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A short while ago a friend send me this hilarious video clip. Definitely good for a laugh, but it is also a bit sad given how accurate a portrayal it paints of the fitness and nutrition industry.

Although I have many brilliant peers I respect tremendously, far too many individuals working in the industry are not worth what they paid for their Lululemon pants or Nike Shox. I hear so much crap in a day that I can’t tell you how often I have to remind myself:

“Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”

Anonymous

Not a day goes by where I don’t have a client or reader ask for a clarification regarding something they’ve read/been told/seen on TV about the latest, greatest strategy “everybody needs” for getting the body of their dreams.

You can only imagine how tiring it gets having to repeatedly say, “no, Hydroxycut is not a valid tool for managing your weight…” or “no, 100 Calorie Thinsations are not good snacks”. Mind you, my beef is never with the person doing the asking; they are simply looking for an educated opinion. No, my annoyance comes from the so called “gurus” putting out these ridiculous recommendations and products in the first place.

Some ideas are so stupid, there is no snappy comment needed.

Unfortunately, it’s not only the scam-artist type guru that is the problem. There are just as many, if not more, misinformed but well-meaning individuals who end up dispensing all kinds of terrible advice.

I appreciate that these individuals are excited to share what they learned in their weekend personal training courses, but a 25-hour certificate is not a substitute for thousands of hours in the classroom followed by even more hours refining that knowledge in the practical domain.

As we usher in an era of near limitless access to information, having a sound strategy for identifying trustworthy people in the fields of diet and exercise is vital. The faceless nature of the Internet has made it possible for any “Tom, Dick or Harry” to label themselves a guru and start dispensing training and/or nutrition advice.

Frightfully, whereas buying a shoddy TV at the recommendation of a sketchy salesman only compromises your pocketbook, taking inappropriate supplements or following a bizarre diet and exercise program on the advice of a self-professed guru can be potentially life threatening.

That’s why I’ve decided to put together some of the best knowledge acquisition and fraud detection lessons I’ve learned over the years.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice and I’m gonna bite you.

Lesson #1: Forget everything you know.

Actually, this lesson is more aptly named, “Forget everything you THINK you know”. Given how much crappy information is circulating these days, you are far better off starting with a blank slate.

Personally, I know that I only started to make significant strides in my understanding of how best to produce weight loss AFTER letting go of much lot of what I learned throughout my three University degrees.

Now this isn’t to suggest that a University education is worthless, far from it. University was great at teaching me how to approach learning. But in terms of the training and nutrition “facts” that I learned, much of this textbook knowledge has since been tossed aside in favour of far more effective approaches.

In light of the realization that even after 8 years of higher learning significant gaps still exist in my own knowledge base, it’s no surprise I have to walk my clients through so much un-learning when we start working together.

I can’t count the number of times, after taking on a new client, I’ve had them tell me, “you shouldn’t eat red meat because saturated fat causes heart disease“, that “the best way to lose fat is to do hours of cardio,” or that “all individuals with high cholesterol need to take statin drugs“.

Uh huh. We also used to believe the world was flat and that it was appropriate to accuse people of witchcraft then burn them at the stake.

Thankfully, we’ve wised up considerably over the past hundred years. Unfortunately, we’ve still got a long way to go.

Obviously, I’m not suggesting that copious amounts of saturated fats are appropriate for everyone (they are clearly not), that cardio never helps for fat loss (because it can) or that no one benefits from statins (because certain individuals clearly should be taking them). However, we have strong evidence to support that these recommendations only apply to a small fraction of the entire population, yet somehow they’ve become routed in our collective psyche as “universal truths”.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of experts in the fitness industry who ascribe to the universal truth theory and begin every statement with, “the best way…”, “the only way…” or “everyone needs to…”. In fact, the frequent use of these phrases leads us into lesson #2…

Lesson #2: Universal truths are universally stupid.

Whenever you hear someone start a discussion with “the best way…”, “the only way…” or “everyone needs to…”, it’s a surefire giveaway that the person speaking is a fraud. Any individual making sweeping, grandiose claims may be a proficient marketer, but they clearly do not have even a passing understanding of human physiology.

To paraphrase my buddy Carter Schoffer of BodyTransformation.com and a Precision Nutrition advisor (Carter is among the top diet and exercise coaches you’ve probably never heard of), “Be thankful for all these Internet gurus and their universal truths. Their idiocy keeps you and I in business”.

I wholeheartedly agree and as a rule of thumb, I try to avoid engaging in debates with individuals who argue solely based on passion, conviction or historical antecedent, with nary a shred of experience or evidence to support their claims. Unfortunately, this policy gets put to the test far more often than it should now that everyone is hooked into the world wide web.

Lesson #3: Ignore most of what you read online.

Overall, it’s good practice to take everything you read online with a grain of salt… and yes, that includes what I blog about.

Look, I’m the first person to tell you I don’t have all the answers. But I’m also smart enough to admit that and to stress that I don’t intend for you to follow everything I write verbatim. Appreciate my lessons for the themes they cover and apply the specifics to your own life only when warranted.

Although the Internet can be a tremendous source of information, it also affords any half-wit with a keyboard and the ability to conduct a basic PubMed search (or worse yet, a Wikipedia search) the platform to spread all kinds of ridiculous fitness and nutrition claims that are replete with pseudo-science.

Having been trained as an exercise physiologist with a specialization in nutrition, I fully endorse the efforts people go to find published research to back up their claims. Mind you, just because someone can drum up a references or two to support a sciencey sounding claim, that doesn’t necessarily qualify their position as valid either*.

*The issue of sketchy science is one I’ll cover in my next blog post.

One of my most significant formative moments came from a nutritional biochemistry course I took during my Masters degree. The professor for this class was quite fond of uttering the refrain, “Show me the data” whenever you made a statement that contradicted his own.

Although being reprimanded in front of a class full of people for failing to provide data to support your claims is humbling, it also served as an invaluable lesson and great reminder of how many things we say that have no factual basis.

Online writing only furthers serves to perpetuate this problem in that the majority of information posted online is not peer-reviewed or edited. To be fair, online writing is not scholarly writing, so we shouldn’t expect to read stuff that comes laden with references to peer-reviewed journals. But at the very least, when challenged, an online author should be able to substantiate their claims with some type of data.

P.S. Internet forum gurus… anecdotal evidence and self-report do NOT qualify as data.

Lesson #4 Assess the source.

This one might seem self-evident, but it still bears repeating. Worthwhile expertise is typically a function of:

1. Knowledge: Does the expert have any reputable education behind them?
2. Experience: Who has the expert worked with or worked for previously?
3. Communication: Can the expert adequately communicate their expertise to you?

At a bare minimum, people giving others advice should have a solid educational background, plenty of experience and the ability to convey that knowledge in an easy-to-digest fashion. Again, if any of these elements are lacking you should be wary and when all of these elements are lacking, you really just need to tune out.

I know it may shock you, but the incredibly helpful chap sporting the nickname “BigGuns18″ giving you bodybuilding advice in an online training forum is probably a 5’9, 140 lbs teenager living in his parents basement. You can applaud his desire to help, but please, don’t take his advice.

Mr. Internet trainer showing the goods.

So there you have it, my four biggest lessons to help you navigate through the hype and BS that makes up so much of the fitness industry. I know locating trusted resources can be a pain, but let me assure you that making the effort to identify true expertise is definitely worth your time.

It may be human nature to want to help others, but people offering advice must also be aware of the potential impact, positive or negative, their words carry. Anyone working in a helping discipline has to remember that information is a powerful currency, one whose mismanagement carries a terrible price.

As always, if you’ve got a useful tip for spotting Internet training frauds, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below!

Till next time, train hard and eat clean!

Related posts:

1. 400 Calorie Frauds
2. Great Gifts for Fitness Geeks
3. 2011: 7 Fearless Fitness Predictions for The Year to Come