Month: January 2024

I have been working out for a few years now and I would consider myself fairly qualified in the field of weightlifting. Naturally, I have seen just about every kind of workout split. A workout split is the way a person chooses to divide up their workouts. This is necessary in weightlifting because full body workouts would take way too much time. A typical split will divide every main muscle in your body into 3 or 4 days of exercise, and a rest day. This argument begins when catching up with a hometown friend and asking him how things have been in the gym. We both explained the split or training plan we are on, and immediately began bickering about which is more effective (as a side note, while I am about to breakdown both of our arguments, there is no one split that is better than others, or one that always works the best … so, you could say this argument is completely useless).

My split looks like this:

Chest and front deltoids

Back and rear deltoids

Arms and forearms

Legs

 

His split looks like this:

Arms

Chest and biceps

Back and triceps

Legs

Shoulder (If he has time)

Chest and Back

 

Immediately, the first thing we disagreed over was the pairing of chest and biceps, and back and triceps. My argument was that chest is a push movement and back is a pull movement. Push movements are scientifically shown to activate your chest, front deltoids, and triceps. Pull movements are shown to activate your back, rear deltoids, and biceps. For this reason, I asked why he would not combine chest with triceps and back with biceps. After all, these complement each other. He said it was because he then gets to hit each muscle a little bit on both his arms day and his chest and back days. What he means by this is that on arms day, he will fully exhaust his biceps and triceps. Then, on chest day, he doesn’t want to destroy his triceps, so he pairs it with a muscle that remains inactivated throughout the chest portion of his workout. The same logic applies to his back and triceps workout.

The other thing we disagreed over was the fact that he has a specific shoulder day which he sometimes skips. I said that shoulders are a very important part of a bodybuilding physique, so leaving them out on other days in the split and then possibly skipping them could result in undeveloped shoulder muscles. He countered by explaining that because they have their own day, he focuses on his shoulder’s way more than me on weeks when he has time, so missing that day every other week should work out.

Finally, he explained that he thought his workout split was better because it doesn’t get boring. He said that mine is very basic and will get boring to me. I admitted that his is very interesting, but I have been using my split for a year and a half and still love it.

In the end, a workout split is purely preference, and our argument was just for fun. However, he still let me know at the end of the conversation that he is bigger than me. He’s not wrong, he benches 275.

Yesterday, I was talking to my friend when we came about the topic of icons. We debated what the word meant, and my friend gave me an example: Taylor Swift. She happens to be a huge Taylor Swift fan, and while I like some of her music, I do not really consider myself a fan. While I did not know whether or not Taylor Swift was iconic, my friend had some very convincing arguments. She found the official definition of an icon:

“a person or thing widely admired especially for having great influence or significance in a particular sphere” (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary).

Of course, when learning this definition, there was no denying that Taylor Swift is an icon. Arguably, she is the biggest icon of our generation. However, this launched our real debate. Will Taylor Swift stand the test of time?

We agreed that the craze around Taylor Swift is very similar to that of the Beatles in the 1960’s. Everyone was obsessed with the Beatles, and people could not get enough of them. My grandparent’s generation grew up with the Beatles, and so, of course they idolize their music. What’s more interesting than this, is that two generations later, people do not just know who the Beatles are, but know and like at least a few songs. According to a 2014 CBS news poll, 75% of Americans like the Beatles and 40% of these people like them a lot. Only 15% of Americans claimed that they disliked the Beatles. By all metrics, the Fab Four have stood the test of time.

This is where I shifted my argument over to Taylor Swift. Since we had agreed that Taylor Swift was one of, if not the biggest icon of our generation, it brought up the question of whether masses of people in fifty years would be listening to her music?

My friend started by arguing that, yes, people will be listening to her music. This is because she will be raising her kids on Taylor Swift, since she is such a big fan and does not see that changing.

While there is no denying that there will be a generation of parents listening to Taylor Swift in the car with their kids, I am more interested on if this love for her will be passed down further? Will these kids grow up to cherish Taylor Swift and her music in the same fashion as our parents did with the Beatles? Will they be inspired to pass this music down another generation, keeping her fame and beloved music alive?

This was the real “meat and bones” of my argument. My friend said that yes, her music will be passed down from generation to generation. This is because, like the Beatles, she has done something groundbreaking and different with her music. This will set her aside from other artists and allow her to “stand the test of time”. On the other hand, I was not so sure. I believe that while Taylor Swift’s music is creative, I do not think it will translate in future generations.

This debate was just for fun, and I think it outlines the kind of things my friends and I “argue” about. I think that it is pretty fitting to make this my passion blog for the semester, as this class focuses heavily on opinions and arguments, and I happen to really love a good debate. I hope you enjoy!