I love the movie Pitch Perfect.
Is that bad to admit?
Are they going to revoke my meathead status or my eligibility for the official Barbell Hall Of Fame with this confession?
Listen, the movie has everything.
An audition scene featuring Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You Been Gone”.
A group acapella version of what might be the best song of the 90’s, “No Diggity”, done in a strangely vacant and even more strangely gigantic empty swimming pool (?) as part of a ritualistic battle known as a “riff off”.
You have gross-out humor with the puking scene.
You have, quite frankly, more great looking college women than even exist at Arizona State.
And you have a love story wrapped up in an homage to the greatest teen movie of all time, The Breakfast Club.
Does this movie have problems? Yes.
I don’t know how it’s possible to not have on screen chemistry with Anna Kendrick but somehow the person they cast as her Dad is an absolute dud. And the Rebel Wilson “Fat Amy” shtick gets tired very quickly.
But, other than those small nitpicks, it’s pretty much the perfect rewatchable. I stopped counting how many times I’ve seen it at roughly 300.
Once you get past the song montages, the hot chicks and the even-though-he’s-supposed-to-be-annoying-he-still-might-be-too annoying Bumper character, this movie is really about one thing. Growth.
Kendrick’s Becca is trying to grow beyond her loner, introverted status and actually form relationships.
The girls are all trying to bond and grow together as a team.
And, perhaps most importantly, the head of the Bellas - Aubrey - finally grows out of some tired traditions and allows Becca to take the team in a more modern direction. Which (spoiler alert) leads to them winning the team acapella competition which occurs at the climax of the movie.
See, I told you. What’s not to love?!?!
If you can’t learn deep lessons about the training floor from a movie about some rag-tag college kids who sing without the help of instruments, I don’t know where you can learn them from.
And this idea of growth in your training is what I want to bring to your attention here.
We (and by “we” I mean “me’) often harp on the necessity of training to be, of course, progressive, but also remarkably repetitive. The principles of exercise science lay within a fairly narrow window. Tried-and-true exercises are really limited to about a dozen or so contenders. Joints tend to move in limited ranges and muscles act on those joints in predictable ways. There isn’t a ton of guess work or variety needed.
But that doesn’t mean your training won’t grow as your training career progresses.
Most people tend to start with machines, whether resistance-based or, like me, cardio machines such as treadmills or ellipticals. And this is smart. Machines are reliable and tend to have a low learning curve.
Stick with it long enough and you will find your way to the basics of free weight training. You’ll learn that deadlifts and squats and incline dumbbell bench presses are going to be the foundation of a program that gets you stronger and in better shape than you could ever have imagined.
Do those long enough and you won’t be able to help but get experimental. You’ll try advanced programs in an effort to reignite the progress you saw early on but is now slower to come by.
Or you’ll get involved in strength or endurance-based events such as Olympic weightlifting or CrossFit or Hyrox or half marathons and your training will become more performance-based.
As you get bigger and stronger and faster you will begin the need to optimize for recovery both in the workouts and outside of them. Rest periods will become longer. Training frequency may need to decrease. Maintaining your joints becomes as important as increasing your muscle mass.
And, finally, it will likely all come back around. You’ll stop chasing massive progress and just become someone who is in it for the long haul. And, ironically, you’ll go back to the basics. Likely landing in a combination of machine and free weight training. But now with a great depth and focus and understanding of how every rep can affect your body.
You will go from newbie to science-based overthinker to an artist who intuitively understands their body.
This is growth.
The Beatles early records were composed of very basic melodies and even more basic chord structures that were the foundation of early rock and roll. And not only is it because these songs are catchy, it was also at the limit of their abilities at the time.
But as they grew as song writers and artists and musicians, their music became much more experimental. You can look at Sgt. Peppers or The White Album and see that the concepts of these albums are strange and atypical, which is what makes the Beatles such an important and well-loved band.
Then, in their last two albums, they seem to abandon this slightly. They go more within themselves and go back to the basics, but now with a greater mastery and understanding of what is possible. And this is what makes those albums my favorite by the band.
A return to basics with a clear understanding of how it’s all done and what is possible.
And that is the goal of training. It’s not where you start. It’s likely not even where you are. But it is where you want to get to.