left a gym to work for myself, condominium gyms were quite badly equipped and most of the things I’ve learned using barbells and proper dumbbells all went out of the window.

Sometimes all I had to work was with this, and seriously I was stumped. I would stare at it with bewilderment as I sometimes have no clue what to do. So one day, I decided that I just needed to go back to the basics. No cutting edge equipment, as ghetto as it can be and to make do whatever I can with whatever I could find.

I surfed the web for many Ideas on bodyweight training, there were a few but nothing really convincing. Then I chanced upon Ross Enamait’s Never Gymless which was a great resource to work with and draw inspiration upon. My further understanding of bodyweight work was with Coach Sommer’s Building a Gymnastic Body, it was all good resources to rely upon.

I went on to purchase my gymnastic rings and to me was the most sensible investment as a training tool so far. It packs up quite compactly, its not too bulky to lug everywhere and for $80 bucks shipped… I can’t find any tool other than the jump rope to match it’s return of investment.

Anyway my transition to a more basic and minimalist approach got me thinking about my training philosophies, and I can’t help but to realize that I’ve became an equipment/fitness atheist. This sudden enlightenment was further enhanced with clarity from reading two articles by Bill Starr and Dan John.

Everything works, some better than others in some aspects of training but not everything is a perfect tool. Buying a power drill to hammer a nail isn’t the best of choices. Yet some people are extremely dogmatic with their approach, believing that is a one size fit all program or a one tool fit all thing.

Fitting square pegs into round holes is just plain ignorance and yet there are many people who doing that.

So my dreams were smashed and reality was a killjoy. However it didn’t stop me from discovering new things, allowing me to be more versatile that ever. The take home point is this, reality is a bitch, suck it up and get with the program.

You can train anywhere, with anything and with anyone. It may not be optimal but you can make it work with enough dedication and creativity. And in the words of the wise Dan John, “don’t get suck it.”

This week I was reading my new book which I bought, Dan John’s – Never Let Go, and it got me thinking how simple yet extremely effective Dan’s words of wisdoms are.

I thought back on how I was when I was younger and clueless, which has been the case many times before as I drift into the “ME” zone when I take long bus rides reflecting on the day’s events.

When I was younger, I made up my lack of knowledge with tons of information. Doesn’t make sense right? Well it does, well kind of, allow me to explain.

I used to be extremely fascinated with everything about strength and conditioning, everything with regards to nutritions and the body’s inner workings.

All the big words that you can’t even string sentence with, all the complex nature of metabolic pathways and kerb cycles, ATP-CP etc. I would dig through such stuff like a teenager whom first discovered porn for the first time.

I was really curious and with my fascination, became my obsession with regards to learning everything I could.

However with all those jargons and big words, I seriously had no clue what it really meant and how it really worked for someone in their life. I mean I could possibly write a thesis on a subject, do the research, do the fact finding and yet couldn’t take whatever I’ve done to benefit a person’s life.

It is like explaining how a lock is made, the mechanism of using a key to open a lock yet can’t explain to someone to use the correct key for the correct lock and telling them to easily turn the knob and opening the door to get into their own house.

You see I knew a lot of things, I knew a lot of information but none of them were working knowledge to a lay person to take home and use it.

I finally realize I was doing it all wrong and that I was not a Phd student but the man on the ground making the changes knowing how and why to apply them.

I was the engineer in the trenches, not the man in the lab coat trying to make advances to science. I stop reinventing the wheel that day upon my revelation and enlightenment and started focusing on applying my knowledge.

And seriously its not that complicated, its not rocket science at all.

Here are some truism that is so simple that you’d can’t get any more simpler -

• Fat loss – eat less (calories) move more (expand more calories)
• Building muscles – Add weight to the bar (strength), food to the plate (more calories and adequate protein) and workout frequent enough (enough stimulus) or just take drugs.

You see the underlining principles is very easy to understand, most people will and can get it when you tell them the first time round. Such simplicity is more beneficial to the layman than all the scientific wanking you throw at them.

So if you want to get someone to get results, do it simpler and make it concise. Get them to understand the fundamentals first before giving them a lecture on the kerb cycle and how de novo lipogenesis and acylation stimulating protein affects fat loss.

Chances are all they hear is …blah blah blah..fat loss..blah blah blah…exercise.

You get the picture.

I got it from my email, however many of you might not have subscribed to Colpo. For all you low carb talibans, please have a read, thanks.

The Great Eades Smackdown, 2010!

Dr. Michael Eades Gets His Butt Kicked…Again!

Dear Readers,

Protein Power author Dr. Michael Eades has been at it again. In a February 8 article, he attacks me and my book The Fat Loss Bible with his usual mix of lies and half-truths. Eades really dislikes my book, because it shows what complete nonsense his fat loss claims are.

Eades serves up a super-sized ketogenic serving of nonsense, then smugly proclaims to the world that the fight is over. He seems to forget something: I haven’t even stepped in the ring yet!

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Smackdown time! Join me as I administer some cyber discipline to the deluded Eades:

http://www.anthonycolpo.com/The_Great_Eades_Smackdown_2010_Part_1.html

Cheers,

Anthony Colpo.

There is much debate over the Generalist ( General physical prepareness) over the Specialist ( Specialize physical preparedness), everyone who tries to argue for each camp has valid points non the less.

However there is a point to note within the all this heated debate, both sides lose the plot when they’re overtly entrenched into their own philosophy.

The generalist will note that there will always be a point in time that one aspect of physical preparedness is required and you will need to build a bigger base of all the attributes so that you’re prepared for any kind of situation.

The specialist will counter argue that, unless you’ve periodized your training to peak your attributes in help you in a specific area of attribute, you will not be able to fully realize your potential.

As you can see both have their valid points and it makes sense, if its within context.

General population won’t need to be highly specialized and the athletic community, doesn’t require to do much more than improve their physical trait for their sport.

I draw upon middle ground and try to come up with something useful that I could use to fuse both sides of the argument together, and thus far I’ve came to realize that that both sides would require abit of both but not too much.

However the main thing about the argument is that both sides fail to see is that both sides are using straw man to make a point, when the real point of debate is context, context and context.

The generalist argument of trying to be good at everything is because they want to have all round growth in different movements and traits across the board, is not a bad thing and I would go as far to say that it is even a very good ideal but reality isn’t going to support that idea.

The fact that we have 24 hours and limited recovery ability, implies that we’re working under a glass ceiling already and with that limitation we have to choose the stuff that matters most.

When you get someone to learn math, science, physics and even english at a very advance level all at once and then give them a test at the end of their study period, they’re going to do mediocre for everything. It is the same as the generalist, as there is so much you can do within 24 hours.

But within the context of the general population and everyday folks trying to get fitter and having a workout regime, this is the perfect solution for them to their lives.

Do you think they need to break world records?

A specialist won’t do very well with such scheme of trying to train all aspects because they have limited time and they’re training for a very specific reason; to win or excel at their sport/event.

A specialist scope is very myopic, and they’re goal is very simple but not vague. They have preset rules that govern their physical traits – a sprint swimmer needs to be as fast as possible for a sprint event and an endurance swimmer needs to go the extra mile with enough speed to finish first.

As you can see everyday folks do not fit within this category because they don’t need to win medals nor trying to fix their weakest link to perform on a higher level.

When you hold the deadlift world record of 1003lbs, nothing else matters

So end of the day, it really depends on your goals and how much you want to achieve it. The middle line which I draw upon is having a generalist approach to building upon all bases first, of which when it reach its peak, specializing is the only way to go with regards to development of your physical traits.

Both has its perks and also pit falls, general training allows you to have all round growth across the board. Specializing allows you to take it a further step up, and be good at a few things. However general training doesn’t make you excel at anything but it saves you from getting injured from over usage and too much specialization makes you weak at other things you might venture into and increases the risk of over usage.

In my plan for training my clients, I use generalize training as a platform to recover from specialization training/deload as well as to keep the rest of the physical traits up to par. So you can go on a higher level each time, which is like building a pyramid and scaling the bases accordingly.

So as you can see, its within context. Taken out of context it doesn’t even make sense to both side.