Last couple of days I’ve been listening to interviews with Doug Brignole again, the fitness trainer who’s recently passed away. It’s been several years since I first saw one of his interviews and I’ve listened to the same conversations over and over, picking up something new each time. By this point I know the material so well, I could probably give a lecture on it myself. So why do I keep listening?
Passion.
This man could talk for hours why certain exercises were no good, with a level of understanding and enthusiasm rarely seen in the industry. And once I truly understood what he was saying, I’ve shared his training advice with several people over the years. To understand what makes him stand apart, let’s take a closer look at the fitness industry.
Here’s the thing, beginners tend to find fitness confusing. Why? Because there are hundreds of exercises for the same muscle. Simply put, they don’t know what to do. Back in the day, you bought a fitness magazine, read the articles and you’d perform their latest training routine. Fast forward four weeks, when that routine didn’t give you the results you were after, you’d have gone with yet another routine. Every month there’s a new fitness expert, coming up with new exercises and routines. These people love hype and complicated terminology. Soon you realize it’s all hot air.
Then you turn to the internet and you’ll soon find another school of thought. These guys believe in doing things the old school way. They’re constantly on the lookout for even older training programs. They’re ecstatic to find some ancient Soviet workout routine, originally meant for heavily enhanced lifters. And they love their five by fives. Now, I’ll hand it to them, they’re usually fairly strong fellas. But typically their physiques are incomplete. Despite squatting heavy weights, their quadriceps still aren’t much to look at. They’ll tell you to trust that compound lifts will build your whole body, but typically their shoulders and arms lag behind. And in their desire for strength, they’re constantly ingesting way too many calories, causing them to blow up like balloons. This is all somewhat of a generalization, but those in the know would recognize what I’m saying here.
Brignole changed the game by coming up with a reasonable way of looking at exercises, to understand why they do what they do. Soon as you get what he’s saying, you find yourself not having to slavishly follow someone else’s routine and choice of exercises. You’re able to put something together all by yourself. It removes all mysticism these other groups tend to hide behind.
So you can imagine why I want to share this with the world. A while back I shared one of Brignole’s early videos on this subject, to someone employed in the fitness industry, who I happened to know personally. She’s a fairly sensible woman and physically fit, regularly sharing photos and videos of her sports activities on social media. And yet, no response whatsoever. I’m fairly certain she didn’t even bother to look at the video. If she did, chances are she either dismissed it out of hand, or failed to see what the big deal was.
The truth of the matter is, not everyone cares about the same subjects as you do. As the saying goes, “Some do… and some don’t.” Just look at their actions and you’ll know their level of interest straight away. Unfortunately, passion is a great deal rarer than any of us would like to admit. Recently I had a conversation with a professional regarding their line of work and found they quickly ran out of stuff to say. I sensed I had to hold myself back, because this was a topic I was genuinely interested in, having previously read tons of books on the subject. Ultimately I pitied this person, for all the subtle bragging happening throughout the conversation, they had no real interest for what they were doing.
The thing is, a lack of interest shows itself in your communication. There’s no trick to make up for a shortage of ideas. Go look in someone’s bookshelves and you’ll soon find out what really catches their interest. Or if it’s not books, what would we see if we’d look on their YouTube page? What do they tend to steer their conversations towards? For most people, it’s just not very impressive.
So you have a choice to make. Be passionate about something and go read everything you can. Make sure you have something to say. Food for thought!
Kind regards
Vincent J. Dancet