Do you remember that Life cereal commercial in the 70s? I know I may be dating myself. It opens up showing 2 boys pushing a bowl of healthy Life cereal back & fourth. Finally one of the boys gets this ingenious idea to give it to his younger brother Mikey. “I got it, give it to Mickey. He won’t try it, he hates everything”. The little boy looks at the bowl after it’s pushed in front of him, proceeds to pick up the spoon, and starts to chow down on the cereal. The commercial closes with the older boy saying in a shocked voice… “He likes it, hey Mikey”.
Reflecting on this commercial made me think of many personal trainers & strength coaches. Frequently when a new training concept, theory, or piece of equipment enters the fitness world, many of us (including myself) tend to condemn it before truly giving it a chance. I look back on my 23+ year career and think about how I misjudged so many things initially (TRX, kettlebells, the benefits of the Turkish get up, etc). I will say that with experience and age I’ve learned to hold off on making quick judgments before I truly spend some time with the idea or piece of equipment. I’ve said this before, the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. Recently I reflected on how many trainers embraced balance training in the 90s, with very little research and data. Interesting enough we didn’t question that. What we did know was that it made people work harder. Many of us overstated the carry over effect in strength training, only to later admit, maybe we were wrong. This isn’t to negate the improvements in posture and balance that can be gained from balance exercises. I frequently will hear a trainer knock kettlebells, followed by admittance that they have never used them. I will agree that many fitness gadgets can come off as gimmicky, if that’s a word. But it all goes back to those two questions we always need to ask, “For what & for whom?” For those who follow me, you probably are aware, through my social media & blog post, that I use kettlebells, the TRX, and sandbags when training my clients. That doesn’t mean that I stopped using dumbbells, barbells, cable pulleys, or bodyweight. All it means is that my toolbox got a little larger, and the trunk of my car just got heavier. I still perform rear barbell squats, dumbbell presses both horizontal & overhead, and mix in work on the cable pulleys. I think the variety is good, and learning new exercises is a good stimulant for that muscle between the ears. I think that what some strength coaches and trainers fear is that by giving credence to a training philosophy or piece of equipment outside of their realm, devalues their gold standards.
What helped me to come clean was listening to legendary strength coaches (Mike Boyle, Dan John, JC Santana) say … “I was wrong about that”. What this has done for me is too broaden my awareness to new things. And the current stance I take is that I’ll listen to you, experiment for myself, and then come to my own conclusion. And we may not agree. What works for you and your training protocol may not work for me. I’m not a kettlebell, or TRX, or bodyweight guy. I’m a guy who will do what works for his clients. If performing Turkish get ups naked (that means without the kettlebell, this is not that type of blog) provides my small groups a great warm up, I’m in. If performing kneeling movements on the Bosu, yes I did mention that forgotten balance tool, helps improve posture awareness to someone performing a traditional strength exercise such as overhead presses or barbell curls, and I’m doing it. Bottom line is that we all need to take a step back from casting judgments on other training styles, and be a little more open minded. So maybe Mikey was on to something years ago. He didn’t have preconceived notions of what a “good” cereal should taste like. He didn’t hear about other cereals that were a waste of his time or worst … would make him fat. What he did know was that he was hungry. Being hungry for me is improving someone’s strength or dropping body fat. “He likes it, hey Mikey!”