[quote]scottiscool wrote:
Was anyone here lucky enough to be mentored by an experienced lifter or two when they were getting started in this? Or has anyone here mentored a young lifter?
I really think this is a big problem that plagues this lifestyle is the lack of “master” and “apprentice” that seemed to have happened a lot more in the past. We get both ends not holding up their bargain, newbies not listening to those more experienced and the more experienced not willing to spend the time to bring someone along. Maybe a little pay it forward type deal in training can get us going in a positive direction at some point again. [/quote]
I want to agree with you but for the most part I dont. I think it’s like any other sport, the one that everybody sees as future potential everybody wants to work with. In the past and the present. Arnold had already had a decent potential telling physique before he worked with all the greats. In the present now it’s the same thing if some guy with an awesome physique walks into golds gym venice, a thousand people want to hone his talent.
The guy lacking natural talent, and roaming around the gym always gets ignored or scoffed at.
I saw the most part because people do try to give out tips sometimes, but people are so sensative if you tell somebody to do it wrong they’d rather argue. You jsut have to wait til they get hurt then for some reason they are so open to advice.
I’m thinking more on the average joe type level. If you take two twins and set one free to roam in a commercial gym with no friendly people and set the other in a powerlifting gym with a team of guys who are 300+ lbs stronger on every lift come two years down the road we are going to have two VERY differnet looking brothers most likely.
The ego part was something I tried to address in the original post, and yes I agree often times when people come with advice(you see it on a forum all the time) the person takes it as a total insult to their intelligence. Other sports though, if say a D1 college qb came back to his local highscool and was giving the jv qb some tips he would be quite the idiot not listen. That happens all the time with weight training however and I’m not quite sure how to change that.
[quote]scottiscool wrote:
Was anyone here lucky enough to be mentored by an experienced lifter or two when they were getting started in this? Or has anyone here mentored a young lifter?
[/quote]
I’ve tried to do it, but for the most part most kids won’t stick with it. Or they only want to do it their way, even though you know their way won’t work.
We had one kid who was 17 come train with us for a while. He was skinny as hell and wanted to get bigger. I tried on 3 different occasions to get him to write down everything he eats for a week and show it to me, but he never did. Eventually he quit coming, too much high school fun stuff, I don’t blame him I skipped lifting to party at that age too.
Most newbs online already know everything so it is pretty pointless with them.
I didn’t have a mentor, but many of the people I interact with in the gym usually know that they know nothing.
I’ll look at shitty technique quizzically, and be like ‘why don’t you squat to parallel?’, and 4 times out of 5, I get ‘I’m new to this, and I’m not really sure how to squat.’ usually at this point, they’re teachable.
On the other hand, I’ve only done that 5 times. And I only pay attention to people in the power rack. For everyone else in the gym… whatever.
I think the reason people don’t do better exercises is because of the learning curve. I picked up lifting on my own, and the movements made a kind of intrinsic sense. Some people don’t have that kind of kinesthetic feel, and often, explaining it is difficult. Plus, personal trainers can be sued if one of their clients hurts themselves, so it’s in their best interests to teach movements that are safe (ie machines and low poundage dumpbell movements).
If a trainer shows someone how to squat, and they do it foolishly and hurt themselves, the trainer is somewhat liable (I believe. I’m not a trainer, but this would make sense as to why trainers aren’t trained to train people to squat, deadlift and snatch).
[quote]mattwray wrote:
scottiscool wrote:
Was anyone here lucky enough to be mentored by an experienced lifter or two when they were getting started in this? Or has anyone here mentored a young lifter?
I’ve tried to do it, but for the most part most kids won’t stick with it. Or they only want to do it their way, even though you know their way won’t work.
We had one kid who was 17 come train with us for a while. He was skinny as hell and wanted to get bigger. I tried on 3 different occasions to get him to write down everything he eats for a week and show it to me, but he never did. Eventually he quit coming, too much high school fun stuff, I don’t blame him I skipped lifting to party at that age too.
Most newbs online already know everything so it is pretty pointless with them.[/quote]
My brother’s wife asked me to show her how to lift. So I got her doing a2g squats, snatch-grip deadlifts, benching and rowing. She enjoyed it, and for a while there, I wasn’t the only person in my gym squatting with good form.
And then her classes picked up and she kinda dropped it.
Such is life.
I’ve tried to do it, but for the most part most kids won’t stick with it. Or they only want to do it their way, even though you know their way won’t work.
.[/quote]
Yeah I was pretty much expecting to hear something like this. It’s unfortunate that young people(I’m one of them) for the most part are unwilling to do the things that would propell them forward leaps and bounds above their peers.
It seems like especically in the online setting, the people that don’t need the advice and guidance as much are the ones willing to listen and the ones that need it the most listen the least. Sort of sucks, but at least you tried so kudos to that.
Even though the failure rate is probably very high, the success stories that do come out of these situations are enough to at least still give me hope about it.