Hey there,
Here are 3 things I’ve learned and/or expanded on this week.
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Which Muscle Is The Limiting Factor?
There is so much information out there on what THE BEST exercise is for a particular muscle. There are certainly exercises that are better than others.
If you want a muscle to grow, you have to give it a robust stimulus. You want the exercise to place tension on the target muscle and you want to take that muscle close to or to failure. You also want to be able to load that muscle in a lengthened or stretched position. If you can get these two right and you have sufficient volume, you’ll almost certainly grow that muscle.
The target muscle should be the limiting factor. You should be getting close to failure or failing the exercise with the muscle that you’re trying to target.
Yes, the dumbbell bench press will provide a stimulus to the triceps, pullups will provide a stimulus to the biceps, and deadlifts will provide a stimulus to the low-, mid-, and upper-back muscles. Those aren’t the target muscles of those particular exercises and if you really want to grow them, you’ll want to consider adding in exercises which specifically target them.
Whichever muscle is the limiting factor for getting close to failure or to failure in the exercise is the target muscle for that exercise.
This tends to be an issue for people particularly with back exercises. If you don’t use straps or grips, you’ll likely find that your grip is the limiting factor in your pullups, pulldowns, and rows. The point of these exercises is to grow your back but if your forearms are giving out first you aren’t going to get as good of a back stimulus as you could have if you removed grip as the limiting factor.
Competence Over Confidence (Most Times)
If you lack confidence at a particular thing, you might not need to work on improving your confidence. It might not be a confidence problem. It’s probably a competence problem.
Confidence and competence are both important factors for progressing in the things that you want to get better at in life. You have to find the right balance and it’s going to depend on a bunch of contextual factors like how long you’ve been doing the thing and whether it is in a high-stakes or low-stakes environment.
The classic Dunning-Kruger Effect shows us that when people have low competence and knowledge their confidence around the subject is inflated disproportionately. As you improve your competence, your confidence tends to dip down and is now deflated disproportionately to your competence. Eventually, you’ll probably reach an equilibrium of high confidence and high competence. Although, many true experts out there tend to use less confident language when discussing the things that they are highly knowledgeable about.
Confidence is important. It’s going to influence your ability to take action and work on new challenges. I think that in general we should be less worried about how confident we are and more focused on always improving our competence at the thing we are trying to do. It’s much easier to display true confidence with a high level of competence.
People often say that they have “imposter syndrome”, but they are mostly misunderstanding what that actually means. They’ll often start a new job or challenge and immediately label themselves with imposter syndrome because they lack confidence in their abilities. Motherfucker, that’s not imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is low confidence and feeling like a fraud in spite of having high competence and evidence of success. It’s truly a confidence problem.
I’m just saying that a lot of people think they have confidence issues when they really have competence issues. Create evidence that you are successful and competent before you decide that you need to work on your confidence.
Who You Are When Nobody’s Watching
This one might be a tough pill to swallow for some, but it’s a reflection I think that most people should do.
Your true self is who you are when nobody’s watching. Of course we all put on some sort of face when we are with large amounts of people, especially people we don’t know very well.
The things you do when nobody is watching gives you insight into whether you are more intrinsically or extrinsically motivated. Can you only be productive when you’re being watched over, or can you get shit done no matter your external stimuli or rewards? It also gives you insights into your morality and character. Do you only conduct yourself ethically when you’re around others, or are you able to consistently practice ethical behaviour and actions whether you’re being observed or not?
Take some time to reflect on the type of person you tend to be when you’re alone versus the person you tend to be around others.
Are you the type of person who outwardly appears considerate but leaves their shopping cart in their parking spot, or the type of person who throws their trash out the car window onto the road?
Are you the type of person that outwardly appears to be productive but sits around and binge watches endless short videos on your phone?
Are you the type of person that appears to eat healthy but spends their weekends and evenings binge eating junk food?
Peace friend,
Jamie
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