We Can't Talk About Exercise

Conversation requires an understanding of a mutual language.

We develop languages to communicate, share ideas, and improve our understanding of each other and the world.

We know this intuitively, even outside the domain of education.

Every friend group, community, and interpersonal relationship you’re a part of has a language.

You may not consciously realize it, but the language you use to communicate with your parents is distinct from the language you use to communicate with your college roommate (or your cats).

Every specialized field of education also has a language.

Educational language is developed through years of practice.

You don’t wake up one day knowing how to talk to a physicist or mathematician not ever having studied the first principles of these domains.

In the same way, exercise - or “exercise science” (if you dare call it that) - has a language of its own.

And people assume that, because they’re capable of exercising, they know how to speak the language of exercise.

And this couldn’t be more wrong.

To illustrate this point, let’s turn to the field of nutrition.

Everyone eats food at one point or another (if they don’t, bad things tend to happen).

Some people - on account of being a living organism that eats food - feel entitled to share their opinions with other people about nutrition.

We all know someone like this.

Maybe it’s the classic uncle at Thanksgiving that tells you that gravy is bad for your health.

Or maybe it’s that one friend who swears by the carnivore diet, who tells you that red meat is the saving grace of humanity.

Or maybe it’s someone you met in line at Chipotle that says “Isn’t red meat bad for you”?

A vast majority of people feel confident about these kinds of reductionistic, potentially ignorant opinions.

And it’s not always the case that they’re “wrong” about what they say. But it’s a rare individual who has taken the time to deeply study nutrition at the level one would need to be able to justify these beliefs.

Back to language - why is it so important?

If one creates a well-developed language of nutrition, then one understands the first principles of physics, chemistry, biology, and anatomy - one understands what nutrients are, how the body interacts with nutrients, and the chemical processes that occur as a consequence of eating certain foods.

They also understand the interaction between all of these variables. And how the body is a complex system that requires high volumes of research - across a multitude of contexts - to be thoroughly understood.

As a consequence of this, they know how to define individual words in specific contexts.

But they also know how individual words relate to other words in a sentence, within a paragraph, within the larger framework of a body of research.

So….

If you’re just someone that eats food (you are) how many of these things do you understand?

Can you have a conversation about nutrition?

Or are you just expressing an opinion based on your personal experience?

There’s nothing wrong with expressing your convictions, as long as you understand that that’s all they are.

Anecdote is incredibly important, but anecdote can’t teach you language.

Exercise works the same way.

The typical gym bro/broette that has grown appreciable muscle mass has anecdotes.

But he/she (very) rarely ever develops a language that would indicate a true understanding of exercise.

Even personal trainers who have years of experience often don’t know how to speak the language of exercise, either.

Why?

Because the in-built assumption is that if you can exercise yourself, or you can coach other people to exercise, you’ve developed a language.

But you haven’t - not necessarily YOU, my Modern Meathead - but the proverbial “you”.

So what do we end up with, as an industry?

A bunch of people who don’t speak a language trying to talk to one another.

Many of us are simply attempting to communicate personal bias and experience with no regard for an understanding of the language.

The only way that this language is developed is through an ongoing investigation of the first principles of physics, anatomy, and the interaction between the two.

My goal for this industry is for everyone to be on the same page.

So that, rather than shouting into the abyss of social media at one another about which exercises and programs we think are the “best”, we can speak nuance to gain an appreciation of the complexity that is exercise.

I hope you’ll join me in attempting to better understand this language every day.