Tuesday, June 25, 2024

My Fat Loss Journey 2 (The Shiny Object Syndrome)

Since I am switching up my daily diet and walking routines, why not switch up my workouts as well? 

I know from previous experience that it's incredibly easy to fall for the shiny object out there in the media. Youtube is filled with different gym techniques and exercise variations. There's nothing so eye-catching as a "standing isolateral paused single arm dumbbell overhead press drop set supersetted with a seated dumbbell front raise with hammer grip." But it's actually more effective for strength training to keep your variety fairly constant while maximizing your progress within those variations. Bruce Lee once said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once. I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

The Shiny Object Syndrome can also occur in other areas of life, including foreign language study. I've known some beginning Greek students who have purchased anywhere from 5-10 different beginning grammars, thinking that the more books they have on their shelves the faster and better their progress will be. If that's what you want to do, that's fine, but the reality is that the great majority of beginning students will find that one or two grammars will be more than enough to get them to their goal. I say two grammars for this reason. Let's say you've just finished a year of beginning Greek using my grammar, Learn to Read New Testament Greek. Before you jump into intermediate Greek in the fall, it might be helpful for you to review your basic knowledge by using a different grammar during the summer, say Merkle and Plummer. While both books cover the same basic information, they present that information in sufficiently different ways that you will feel that your review is both new and interesting.

Again, if you want to buy a bunch of beginning grammars of any language, there's absolutely no problem with that. When I was teaching myself to speak German, I must have purchased 5 or 6 basic grammars, from See It and Say It in German (easy) to Complete German Grammar (hard). I went from using the easier grammars to the more difficult ones until I had mastered the subject. But truth be told, to learn the basics of German grammar, one book will be more than enough.

Likewise, if you want to experiment with, say, a variation or two of biceps curls, have at it as long as you don't change things up too frequently.