Show of hands, how many of you have heard of Yngwie Malmsteen?
Ok, I see 3, maybe 4 of you in the back.
I’d bet that very few of you even know the proper way to pronounce Yngwie Malmsteen.
(For the record, it’s ING-vay MALM-steen).
Malmsteen is a Swedish guitarist best known for his absolutely virtuosic-level technical abilities. This dude knows all the notes and all the chords and can play them at terrifying speeds.
He’s so good at guitar, in fact, that the names of his songs reflect just how good he is at guitar. Titles like “Arpeggios From Hell” and “Relentless Fury” come across as dares to other players to try to keep up with his abilities.
Now, how many of you have heard of The Beatles?
Unless you are just trying to be obstinate, the answer is all of you. They are likely the most well-known group ever.
I heard Paul McCartney recently tell a really charming story about how when he and fellow Beatle George Harrison where in school, prior to being in the group, took a train ride to meet another teenager who could teach them a “B7” - a basic chord that would allow them to complete the most standard chord progression in all of popular music.
So what gives here? Why did the Beatles with their somewhat limited understanding and capability become arguably the most important rock group of all time while Malmsteen, with all his technical prowess, remain a hero only to nerdy incels who place more value on shredding than actual listenability?
I can certainly list a few reasons, but rather than get all Rick Rubin on you, let me quickly shift to the reason you are ostensibly here, to learn something about training.
Training success fully relies on utilizing the basics the vast, vast, vast majority of the time.
What are “the basics” when it comes to training? I’m so happy you asked.
I think it comes down to three things.
The first is specificity. You can’t simply do anything and get better at everything. Want to get stronger? You need to add some sort of resistance. Want to become a better runner? Running needs to be part of your plan. This is very intuitive but you’d be surprised at how many people think they “should” be able to perform a gymnastics move because they are flexible or be good at a snatch just because they are strong. You gotta train the thing that you want to improve.
The second is progressive overload. Taking the strength example above - in order to get strong you need to add resistance - progressive overload states that you need that resistance to get more challenging over time. This could take the form of more weight or more reps or longer distances or more challenging technical aspects. But you will eventually adapt to whatever you are doing and in order to improve you must make things more challenging over time.
The final aspect of “the basics” comes to movement selection. Your joints move in specific ways, your tendons and ligaments and muscles attach to those joints in specific ways. We have, pretty much at this point, determined a fairly narrow range of movements to optimally train those tissues. The majority of your training should stick to those basic movements.
Is there room for variety in here? Sure. A knee flexion movement could be a back squat or a front squat or a leg press. But what it’s probably not going to be is some made up crazy shit you see on Instagram.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the aforementioned crazy shit you see is perpetrated by the people you are supposed to look up to and trust - namely athletes and fitness influencers/trainers.
For every college football player I see performing an impressive power clean, I see ten more athletes doing made-up garbage on unstable surfaces in the name of specialized training. And I kind of get it. When you are LeBron James and you are so good at everything you are probably convinced you need some next level shit that falls out of the parameters of typical training (I don’t agree, but I understand).
The problem comes when people who are not nearly at the level of a professional athlete see this stuff and think if they want to be the next Kobe they should start doing these movements right away.
Even worse are the fitness influencers who perform some sort of crazy-ass exercise in an order to gain attention and stand out rather than doing the important work of giving people actual information that they can use and help them improve.
(And, here's some insider info: All of those trainers got the bodies and capabilities they display by training the basics for years and years.)
You don’t need to train in a 95 degree room. You don’t need to stand on a Bosu ball. You don’t need to perform some miracle feat of acrobatics.
You need to work on the things you actually want to get better at. You need to make those things more challenging over time and you need to build a foundation of basic movements that have actual relevance to the human body.
And this, musically, is exactly what the Beatles did. Pleasing melodies that follow the rules of western music. Relatable lyrics that explore the human condition. Rhythms you can bop your head to.
Keep it simple and do the basics again and again and again and you will win the game of health, human performance and capability.
Spend your time doing some wild and crazy shit and perhaps, just perhaps, you can end up being that one in a million athlete.
But, more likely, you’ll end up injured, unchanged and in your basement playing for no one.