June 18, 2023 Damon Hayhow

The New Crazy: Woke Training

Woke = Weak = Woke

‘Wokeness’ is characterised by proclaiming that lunatic absurdities are valid realities. Specifically, wokeness endorses deranged delusions; such as claiming dudes can get pregnant by putting on a dress and lipstick, or you can build massive, hulking muscularity by pretending that light weights are heavy. Yet, despite the obvious insanity of woke claims, somehow, some people are making a living selling woke ridiculousness; especially “strength coaches” who specialise in training people how to be incredibly weak.

Strength Coaches

It takes an extraordinary coach to structure training regimes and develop exercise techniques that enable clients to reliably lift ever more weight, to the limits of human potential. It is an extreme, rare talent that most certainly does not come from textbooks. Nor does it come automatically with time. It requires years of personal dedication to the craft; a special awareness and articulation of observed reality; the ability to combine art and intuition with a lot of science; volumes of trial and error case studies; obsessive focus; and constant, restless dissatisfaction with results.

The essence of a strength coach’s success is that exceedingly rare ability to simplify. Like the best teachers in any field, they are exceptional for their ability to make things that are intrinsically hard, easier. It is the same goal as virtually everything in nature: make easier that which is currently hard, so as to make possible that which is currently impossible.

Like in other industries, compared with the best, the majority of professional coaches are not particularly good. Most will actually fail to achieve much beyond mediocre strength performances for themselves or their clients. Like in other industries, most coaches will simply copy what others before them have said, adding nothing but subtracting a lot. Most will focus so hard on the difficulty and complexity of lifting heavy weights that they will forget that their job is actually to make it easier.

Is there any greater existential metaphor than lifting an object that you absolutely could not budge a few short weeks ago? It really is an astounding achievement; biologically, psychologically, spiritually and physically.

Woke Weakness Coaches

Faced with a lack of talent to overcome the difficulty and complexity of lifting heavy weights, many coaches have turned to teaching people how to struggle to lift light weights. In other words, they coach people on how to be weak. Instead of making something hard into something easier, they make something easy into something hard and try to sell the transformation as being equivalent. It is not. It is the opposite. It not only lacks similar virtue; it is evil and deceitful; like all woke ideas.

In case it needs to be stated, a dude in a dress is not a woman, and lifting light weight is not hard. You do not need to learn how to lift less or lift slowly; you can already lift as little as you like, as slowly as you like. Artificially making light weights seem hard is not a positive achievement. It is akin to learning how to make mathematical equations more complex in order to get the wrong answer. Developing the ability to disingenuously make something more difficult than it needs to be – thereby making the possible, impossible – is anathema to the objective of virtually every natural law of the universe. It is not righteous or virtuous to struggle to lift less than you can lift. It is either dishonest, dumb or both.

Justifications for Weak Coaching

Any justifications for training to be weak are either wrong or proof of a coach’s incompetence. For example, I have already written about the factually incorrect usage of the ‘time-under-tension’ term. Another popular excuse is the claim that heavy weights cause injury. Such a claim by a Coach is nothing more than an admission that they are incompetent when it comes to lifting heavy weights safely. Thousands of people safely lift huge weights every minute, of every day, all over the world. The rate of injury is insignificant compared to any other speed or contact sport. If a coach cannot teach how it is done, it is not because it cannot be done. It is because they are not competent.

Instead of making [heavy weights] easier, they make [light weights] hard and try to sell the transformation as being equivalent. It not only lacks similar virtue; it is evil and deceitful.

Justifications for Strength

If you are training with weights it is probably because you have some intrinsic, logical recognition that if your body becomes dramatically more muscular, your body will be able to lift things that you currently cannot? Your dream body can probably lift much, much more than what you can lift now. When you think about it, your current body can probably already do every single thing with weights that your dream body might be capable of except lift the same weights. You can already go to the gym every day, execute every exercise pretty well, do any reasonable number of reps, do multiple sets, do long or short rests, and do multiple exercises per muscle; if the weights are light enough. You can do everything your dream body can do except do those things with heavy weight. So really, the only performance attribute that you lack, compared to your dream body, is the ability to lift heavier weight.

At some stage, somehow, in the process of creating your dream body you will need to become capable of lifting the weights your dream body is capable of lifting. I would have thought it would be logical to train to lift the heavier weights you want to be capable of lifting? It is not logical to train to be incapable of lifting those weights, and hope that your body decides to gift you with the ability you trained not to attain. That would be like lobotomising yourself in the hope of becoming a grand chess champion. Or severing your spine in the hope of becoming a world champion sprinter. Or, if you are a man, putting on a dress and lipstick and thinking you can become pregnant. It just doesn’t make sense.

Conclusion

Making light weights feel heavy does not make you able to lift heavy weights safely. It makes you incapable of lifting heavy weights at all. That is not a solution to anything. That is not “functional”. That is not “smarter”. Thats training to suck. And if you want to suck at lifting weight, just don’t train! There’s some coaching you can have for free!

As discussed above, lifting heavier weights than you were previously capable of lifting is an exceedingly profound and righteous achievement. It is also the very purpose of weight training! It follows, therefore, that being coached to be incapable of lifting what you can already lift is an horrendous misdirection. Whether disingenuous, malicious or just plain stupid, any coach who teaches how to make light weights harder is providing a shocking disservice to their clients! Please do not fall for this con! Find a coach who is competent instead!

For those of you with blue hair, imaginary genitals and Karl Marx tattoos, none of this is relevant to you. You do not need to train or diet to imagine (ie “identify”) that you are as big, small, lean, fat, tall, short, muscular, strong or athletically capable as you want to be. You are stunning and brave. The problems caused by woke weakness coaches only afflicts those of us living in reality.

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Damon Hayhow

Damon Hayhow has been in the body recomposition (Recomp) and bodybuilding industry for 30 years as a coach, competitor, gym owner, teacher, sponsor, show promoter, judge and MC. He has won National competitions in both powerlifting and bodybuilding, set world records, and coached others to the same success in strength sport and physique competition.

Body recomposition diet and training concepts based on logic and reason; not scientism