What are some of your unpopular fitness related opinions?

That was when I quit. Realised I liked rolling far more than drilling technique. Getting blitzed by people who drill for hours each week starts getting old after a while, and I much preferred lifting.

Prehaps unpopular opinion here. But that graph makes no sense. :D

I get what's its trying to say, but the Y-axis is mislabeled. Skill doesn't decline after the honeymoon period, in any activity (how could it?). The Y needs to be some other metric like perceived ability maybe. Or some other variable like transition from beginners lessons to advanced.

Hugely important for beginners. As they can’t get better at what they don’t know. But higher level guys spend disproportionately larger amounts of time rolling.

Generally, drilling/passive training to learn, rolling/sparring/active training to improve.

Injury rates for the main barbell lifts are pretty low. It's funny you say you're comfortable squatting as despite the stigma deadlifts in particular get I would argue it requires a lot less technical proficiency than the other lifts and OHP is similar. From personal experience as someone who can be quite clumsy, I've injured myself once doing deadlifts, across thousands of reps. It also wasn't a serious injury and I was back deadlifting within a week or two. I've also never managed to drop an OHP on my head. Despite nearly passing out a few times while doing them (just a side effect of poor bracing when you're really pushing it), most people fail way before it's directly overhead and when it's with a barbell it's going to be very hard for it to slip out of your hands or anything like that.

The trainers at the gym I'm at are quite lazy about pitching, which suits me. Some definitely are quite pushy and fear monger. Probably as much a consequence of the nature of the industry as of the individual.

Injury rates for barbell strength training are lower than vast majority of other sports/activities, including running and basically any ball sport. People hurt their back just as often from random tasks as they do from lifting heavy.

I've coached people who've been concerned about dropping the bar, but it realistically just isn't something that happens. It's a bit like driving; in theory you're just one hard turn of the wheel away from killing yourself, but you don't do it because you know it's dumb. Similarly, you're not going to just let go of a bar unless you decide to.

I'd agree that standard of coaching in most gyms is pretty poor. Low barrier of entry to the fitness industry and a lack of firsthand training experience are to blame. Means you end up with a lot of people who just want their hobby to be their job but couldn't care less about providing a great service to people.

I was just thinking of who are the top guys on the pro circuit. Who can I name etc. And just seems like I'm casually aware of far more guys from ECJJ. Chris Leddy, Sam McNally, Marcus Phelan, Ffion Davis etc.

Although that sort of proves your point of being a magnet for upcoming talent. Ffion moved there as an established grappler etc

One of the main reasons is probably because it's such a controlled environment compared to other sports. I had a shoulder injury from rugby and lifting was the only thing I could do because I could adjust the load, exercise, tempo, etc. You don't get that option in any mainstream ball sports.

The reason behind most injuries in any gym is people doing too much load, too soon. That can be done with any kind of resistance whether it's machines, barbells, dumbbells, etc. I've actually seen the most injuries happen with bodyweight exercises, as it's much harder to adjust the difficulty, so people just 'give it a go' and wreck themselves. Muscle ups probably best example of this I've seen but happens with things like push-ups and pull-ups too.

I run marathons.

I get just a tad irked when Joe Boggs states that he/she "ran" a marathon in 5-6 hours. That ain't running- that's just shuffling around- anyone can do that. Grand- you get a pass the first time and fair play and all that etc etc but as far as I am concerned why God's name would you back a second or third time just to come home in the same time i.e. 5-6 hours. Whatever happened to improving and then banging on that you are a "multiple marathon runner" taking Strava pictures en route...Jesus wept. I don't get it- well I do really but I think it is bollocks. You should push yourself to constantly improve. Otherwise you are just a Kudos whore.

A gym near me has the following tag line:

"A Corporate Look With A Real Gym Feel"

What the fook does that mean? What the fook does a "corporate look" look like and why the fook would you want that "look"? What is it anyway...lads in suits hitting the free weights?

"Yeah I ran a marathon too - the mini marathon"