Without a proven Pro to guide you through the jungle, failure is inevitable.
“There’s never been a more important time to have a quality mentor in the S&C/Fitness space, than now.
In a world littered with an abundance of bullsh*t, having a proven Pro in your corner to guide you through the jungle will be the difference between your success and failure.”
-Ray Zingler on X
Back when I first got started training in the early 2000’s, we didn’t have social media.
We had Arnold, Eastern Bloc Literature, Louie Simmons to decode it, Boyd Epley, Buddy Morris, Charlie Francis & Joe DeFranco.
That was pretty much it regarding sports performance training.
Obviously, there were many others out there, but those were the big figures and names I was studying.
And by STUDYING, I mean consuming anything and everything these guys ever said, wrote, or put on YouTube, multiple times over until it was drilled into my brain.
And then I would take what I learned and practice it. I applied the hell out of it. Not for a few weeks, but for YEARS.
And then I’d assess, develop a philosophy, tinker with this, play with that, see why this worked or that didn’t work (for me, and then eventually the populations of folks I was working with).
As much as I was “limited” comparatively speaking today, I was hyper focused. I had direction. A solid reliable, aiming point.
It’s funny that as we’ve evolved and now have hundreds of thousands of resources at our disposal, even today the best resources are:
Arnold, Eastern Bloc Literature, Louie, Boyd Epley, Buddy Morris, Charlie Francis & Joe DeFranco. It’s funny that they were the best before the social media era, and they are the best during it, too. And it’s because scientifically sound training doesn’t age out.
Are there aspects of training that we (the above guys included) have evolved from? Of course, but when it comes to my rock solid base of knowledge that stems from these guys, I lucked out for sure.
The issue for young professionals entering the field in the modern day is that while there is good information out there, they don’t have a bullshit meter.
They don’t know good from bad and are usually going to gravitate more towards bigger biceps and production quality than they are sound information that will help them gain access to career advancement.
For this reason, it has never been more important to have “old head” mentors in the space to guide them through the jungle of bullshit.
It’ll will be the difference between the next generation’s success or demise in the field.
