Be open-minded! Anyone who wants to discover the best type of training for themselves must have some degree of open-mindedness. The opposite of an open mind is a closed mind that is not open to training ideas that might lead to a better outcome. While an open mind is a good thing, it can be a detriment when taken to extremes. An open-minded person may be willing to try any idea that has to do with strength training, but that doesn’t mean they have to accept every idea after finding that some of the ideas they tried didn’t work.
Why Be Open-Minded?
The purpose of an open mind is to be willing to seek out ideas that may have a positive effect on the outcome of your training, At the same time, the correct application of an open mind will discard ideas that have been honestly tried and applied, but have conclusively proven to have a negative effect on your training. Open mindedness must have a positive purpose. No one should be open-minded enough to jump head first off a 20 foot building in hopes of flying. Open mindedness that embraces behavior that leads to destruction and negative outcomes is senseless. Let me put it like this:
Be open-minded enough to discover the truth, but not so open-minded that you would believe a lie.
Vince Gironda was an outstanding trainer who trained many excellent bodybuilders in his day. He wasn’t always the most pleasant person to be around as he could be opinionated, abrasive, and impatient with people, but one thing I appreciate about him was that he was very open-minded about training. Vince was willing to try anything and continued to remain open-minded about any type of training that proved to work, but he stopped being open-minded in regard to training methods that proved to be futile. Vince was oblivious to training trends. No matter how popular an exercise or training technique seemed to be, he would reject it if it didn’t produce the right results in his own experience and the experience of his clients. At the same time, he didn’t care how unpopular an exercise or training method was, he would embrace it if it proved to be a superior form of training.
See For Yourself What Works
There are a lot of very knowledgeable lifters, bodybuilders, and trainers who can give you excellent advice. At the same time, you may find that the experts have different philosophies that contradict one another. Who are you going to believe? There’s nothing wrong with trying out the variations in advice that are offered by different lifters, coaches, and bodybuilders. This allows you to see for yourself which set of advice works best for your individual body. The problem comes when you favor a certain person within the arena of weight training so much that you stop thinking for yourself and blindly follow their advice, regardless of the results that it produces in your own experience.
An Early Lesson In Open Mindedness
Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time. When I started training with weights, I wanted to know everything about Arnold’s training, and I sought as much information about his training as I could. I learned a lot from reading about Arnold, but there came a point at which I knew I needed to have an open mind towards others who had different ideas about training. The ideas that worked best often came from lesser known names such as Bradley J. Steiner and Stuart McRobert, Neither of these men were champions of great renown, but they had the courage to advocate training that was different than the type of training that was publicized by the main stream muscle media and the champions.
Peary Rader, An Openminded Man
I admire Peary and Mabel Rader who were the original publishers and editors of the original Iron Man Magazine. Peary preferred brief high intensity workouts twice per week before the concept was popularized by Arthur Jones, Ellington Darden, and the Mentzer brothers. He created training courses called the Iron Man Barbell Course, and the Iron Man Dumbbell Course. Even so, he was very open minded and published the routines of bodybuilding champions, powerlifting champions, and weight lifting champions, as well as lesser known lifters and common people who would never be champions. Peary printed it all and was open to all ideas to let the reader try the ideas and decide for themselves what worked. Peary created an open-minded weight training culture among his readers.
Leo Costa Jr. Benefited From An Open-Mind
Another very open-minded bodybuilder is Leo Costa Jr. Leo was able to go to Bulgaria to observe their lifters and talk with their coaches during an era when the Bulgarians had some of the most dominant Olympic lifters in the world. He came away with a whole new concept of weight lifting and bodybuilding that led to his training manual called, Big Beyond Belief.
Leo’s new system of training consisted of a variety of workouts that were carefully structured to include high volume and low volume training, and high frequency and moderate frequency training. The workouts were sequenced in a manner that causes each type of workout to amplify the effects of the others. Leo’s training violated much of what he believed about training before his visit to Bulgaria. To his credit, he was open-minded enough to try new concepts that he and many others found to be very effective.
“Group-think” Stifles Open Mindedness
It is possible that some of you are in a group setting where there is a socially correct way to train. If you try to be different, people will think there is something wrong with you. You are expected to conform to the norm. There is nothing wrong with this as long as it is working, but if you reach a point where it stops working and you want to explore other training ideas, the group conformity setting can stifle you from being open minded. A phenomenon called “group-think” can work its way into the weight training environment and prevent you from thinking for yourself. If you want to succeed to the greatest extent, it is good to listen to others, but sometimes it is necessary to think for yourself, or to choose for yourself who you should listen to.
Be Open-minded In The Right Way
The bottom line is to be open-minded in a way that leads to the best outcome. I believe this is something that we should all strive for in every area of life. Be open-minded, but be honest about the outcome of what you are being open-minded about. We seem to live in an age where people are open-minded about a lot of things, but people are sometimes closed minded about the consequences that correspond to the behaviors that they are being open-minded about. In other words, they want to be open-minded towards bad behavior and bad ideas without believing that it has bad consequences. Once again, be open-minded enough to discover the truth, but not so open-minded that you would believe a lie, because to purposely discard the truth in order to be open-minded to a lie, is to be closed minded towards the truth. Be open-minded, but be open-minded in the right way. Best of training to you.