Too much (You) Tube time
They later cut me out of the film….
As I have said many times and in many places, I feel so fortunate to be involved in the bar/calisthenics/body weight exercise community. It is a great source of positive energy and motivation that helps me in other areas of my life. My biggest regret is I didn’t discover it sooner when I was a younger man.
A lot of the motivation I receive is courtesy of the endless amount of YouTube videos I have seen that document scores of people working hard to achieve impressive feats of strength, power and endurance. I have been an active participant in that stream of video content myself. I have over 300 YouTube videos and counting, with the majority of them being work out related.
I also think that it would be fair to say that most people that are posting videos do so not only to motivate others but also because it puts their hard work on display. Now to the casual outsider, there is no doubt that a lot of this would be branded as narcissism and to a point they are right. I could not honestly say it isn’t cool to have others watch your stuff and respond positively. I think there is an element of that (narcissism) in most people that have a substantial YouTube collection, myself included. I’m not flagging it as a good or bad thing, just a thing. I’d rather be known for exercising than for smacking myself in the face with a 2 x 4.
So what is the point of this you ask?
Well last night after work I wanted to go out and do some work in my mini-bar park and I instinctively was reaching for my Flip cam to record it. I decided to leave it inside.
I have realized that I need to concentrate more on just doing the work and be less concerned with capturing every second of that work on tape. So that is exactly what I did. I went outside and worked muscle ups, push ups, pole holds and a few other things with absolutely nobody else watching.
My hope is focusing more on the work instead of video accolades will lead to greater gains.
Of course this does not mean there will be vast void of videos coming out of my household. Hey after all, I like doing them and generally speaking, a good chunk of people like watching them. But I am hoping the balance will shift more from quantity to quality.
I find shooting videos pushes me harder to do a good job, although I’m always aware of the camera and the fact I look a combination of red, sweaty and with a weird straining face on! Not quite at a level of doing much interesting on the bars, but will definitely be looking to get some video in a couple of month I hope.
Yea being on video probably does help me focus more on form and such, I just need to find a better balance.
Hey, I’m having the similar issues. Been seeing small but significant gains when i don’t worry about documenting… Great post!