The internet and its self-proclaimed experts...

One of the most valuable things I have ever heard came from Mike Boyle a few years ago. Mike talked of using a 'filter' when dealing with all the $hit out in the world of the world-wide-web. I talk about the importance of this filter every single time I talk to any audience regardless of my topic as I really believe that people need to take a VERY subjective look at the info floating around out there.

Case in point: I was recently sent some links to a blog where I was repeatedly bashed about everything from my inability to teach athletes proper technique to my improper use of training tools, to my crappy YouTube vids etc. This person (who has seemingly devoted a decent portion of his life on stalking err, I mean following me) went so far as to download my vids and then post still frames (albeit pretty strategically)to show how bad the technique was on some of my athletes. Now anyone who has ever went frame by frame on a vid clip understands that you can pick a random frame that might look downright funky in an otherwise decent clip of a lift. The sinister part is to pick and choose your frames to make your 'point' (whatever that is...). In fact, in one particular posting, this individual had 3 seemingly progressive pics from a clip of a hang clean...the problem is that the 'damning' pic was completely out of sequence, it was not even in the same repetition! Why not just post the entire vid? Anyway, let's go back to my original point...the FILTER. It's easy to play devil's advocate, poke at other real practitioners etc. when this is all you do. People like this individual, who's name I won't mention since I don't want his blog readership to get into the double digits just yet, are often folks who don't train anyone at all. They simply regurgitate information from their Exercise Physiology textbooks or their copy of Supertraining. No real life experience, no clients who can actually attest their ability or effectiveness... basically no place ever talking about folks like myself and many others who make their living in this field. Putting it bluntly....they are fakes disguising themselves as 'experts'. My question is expert of WHAT? Of video editing? Of citing research? Of regurgitating someone Else's information? Get in a weightroom and TRAIN somebody already. How do you completely $hit on something I do with the Olympic lifts then follow up with "well, I'm not an expert on the Oly lifts but...". WTF?

I had previously posted about this phenomena....the Internet guru/blogger/forum poster etc. etc. I was sort of hoping that times had changed a bit but considering that cockroaches have survived more than 300 million years.....sigh.