Your Questions Answered, Part 15

These are your questions. You asked—we answered.

Alex Ayers asks,

"What are your thoughts on the current trend of people coming out with methods that they're marketing as eBooks?"

Besides the misuse of the word "intensity" when dealing with programming, the misuse of "methods" is another of Dave's greatest pet peeves:

Methods of training (Dynamic Effort Method, Repetition Method, Max Effort Method, Circa Max Method, Strip Set Method, etc.) have been coined and time-tested. They've been around for a long time and are concepts that are part of the whole training scheme and program. People aren't really coming out with new methods, they are coming out with new programs...and calling them methods.

However, the more programs that people come out with, the better. It gives more readers guidance for how to structure their own training. And the programs that have come out over the years are nothing new. It's just people putting things together in different ways—a different stew. Yet, the more that people can be exposed to those, the more educated they can become.

What's great about the eBook-style programs that come out (as long as they are priced within reason) is that they can be a valuable resource if the authors explain WHY they are doing the things they are doing. Most of the time (in other programs), there will not be a lot of explanation, and you will have to do a lot of study. However, many of the eBooks that are coming out are taking this step out. They give you what's going on behind the program—why something was being done the way it was done— so you don't have to figure it out for yourself.

So, I'm all in favor of it. It exposes people to how other people think and to how they put their programs together. However, while some people need to be told exactly what to do, I feel that they should be used more for studying—as to why the person put a program together the way that he/she did. This especially holds true because programs should be more individualized (especially as you become a more advanced athlete) since everyone has different limitations.

Stay tuned for more episodes.