The Future of Barbell Shrugged with Anders Varner Part II

This is part 2 of a two shows series welcoming Anders Varner, the new host of Barbell Shrugged Podcast! Make sure you check out part 1: The Future of Barbell Shrugged with Anders Varner — 307.

In this episode, our good friends Kenny Kane and Dr. Andy Galpin welcome Anders to the Shrugged fam, and talk about the Dunning–Kruger effect, muscle fiber types, the difference between an authority and an expert, and more.

Kenny and Andy have co-hosted a lot of Barbell Shrugged shows in the past, and they have their own show, Body of Knowledge, which is coming to the Shrugged Collective soon!

A post shared by Anders Varner (@andersvarner) on Mar 19, 2018 at 6:23pm PDT

Evolving in the fitness industry

Anders Varner has been a fan of Kenny Kane and Dr. Andy Galpin for a few years now. He reached out to Kenny 5 years ago, when Kenny started the Positivity Project Podcast. Kenny was the first person in the fitness industry to start asking questions about finding the best processes for athletes.

Anders was also fascinated with Dr. Andy Galpin, who is on a mission to: “Enhance the human condition by providing the world with FREE & entertaining health, human performance, and nutrition education.” Dr. Andy Galpin studies human physiology and most recently has taken muscle biopsies of elite olympic weightlifters and crossfitters.

“We’re in the business of helping people… We should have a language in which coaches and athletes can communicate about what’s best for them.” — Anders Varner

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Dunning–Kruger effect — When someone with little knowledge in an area thinks he knows everything, whereas someone with a lot of knowledge understands he doesn’t much, as there is always so much more to learn and explore. From Wikipedia: “A cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority derives from the metacognitive inability of low-ability persons to recognize their own ineptitude; without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.”
Some humans have better fiber types than others — Dr. Andy Galpin has been analyzing muscle fibers from various athletes and discovered that some have better types than others, in terms of strength, speed, durability, etc. Stay tuned to future episodes of Body of Knowledge, where Dr. Galpin will be releasing insights about muscles that have never seen or been heard before.
Animals have different types of muscle fibers than us—Animals have a special type of fast-twitch fibers that is not apparent in any human. Those fast-twitch fibers are called (type IIb) and they are the most powerful and lowest in endurance. They get activated when the body nears maximum exertion.
The difference between an authority and an expert — An authority is someone who says there is only one way to do something, and is usually wrong. An expert is someone who learned something for a long time and understands there are multiple ways to do almost anything, and most likely, he hasn’t figured them all out.
You want to change the least amount possible in someone’s training programming — For the general population and hobby athletes, it’s better to go with what the specific person likes to do. It’s important to enjoy training to keep the motivation going. It’s also smart to squat below parallel, get out of breath, and lift heavy things often.