So I woke up today and realized I haven’t been as consistent with my blogging as I normally am. It’s partially because I have been busy in a good way and partially because I needed to find my muse so I could come up with something half way interesting that has a nice flow to it. Searching for my muse I turned to my facebook followers. Three people answered me (one is going to require a separate blog post since I don’t have the facts about that one yet) and two suggested something along the same lines.

Now I have a question for you. Are you training to get sore…or are you training to get better? You see many people…especially beginners equate the two as being one in the same. I once said as a facebook status update that successful training involves chasing awesomeness, not soreness and some of the coaches I look up to ended up quoting me (I have arrived ).

Not to long ago someone close to me who likes business and stuff had read that crossfit has had a steady climb in popularity according to Google search statistics. Wanting in on the action he decided to go to a local crossfit and did it for a month and when he came over he claimed with a big fat smile on his face that “I have been sore for a month straight.”

Watching him wince as he gets in and out of his truck I said to him “And you think that is a good thing?”

I don’t know maybe it turns out that I’m not all that smart to begin with but I like to think that moving without pain is a good thing…or maybe it’s because my training experience and intuition tells me that soreness isn’t a good thing.

But like I said…a beginner may not know the difference.

Here’s the thing. Beginners come into the training world with hopes and dreams and retain that ability to adapt quickly (since it’s a brand new stimulus) and they have a somewhat uncorrupted mind. Unfortunately with that uncorrupted mind comes the characteristic of being naive which isn’t good in one of the 3 most dishonest industry’s out there (get rich quick, grow your dick and fitness/weight loss).

I can gain balance and strength by jumping on a trampoline?!?! Holy bouncing bull$hit Batman!!!

Every once in awhile I’ll have a coach/personal trainer come my way who wants to get a taste of the way I do thing and the methods to my madness. I ask them to please empty their cup and when they do they are able to move forward. On the same token I can get people who have been corrupted by late night informercials praying on women’s fears of looking like a man if they train to get stronger and I’ll get others who are brand new and are lucky that I got my claws on them first.

When you approach something new…you have to come at it with the mindset of a beginner (because beginners are like a sponge) but with the common sense approach of a veteran. You can see how crazy this can get since that is basically a contradictory statement.

A couple years back I used a bodybuilding approach for strength training and consequently got my ass kicked in a Judo match. Yeah I got stronger but less athletic. I reasoned that I lost it and should just train for looks. Low and behold the kettlebell came my way and I learned the swing from reading Enter the Kettlebell which completely changed my outlook on how to train with form following function and how I explain getting stronger by practice.

Here is how I do it.

Me: If you could press a heavy weight overhead with one hand then you would consider yourself strong right?

Some guy: Yeah.

Me: Now it would make sense that if you took a weight that was challenging but you could press with confidence and did it a bunch of times while staying fresh and did that often…then that weight would no longer be challenging right?

Some guy: Yeah.

Me: Now when that weight becomes easy you move up to another weight that is challenging and do the same thing and eventually that heavy weight will be achievable. That makes sense right?

Some guy: Yeah but you just got better at pressing the weight.

Me: But you yourself said yourself that pressing that weight requires strength.

But what about muscle confusion? What about constant variance of movements? What about no pain no gain? What about dynamic inertia? Well I didn’t achieve a beast bent press by constantly changing the exercise or by working to oblivion. I train to get better…not to get tired.

These are the things that try to cloud and confuse the innocent mind. When you go down the road of strength and physical awesomeness there are many things on the side of the road that might look like gold but are actually just broken glass. Unfortunately it can take experience to determine what is what and which is which. This is where you have to go back on what you have previously learned about life that we call “common sense”. If something makes sense to you you might try it…but rethink it first. I couldn’t believe how on the surface treating training like practice is…but hey, it works.

It can also confuse a beginner’s mindset with the plethora of info that is the internet. Chances are you came upon my blog because you wanted to look into kettlebell training and using them for various purposes. Well lucky you…you found me. Someone who is certified in a system of kettlebell training that is considered the gold standard. Unfortunately people searching for kettlebells might not find someone who knows what they are doing. Like this guy.

Oh wow he fell over…and that’s ok. What a f’n idiot. I am beginning to see a correlation between men who shave their legs and bad training technique.

But you see here is a guy with a bunch of letters and people think he might be respectable. Hell he’s listed on a chiroprator’s site (I count both of them as morons btw.)

Well anyways…keep an open mind but don’t ignore your past experience. Even if you are new to this. Or you could just listen to me:).

Also I started a video log series because writing out these long blog posts takes quite a bit of time. Vlogs don’t take up quite so much. Here is the first episode.

Eric Moss RKC