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It's not just recovery. Apart from the most basic equipment, the entire exercise industry is bursting at the seams with bullshit. It's not really limited to ind

It's not just recovery. Apart from the most basic equipment, the entire exercise industry is bursting at the seams with bullshit. It's not really limited to industry, even; exercise culture embraces all kinds of myths, from traditionalist "everybody knows" prescriptions (with many of those being in conflict) to galaxy-brain contrarianism to "broscience", and you can find products and services that cater to almost all of those myths. It's not shocking that stuff like cupping and cryotherapy thrives in that environment.

TillE 8y ago
Health and fitness are definitely the biggest bullshit magnets, probably because they're universal human issues with few easy answers.
- z3t4 8y ago
  I was in the training industry as a coach/trainer before going full time developer. One reason I went into software instead was because of all the bs, guess what, it's even more bs in the software industry. You should use these tools, these programming languages are the best, you should follow these style guides, chasing the next big thing, sound familiar ? :P At least with exercise there are a lot of scientific studies, but in software there are mostly gurus, hype, cool-aid and strong beliefs, and plenty of money to be made by smooth talk and snake oil. Just like in software , the experienced developers do not buy the bs, just like the experienced coaches/athletes. It's people who buy software, or are new to training that fall for it.
P_I_Staker 8y ago
Yup, one of my favorite recent ones is machine hatred. I understand that experience has called into question certain machines, but so much of it seems to be based on nothing at all. As you said "everybody knows". eg. Everybody knows that if you ever use the smith machine, your entire body will instantly be destroyed. We just know this.
- ctvo 8y ago
  The argument against using machines is pretty well defined. There’s no mystery here: machines limit the use of stabilizer muscles in compound lifts so they become under developed. Depending on your body type and the exercise they also limit your full range of motion. Very specific machines are great for isolation work. The leg press, for example, is used by a lot of trainers to target quads in isolation vs. attempting to address that imbalance with squats which introduces the back and hamstring.

TillE 8y ago

Health and fitness are definitely the biggest bullshit magnets, probably because they're universal human issues with few easy answers.

z3t4 8y ago
I was in the training industry as a coach/trainer before going full time developer. One reason I went into software instead was because of all the bs, guess what, it's even more bs in the software industry. You should use these tools, these programming languages are the best, you should follow these style guides, chasing the next big thing, sound familiar ? :P At least with exercise there are a lot of scientific studies, but in software there are mostly gurus, hype, cool-aid and strong beliefs, and plenty of money to be made by smooth talk and snake oil. Just like in software , the experienced developers do not buy the bs, just like the experienced coaches/athletes. It's people who buy software, or are new to training that fall for it.

P_I_Staker 8y ago

Yup, one of my favorite recent ones is machine hatred. I understand that experience has called into question certain machines, but so much of it seems to be based on nothing at all. As you said "everybody knows". eg. Everybody knows that if you ever use the smith machine, your entire body will instantly be destroyed. We just know this.

ctvo 8y ago
The argument against using machines is pretty well defined. There’s no mystery here: machines limit the use of stabilizer muscles in compound lifts so they become under developed. Depending on your body type and the exercise they also limit your full range of motion. Very specific machines are great for isolation work. The leg press, for example, is used by a lot of trainers to target quads in isolation vs. attempting to address that imbalance with squats which introduces the back and hamstring.