It is obvious that we are a society that is persuaded by images and advertising. We might deny that we are influenced, but we certainly are. Anytime we see a guy with a six pack, we automatically want to know his "routine". Look deeper and examine the true cause of his six pack. Is it the millions of crunches he does every day? Certainly not. Or is it the sodas, bread, chips, sweets, and oversized meal portions that he avoids to keep the lean muscle on and fat off? Yes. Or is it the steroids and Photoshop they use to give just that much more definition to the picture!? Yes that too.
Back to the previous examples of connotations and denotations in fitness:
When you hear the words "bench press", what do you think of?
When you hear the word "squat", what do you think of?
When you hear the word "diet", what do you think of?
When you hear the words "low fat", what do you think of?
To reiterate:
de·no·ta·tion
[dee-noh-tey-shuhn]
noʊˈteɪ
con·no·ta·tion
[kon-uh-tey-shuhn]2. the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning: A possible connotation of “home” is “a place of warmth, comfort, and affection.”
Does the phrase "bench press" connote to you powerlifting or something that guys do every Monday to get a larger chest because they think it is their only sign of masculinity? Can women do a bench press? Absolutely. Do 95% of people at the gym bench press incorrectly and usually end up with rotator cuff injury? Yes. A press movement is simply the act of applying force to push weight horizontally (bench press or push up) or vertically (overhead press).
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| Better form than your bench press... and she has three plates. |
It is a compound movement involving several muscles and correct use of stabilizers (rotator cuff). If those stabilizers aren't set correctly before we begin the press movement, then injury occurs either immediately or over time. Unfortunately, guys tend to keep going up in weight even though they can't even do 20 correct push ups with their own body weight. We are more worried about the number of reps, weight, volume, and rest time than quality bench pressing. The truth is that once one can externally rotate, use the butt instead of the back to drive through the feet, and engage the scapular retractors, one can increase performance much quicker. Compound movement like a press, squat, or deadlift are hard to teach and require more than a sentence to explain and cue. While I like to flatter myself that I know more than most, I only learn from the best. Eric Cressey is one of those authors and here are a couple of articles to improve your shoulder health and bench press:
Seven Habits of Highly Defective Benchers
Shoulder Savers
and basically anything else by him...
Does the word "squat" connote to you aching lower back, something that guys grunt during, I would rather do leg press, putting 780 pounds on a bar and not even dropping the femurs to parallel, or an exercise for quadriceps? Yes, squatting can make your low back hurt and build your quads, but why exactly should you squat instead of doing idiot proof leg machines such as the leg press, leg curl, and leg extension? I have said this before on the blog, squatting was a movement before it was an exercise. Everybody used to be able to squat, for that is how we learned to move as children. Squatting is not easy. Doing it correctly requires a huge amount of core control while having the hip mobility to actually get your legs and hip into position. If you can drop into anything resembling this squat, feel your abs. They will be firing up more than any crunch.
Does the word "diet" connote to you cutting calories, lean cuisine, organic food, losing 30 pounds in 30 days, low energy, or being hungry? The word diet simply means "what one eats to meet his/her energy requirement". So how do we get fatter and not maintain the same energy requirements for the rest of our life? If only it were that easy. Our body loves homeostasis.
Homeostasis (from Greek: ὅμοιος, hómoios, "similar"; and στάσις, stásis, "standing still"; defined by Claude Bernard and later by Walter Bradford Cannon in 1926[1], 1929[2] and 1932[3][4]) is the property of a system, either open or closed, that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition.
It doesn't like change and will usually revert back to normal conditions. Just think, don't you think we would have starved ourselves skinny if we could? We don't gain weight by indulging in that cheesecake after your birthday dinner. We gain weight by indulging in smaller calorie surplus over time. That is certainly a simple calorie in vs calorie out argument but it has shown truth in research studies across the board. Counting calories is not everything, but it does have some merit in body recomposition. We have also changed the quality of our food. In the past 50 years or so, we have consumed more grains and corn than ever. Why not? They are cheap and can be made into many foods. America has become a nation of snackers. It only takes a couple of extra calories every day that add up into a couple of pounds over months and years.
I wish I had a solid answer to everyone's question to which diet is best, but don't let that discourage you. This would go against me telling you exactly what a diet is. Strive to eat cleaner foods like poultry, meats and fish, fruits, vegetables, eggs, nuts, and any related food. Be aware that they are all different in calories and nutrient content. A 6 oz. chicken breast is much different that 6 oz of beef sirloin. Each of these foods has a different chemical make up and your body will have a different reaction to each one. Being on a diet does not mean we have to be hungry al the time. In fact, eating well should increase satiety. In my experience, the biggest blunders in eating come when we are hungry and grab the fastest and easiest thing to eat. And these days, those include frozen dinners and snacks. It really can be that simple. Stop blaming others and take responsibility for your poor body composition or poor athletic performance.
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| Just because these have no fat does not mean that your body can't put on some winter fat by converting it. |
Does the phrase "low fat" connote to you skinny, lean, non-greasy food, or good health? I recently watched a great documentary on the fallacy of low fat diets. In case you have been in a bubble, in the recent past, everything is marketed as low fat. The phrase "low fat" denotes the calorie content in the food. We connote the phrase "low fat" as people getting skinnier. Big mistake. Low fat foods are highly processed and sometimes contain the same if not more calories than their regular counterpart. It's all about marketing. People are always looking for an easy way out. People are very easy targets for the advertising department at a food company. Here is a great documentary about how the "holy food pyramid" probably was not accurate for maintaining optimal health of our nation... among other things.
Fat Head
Next time:
Why I don't perform or prescribe crunches
Gimmicks in the fitness industry
Feel free to leave comments, questions, and suggestions!
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