Training and Assessing Hypothetical Guy

At my seminar in Vancouver this weekend, I got some really fantastic questions.

There were a few times, though, when “Hypothetical Guy” made an appearance. If you’ve never met “Hypothetical Guy” before, let me introduce you.

“Hypothetical guy” is someone (either ourselves, a client/athlete we’re working with, or simply someone we create in our mind) to help us ask a question. He has a background, a training history, a sporting history, an injury history, etc.

The problem is, when you ask myself (or someone like me) about hypothetical guy, it’s really hard to give you a definitive answer, because I don’t know everything about hypothetical guy. At the very least, I don’t know as much about him as you do.

For instance, ponder the following questions.

“How do I get bigger arms?”

“Is lumbar flexion ok?”

“How do I squat 600 pounds?”

“What type of diet is best?”

Can you imagine and appreciate how difficult how hard it is to answer those questions?

Without knowing A LOT about you, or your hypothetical man, the answer is almost always “it depends.”

If you want to get bigger arms, the course of action may be a lot different when going from 12″ to 13″ than it would be in going from 19″ to 20″.

Is lumbar flexion ok? Most times I would say that people don’t need any more lumbar flexion.  But what if they lack normal flexion range of motion? Then in that instance, sure, it may be warranted (without loading, mind you, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog).

How do I squat 600 pounds? Where are you at now? What kind of programming are you currently doing? What does your technique look like? What kind of injury history are we working with and/or around?

As you can see, it’s really hard to answer questions such as these without a boatload of information.

So if at any point in time I don’t answer a question as sufficiently as you’d like, keep in mind I’m not just being a jerk.  I want to give people a high quality answer that’s going to help them achieve their goals.

But when we’re talking about hypothetical guy, where I don’t know all the information, that’s really hard to do.

All the best

MR

(Lead Photo Courtesty of Ncanup)

P.S. – I totally forgot to mention that Charlie Weingroff is hosting a free webinar on his “Core Pendulum Theory.” If you have some free time, definitely check it out HERE.


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