Interpreting Social Media

Some People Don’t Get It

Every once in a while I go on YouTube and see the comments attached to some of the videos we post. Yesterday I happened to read one about the Women’s Bench Press clip ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=1thPCt0a9IE<a href= ). If the link doesn’t work, just type in Women’s bench Press on YouTube and it will come up. Guys are on there critiquing technique. “They lower the bar too fast” etc. etc.

What this makes me realize is that in some ways you have to just ignore social media. It’s great for exposure but for many it has become an outlet for critics and negativity.

I’m tempted to try to explain and then realize, “why bother?”

Then there are days like today when I say, “I’ll bother”. The clip mentioned is a group of women we trained, mostly members of the 1998 Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey team performing a set of bench presses. The purpose of the video was to document how strong these female athletes were. I filmed it because I prefer authenticity to “claims”. I also filmed it so that when we spoke to young female athletes we could give them something to strive for. Technique aside, a female athlete who can bench press or hang clean 135lbs. is a strong athlete. It was not meant to be a technique video or a training video but rather a real life example of what female athletes are capable of. I know it won’t matter to the critics but, there is a method to the madness.

Teddy Roosevelt said it best

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”