Are You Chasing Big Foot?

So I was visiting my parents the other day and my dad happened to be watching animal planet. As we are sitting there one show ends (I can’t remember which one) and another begins.

The show? Searching for big foot.

Now during this particular episode and I have a feeling that they are all pretty much the same this team goes searching for the elusive big foot and have several different techniques that they attempt for finding them. Here are a couple things in the episode that caught my attention.

They started making these howling noises to get the Sasquatch’s attention and lure him in.
They used pyrotechnics to try and attract the missing link (right the shy and elusive big foot is going to attracted by loud fiery noises)
They would bang a stick against a tree claiming that it was a good way of attracting big foot (really how many times has that worked?)
One person has spent the last 25 years of his life trying to find him (I would have a hard time justifying spending 25 years and having nothing to show for it)

Now what the heck does this have to do with anything fitness related? Well first off big foot is real. He used to train in a gym I used to work at and was a big fan of jump stretch bands in the squat rack and having a big bag of stuff in the middle of the gym floor. But no that isn’t where I am going with this.

This parallels fitness more then you might think. First let’s go on the example of the howling, banging a stick against a tree and using pyrotechnics to attract the elusive creature. When that lady said that it’s a good way to attract big foot…where in the hell did she come up with that idea? Would you find Jane Goodall trying to attract gorilla’s by howling at them and using fireworks? It’s like they are making it up as they go along….just like in fitness.

You want to get in shape…follow this gimmick and get these results. Unfortunately you can’t sell a decent program without having some kind of marketing hook. For whatever reason people won’t buy a program that they know works unless it has some kind of gimmick behind it. Do this it works apparently isn’t marketable unless it’s got some celebrity on the cover. Diet and exercise has to be rewrapped and repackaged and have a hook put on it called muscle confusion or reverse intervals or something to that effect. Many times the genetic blessed are the most sellable whether they know their $hit or not. The non genetically blessed will buy from them thinking that they will look that way too. Don’t believe me, check out your local target and see if Susan Summers has a video out.

Now one other way is about that guy chasing big foot for 25 years with nothing to show for it. Have you ever seen this happening in front of you at the gym? You can set a clock by people’s bench and curl day constantly chasing for something that probably isn’t going to happen. I’m not saying it can’t happen but if you aren’t making progress you ought to take a step back and look at your program and question what you are doing. Don’t necessarily give up but maybe instead of doing bench on Monday’s bro you should do it on Thursday. Maybe you should try big foot’s jump stretch bands or tie some chains on there. Do what you always do and you’ll continue to get what you always had. Are you chasing big foot? Have you caught him? Think about it.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading and being awesome.