Building a Better Body (Part 8): How We Learn

In the previous installment of this series, we spoke about how fitness myths get started and come to be accepted. This may seem to imply that people naively believe anything they’re told, but this is not true at all. They are sorting out information in the best way they can at the time, via the method they’ve been encouraged to use since birth – the appeal to majority or authority. Insofar as we do not have a secure knowledge base of our own, we are susceptible to information provided by outside sources – no matter how unqualified those sources may actually be.

We have to acknowledge the fact that the mind is a trained body part, just like a muscle. As with building the body, the ability to think critically and form our own conclusions must be fostered via training and repetition. The effects of evaluating incoming information from this perspective are cumulative, and eventually we demonstrate success in this area and develop confidence in our own faculties of discernment.

Proceeding in this way is contrary to the commonly accepted practice, however. From a very early age our minds are trained by a methodology that emphatically insists that knowledge must be gained by attentively receiving the judgments of an authority, accepting them blindly, and repeating them to demonstrate our retention. Hear the teacher’s lesson, assimilate it into your own thinking, and regurgitate it on an exam. To the degree that you repeat the information accurately, to that precise degree you are praised and rewarded. This system of learning begins before we can speak, and proceeds likewise with unrelenting persistence for the first twenty years of our lives, and beyond.

Mistaking Information for Knowledge

Teachers will often say, “Put this idea in your own words”. On the surface, this appears to be encouragement for the students to think for themselves; but in reality, the content of the thought has been established with no contribution from the student. The design of this request is to have the student assimilate that information, and incorporate it into their own thought process – to make the indoctrinated idea feel like their own.

This system is not enacted by evil parents and educators seeking to turn us into clones (at least not on the ground level where teachers and students directly interact). The intent is well-meaning, though misguided. A parent sees their beloved child, helpless, seemingly unknowing in every way. The parent wants to help child, and so teaches them something of benefit that they learned along the way – “Do not touch the hot stove”.

The next day, the child reaches for the stove again, and the parent repeats the warning. After numerous repetitions, maybe a few days, the child finally approaches the stove and does not reach for it. Success! The child is then praised for their restraint. The parent feels good; they have been of value. The child feels good; they have learned the lesson and pleased the parent. Everyone wins and is happy… but a precedent has been set that does not serve well in all instances.

Fifteen years later, the grown child walks into a gym for the first time. They see a seasoned bodybuilder with phenomenal biceps. “Wow! How do I get arms like that?” The bodybuilder explains that his arms look so massive because they extend way down low into his upper forearm, and to get that look you have to do barbell curls on a preacher bench to work the “lower” bicep - a tip he learned years ago from a top champ in the magazines. He shows the kid how to do preacher curls, and praises him for his proper execution.

The bodybuilder feels good, he has been of value. The new kid feels good; he has learned the lesson and pleased the teacher. He goes about inefficiently building his biceps with preacher curls, regardless of the fact that you can’t actually work the lower bicep to the exclusion of the rest of the bicep; you can’t change the shape of a muscle so that it inserts lower than it already does – this is a genetic trait - and the preacher curl is not the most effective biceps exercise because it has virtually no resistance in the all-important fully-contracted position.

Two months later, a newcomer sees the kid doing preacher curls and says “Hey man, what’re you doing there?” Our student-turned-teacher explains how he’s working his lower biceps so he can have big, full arms that come all the way down to his forearms, and the cycle continues.

No one in this scenario is stupid or has bad intentions. Our young friend sought out information from an authority – a guy with big arms – it’s a smart move, according to what he’s always been taught to do. The big guy really wants to help the kid, and he gave him what he thought was reliable information, which he had learned in the same way, by appealing to the authority of a successful bodybuilder.

A Critical Eye Toward Guidance

Everyone wants to feel smart, competent, and effective. We have been taught to look without, rather than within, to achieve this feeling. Piecing this together, you can see how almost any information, regardless of practical value, can get passed around indefinitely, especially in the realm of fitness, where results are slow, virtually invisible in the short term, and cause-and-effect relationships are difficult to discern.

The fact of the matter is that most people with great physiques have no clear idea how they got them. They often employed countless strategies on their way to success, in a confused - but persistent - attempt to reach their goal. They have no way of knowing if what took them ten years to accomplish could have been achieved in three with a consistent and efficient protocol. This goes for many of the champions and fitness celebrities as well. Utilizing information garnered from magazines, online resources, or asking around the gym is a game of Russian roulette. Maybe you get lucky, maybe you don’t.

It makes sense to learn from those who have gone before, but always remember to test this information against your own experience, and subject it to your own critical process. There are core elements to building a better body that are the same for everyone, but how these ideas are implemented to greatest effect can vary widely between individuals. Trial-and-error, though tedious, is the best teacher; and your patience and attention will be rewarded with a satisfying fitness experience that can last a lifetime.

Thanks for checking in!
Brian Blackwell

If you missed the previous articles in this series, you can find them here:

• Building a Better Body (Part 1): Introduction

• Building a Better Body (Part 2): The “Why”

• Building a Better Body (Part 3): The Selfish Art

• Building a Better Body (Part 4): Your Point of Power

• Building a Better Body (Part 5): The Role of Science

• Building a Better Body (Part 6): Weird Science

• Building a Better Body (Part 7): Common Knowledge