Breaking Down Barriers in Fitness & How to Make Sense of Conflicting Information
Fitness is meant to be inclusive. Yet, sometimes it feels like there are more barriers now, than there were before, to getting healthy and fit.
If you have ever tried to use google to find out information about health or fitness you may have noticed how hard it is to find something that is helpful. Or, worse yet, you encountered tons of conflicting information on the same topic. We would like to identify some common barriers we see in the way of getting the help you need and help you find what will work best for you.
Some of these barriers and conflicts are likely due to the fact that the arena of personal fitness, and related health topics, are really nuanced and individual. Additional contributors are the fact that we don’t actually know everything there is to know yet on various topics and the legitimate professionals that deserve compensation for their skills and expertise in the area that may guard this info behind a paywall. However, a large amount of conflict comes from the fact that the field is now chock-full of entrenched dogmatic camps. Basically, even for topics that do have a great deal of research and consensus behind them, are seen in countless clinics and gyms, and most people seem respond well to; you will still find a very vocal “fitness authority” that has somehow convinced a large section of the population that this must not be correct. Some cases in point are the recent resurgence of certain dietary camps based on exclusion of nutrients we know can be important if not critical, partial range of motion resistance training advocates that promote fear of full range, special foods that somehow trigger spontaneous fat loss in the absence of a calorie deficit (and even surplus), and of course those that claim their way is the only way that works. These and other messages have been debunked 1000X over yet people who may not be informed still can fall into this. AND, more to the point of this article, if you do believe these things, that is also very ok (these messages often do make a lot of sense!) and we still want to help you in your health and fitness journey; and you can be part of our all-inclusive camp because we don’t know it all either. However, what we do know for certain is that there is a tremendous amount of misguidance out there and it can be really tough to figure out what the heck is really real! Moving on though…
Social media can make matters worse
Anyone and everyone can present an authoritative opinion on something and treat it as though it is fact. Everyone has a soap box to stand on. Yes! … even we here at RB try not to get preachy and are in fact writing this article in part to help you get through the barriers and BS out there. The problem with social media is that it can be incredibly hard to disentangle fact from fantasy, or worse yet, intentional misguidance.
There is so much conflicting information, misinformation and deliberate disinformation
Whether you overhear something at the gym, from a friend who recently jumped on a new fitness trend they swear is “the solution”, or perhaps on good ol’ social media; the fact remains there is tons of conflicting information out there.
Some of this is called misinformation, which is just incorrect info. This can get thrown around by someone who may not fully understand a topic that tries spread that information not knowing that they are not accurately representing the facts of the matter. It can also happen when someone happens to be an exception to the general rule or what is seen in most people and shares their personal anecdote or experience as generally applicable advice for the population as a whole. This is rampant, not only due to humans’ sometimes limited capacity to understand what they see and hear and then convey the info, but also due to the fact that now SO MANY people can spread it with the click of a button. If they have a large enough audience (or even if they don’t) it then spreads. If that happened to have been something YOU read or connected with, you may then misinform someone else.
To make matters worse, disinformation is also rampant and spreads just as easily. Disinformation on the other hand is deliberate misrepresentation of the truth that is meant to deceive. This is the type of stuff we see a lot and it really pisses us off to be quite frank. Unfortunately, today, many health and fitness “authorities” and “influencers” are deliberately deceitful to catch your attention, sell you a product or service, and many are extremely successful doing so, often making them more influential in turn. You will often see disinformation in a very grey or hotly debated area of health or fitness (but not always, as these folks will even prey on folks in areas that are well established). Usually, these claims are accompanied by a product or service for sale. If the person preaching about a certain way of dong things is financially invested in a product or health model that stems from it, this is often not a great combo.
Health professionals and authorities acting as gate keepers rather than teachers
Another area that creates barriers to finding solid helpful info, sadly are the actual gatekeepers and torch passers themselves in health and fitness. Due to a variety of reasons be it ego, selfishness, financial gain, or perhaps just what those have seen modeled before them by their predecessors or peers; they block access or hold tightly to the information that can indeed help others.
Instead of freely sharing what can help the people these leaders have set out to help, they hold it back basically accomplishing the opposite of what we believe the space of health and fitness should be. In a world where more people than ever need access to helpful information and tools, many continue to keep this help inaccessible to the masses behind paywalls or otherwise.
While we at Resilient Body believe that careers in health and fitness are valuable businesses and should be compensated for their valuable information and help, what we also see too often is that this process is hindered by many in the field hiding info behind paywalls or expensive courses.
The “best” path doesn’t exist
You may also often see the “best diet for X” or “best workout for Y”. But again, It just doesn’t…While we want to believe so badly that there must be one very simple answer, the simplest answer is that we are all different and may respond differently to the same thing. For that reason, we often see the “best way” solutions as another barrier that so many get caught up in because they usually are eloquently presented in a way that matches up exactly with what a specific end goal is in a very simple straight line.
While looking for something that seems simple enough to be the best answer in alignment with your needs it can be easy to fall for something being represented as the best way to achieve X goal. Simple can be very intriguing and also appealing because we all want something that can help with the most ease involved. This is where we also see A LOT of problems for a couple of reasons.
First, while many health and fitness goals can be achieved with relative ease and simplicity, many also exist that cannot . WE humans are not very simple in a lot of ways after all. A case in point is frozen shoulders. While it may have a simple solution for some folks like implementing active range of motions work daily centered around the scapula or GH joint, it’s not always easy and it can sometimes take years to get back out of. Sometimes that may work for one person but not for someone else. Nonetheless, you will see many “simple fix”/“try this one time solution” for this and many other similar issues. This is deceitful and can also be counterproductive for someone who is looking for an answer and will likely want to pick the easier of those presented if given an option. Now this person will have wasted time and energy trying things that likely won’t solve their problem in a day and becomes frustrated and disenchanted.
Secondly, many of the “best health” or “best fitness” schools have more in common with each other than they do differences. Maybe more than 80-90%, yet many will try to create an image of uniqueness (or false dichotomy) that their way is the better way to do something. The reality is that there are many basic tenants of a healthy lifestyle and a fundamental level of physical capacity and preparedness that most in the industry would agree on as pretty darn important. Of course, there may be subtle nuance to the very finest details, but daily movement, maintaining strength, proper nourishment, sleep, connection and many other fundamentals are agreed on by 9/10 schools of thought in field. When schools of thought in fitness try to be “the best” or compete, it really only creates more confusion and can further deter someone from simply getting started with what will likely help them.
Competitive environments - Welcoming those on their fitness mission instead of judging.
We’ve got a BIG PROBLEM already in this country as far as the overall health and fitness of our population and we do not need to make matters worse!
You may have experienced the thrill and intimidation that can occur competing against a team or perhaps just walking in to a new experience you have yet to feel comfortable with. They sometimes can feel similar. Maybe you have also experienced the other side of the table where someone enters an arena you are already comfortable in as you relax in your zone.
Admittedly while many gyms, classes, group fitness studios, and even friendly recreational sports can breed some healthy competition to help you push yourself a bit; we also see the other side of this coin where it gets out of control and can also be exclusionary. Health centers and gyms are meant to be places of inclusion to help people find ways to improve their health and fitness, we hope then they also have a cascading secondary impact on society around them in a similar way. If there is a lack of welcoming or perhaps over the top competitiveness, it can drive away the very people that need the most help. This can happen with both fitness professionals who don’t have the requisite people skills to guide and nurture in a way that fits with what the person in front of them needs as well as the environment itself. This can often also be reflected from one to the other if the person running a facility or leading classes has that trait (or perhaps lacks the ones needed to create inclusion).
You may have experienced this before when you tried out a gym, or maybe visited a new one while traveling, joined a friend for a class, or maybe played a recreational league sport. It can be intimidating to be the newbie and even more so if you feel judged or that you will not be included.
Most Importantly - how do you break through these barriers and find the healthiest version of yourself?
We created quite a list of barriers and issues here, and while this is by no means a comprehensive list of the that exist in the health and fitness space, these are some common ones we see; and we do see some of them more and more as do the folks we help.
Here are 10 (+1) key take-aways and helpful tools to break through the BS and barriers:
Think critically. There is a lot of info out there that is misleading or intentionally so in hopes of selling something. See if you can find sources that support claims being made and if there is something being sold. Use healthy skepticism when you see or read things and ask questions even if it seems straightforward.
Take a basic course on reading scientific literature. Stronger by Science, Layne Norton, and quite a few others also provide excellent free and paid research reviews on most tiki sites you scan think of in health and fitness. PubMed is a great free source to find research on topics if you are comfortable using search terms and know how to find things. Examine.com provides good summaries of info and is peer reviewed with zero affiliations or conflicts. You can also view this short course on how to find and make sense of research articles. instructional course on how to do this for some of the reasons we highlight above https://youtu.be/_6aGoiaoG1A
NOTHING in fitness has to be complicated and the best can explain it simply while still explaining nuance
It’s always good to explore the other side of what is being shown to you
Most fitness camps share more in common than they are different (80-90%+ agreement among different schools)
There is no one best answer and anyone/anything that tells you it is the best with certainty is likely not telling the truth or does not know better. There are always exceptions.
The simplest, sustainable (for you), daily habits for your health are ALWAYS what matter most, not special supplements, magic month long transformations, or “biohacks”. Doing the extra cutting-edge stuff is maybe going to give you another 10% once you have the basics MASTERED, not more, so focus on giving it a B+ effort most (not all) days. B-B+ daily versus As and Fs gives a better average in the long run. If you’re not sleeping, extra supplements can’t help you there.
Find a solid coach or mentor that knows how to balance the science with what they see from their experience.
Help and ENCOURAGE others around you. Everyone has the ability to help someone else whenther you are a seasoned health and fitness professional or you just like to workout. With the current state of health in this country, do what you can to help and invite others in to your fold.
Find people that care about you and your results. Seek out health and fitness pros that actually care about people more than a means to an end.
STAY CURIOUS! BE PATIENT!