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Don’t Fuck With This
or: The Making of a “Guru”

I’ve had a lot of people ask me where I do my reading. What books they should read. Etc. While I have endeavored to point them to some good resources I don’t think most people “get it” when it comes to developing concepts, yet. Most of the time what they really want to know is where that ultra-secret font of knowledge is. The one thing that will just open their eyes. An article by some “guru” that will just clear up so many mysteries, they can read it and feel like an instant expert and never have any doubts about their training at all. Funny how doubts is one of the main things that has kept me growing. Doubts tempered with faith, I guess you could say.

Well that ain’t the way it works. There is no one or two sources that has all the answers. No one article. One book. One expert. That is not how research works with ANYTHING. And research is only the beginning.

That reminds me of a comment that Mike Robertson just blogged. Talking about something similar, he said that he would pretty much go by Stuart Mcgill on anything about the back. So would I. But I wouldn't ever just completely ignore someone like Janda as well. And I would never completely ignore my own experience.

There are entire books on my shelf from which, of all the info they contain, I may take on about .02 percent of it. Sometimes research is like searching threw a stack of needles for a specific needle, forget about the haystack.

All the time you're developing concepts. You’re experimenting. Observing. Thinking. Imagining. Synthesizing all of this into an ever-changing philosophy. You take chances. You make mistakes. You remain always the skeptic but you never close your mind. It takes a lot of time and effort and patience. It takes a lot of monotony in your life as well.

Me, I don’t want to be the guru. I don’t trust the guru. Why? Because for every guru who really is all that and a bag of chips, there are one hundred others who have a secret they don’t want you to know.

And that in a way, could just sum it up, couldn’t it? Things they don’t want you to know? Wouldn’t want the student to surpass the teacher would we? Funny how that is my goal when I help people to have them overcome my limits as well as their own. Because that raises me up. More and more I want to “teach people to fish” and if they become a better fisherman than I, isn’t that really the mark of a good teacher? In my own training I seek constant improvement. But the old adage, “those who can’t do, teach” well, the problem is many of those who CAN wouldn’t want to REALLY have others do as well or better. Just not enough of that pie to go around, in their minds.

So what is the secret the “guru” doesn’t want you to know? It has to do with conceptualization. A lot of these people really do have some hardcore knowledge to draw from. But many times the pool they draw it from is somewhat shallow. They have one or two primary sources. Their “authority figures” and what you get from them is THEIR conceptualization of those sources. You get, so to speak, a hand-me-down version of it, if not a watered-down-one.

Something people really fail to miss is that the best people out there in this industry, when they write books, articles, give seminars, and so forth, they do expect you, yourself to conceptualize that info. To use it in the quest to develop your own ideas. Matter of fact the expert who tells you that OPTIMAL is nothing more than a pipe-dream is probably the one to listen to. But then you have the opposite. That is the DON”T FUCK WITH THIS guru. Don’t overthink. Don’t ask too many questions!

Sometimes that is what people need to hear. But if that is all someone EVER says. Then you better be wondering if there is anything underneath.

The ever-popular 5x5’s come to mind. Or Starting Strength. I’ve suggested changes, for instance to starting strength and been hit with “I thought we were not supposed to mess with it”, so many times. Why? Because so and so said so?

Bill Starr and “Bill Starr 5x5’” come to mind. Lots of guys out their talking about bill starr who have never read an original work written by him. I remember writing a thread about always look at the sources! This stuff is like rumors sometimes. First I punched a guy for bumping into me. A few weaks later I broke a guys jaw, knocked all his teeth down his throat, landed him in intensive care, and I’m now being held on 100,000 bucks bail.

The reason you can’t fuck with it is not because of the reasons you think. The real reason is because if you USE YOUR BRAIN and go deeper you may uncover something they don’t want you to know: They are not the “gatekeepers” lol. It ain’t magic. They just read some stuff and did some training, most of the time.

I’ve had people ask me about the book Supertraining. And usually I tell them I wouldn’t recommend it off the bat because it is very confusing and lacks direction. So I’ll say if you want something like that “Science and Practice” is a better bet. Still very technical, but…

Well, Westside develops a lot of it’s concepts from Zatiorsky. But they are Westside’s concepts. It irritates the hell out of me when I see guys on forums talking about
“science and practice” as told by Westside as told by their cousin Bob. Folks, it says right in that book that the info is to be used on a conceptual bases. Yet so many “gurus” expect you to accept an idea of an idea of an idea. I’m only using WSB as a very well known example and nothing more. But don’t talk to me about Zatiorsky if he ain’t sitting on your shelf! It just MAY be that you have a big enough brain in your head to come up with you own interpretations or develop you own concepts from these sources. It just takes more work than excepting everything on the basis of “authority”.

So stop looking for “the big idea” and simply, speaking, put your nose to the grindstone.

Edit* This article is about training

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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.

how big is this grindstone? and will putting my nose on it hurt?


oh wait...it already has

Did you skip the whole thing and just read the last line?

ha...of course not...you know me better than that

Of course I do, you know I'm kidding. One thing I can count on is you taking the bull by the horns!

i'm taking the bull by the horns and doing absolutely zero training this week

I find the hardest part ( for me ) is picking that right needle. Or taking out the bs from truth. You always here one thing then you hear the compete oposite from someone else. BCAA's comes to mind.

For me it's just trying it out - IF it works great and if it dosen't ,well then it doesn't . Then I guess I would listen to the handful of "guru's" that have the same reaction that I would have.

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My whole point.

Again, part of my point. You may know that results are what it is about but the truth is, many people spin their wheels for ridiculous amounts of time doing the same thing based on what they have been led to expect, rather than what has actually resulted.

This article was written for people who would ask the question that I brought up in the first paragraph.

Look, it is not my intention to "shake the foundations of your faith" in whatever guru's you listen to. Or, to affront those that have helped you out a great deal and led you toward success. It is up to everyone else to decide what needles to choose for themselves, not me. That, too, is part of the whole point of the article.

BTW, I don't exactly know what you mean by same reaction but I don't consider it such a good idea to just go by those who echo you own thoughts Separating the wheat from the chaff is ALWAYS the job but I've grown to realize that sometimes the bullshit is coming from myself. It's like I've done stuff that I think was so fucking great but it turns out to be a story I told myself and only on hindsight am I able to step outside and see that the story was a fiction.

What I mean by the same reaction is.

If I'm getting good results from BCAA's and I'm listening to Kevin Larrabee or his personal and they have the same results and some scientific evidence to back it up , then I will be listening and taking his advice.

Now they might have another option on CLA's (or whetever)that I don't and that's fine...And of course I just don't listen to a handful of people I try to take in as much as I can and get the most evidence to back my case or to go against it

I think this is a very well written article, Eric and about time you wrote one

I am very inclined to just copy pasting it onto the 10000000 boards that I post on but I want this treasure to stay on bb.net until you choose to paste it elsewhere as well.

Damn well written and while I do not know of and neither have I heard of Zatiorsky, I understand what you mean about watered down information.

It's like that guy on bb.com who tried to convince me to do low bar squats because he was doing them...he needed someone to be doing them along with him in order for him to feel secure about this choice. But, in truth he wanted to do that exercise because Rippetoe asked him to do and how can one question the great one and only Mark Rippetoe????



I really like this article and your posts on that thread by DH. Lots of awesome info going around and you brought up a great point in contrasting the view count on bb.net vs. the view count on IA's forum

Damn cool, Sir.

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