#495 Ben Yanes - Why Your Assessment Might Be a Waste of Time

<p>Ben Yanes makes his long-overdue first appearance on the podcast and brings his trademark nuance to assessment, biomechanics, exercise selection, injury narratives, science-based fitness, and what good coaching actually looks like in the real world.</p><p><br></p><p>Ben joins me to discuss:</p><p><br></p><p>• Why “a vast majority of the assessments you’re doing are a total waste of everyone’s time”</p><p>• Why skilled coaches are continuously assessing clients during actual training</p><p>• How training itself can function as an assessment</p><p>• The relationship between science-based and anti-science fitness communities</p><p>• Why the two tribes often rely on each other to create content</p><p>• What actually qualifies someone as “science based” or “anti-science based”</p><p>• Why nuance rarely performs as well as certainty on social media</p><p>• The different camps that emerge around fitness information online</p><p>• How people can rewrite the story they tell themselves about lifting</p><p>• Common “bro biomechanics” misconceptions</p><p>• What Ben means when he says, “Exercises don’t have a purpose, only people have a purpose”</p><p>• Why exercise selection needs to begin with the goal of the individual</p><p>• Why muscles respond to tension rather than knowing the name of an exercise</p><p>• How biomechanics, physics, and subjective experience can coexist</p><p>• The panic that sometimes develops around exercises like preacher curls</p><p>• Why blaming an exercise for an injury can create misleading narratives</p><p>• What Ben means by asking how “f#@kupable” an exercise is</p><p>• Why load management and respect for an exercise matter</p><p>• Why anterior pelvic tilt is not automatically something that needs to be fixed</p><p>• The problems with quick-fix diagnoses and corrective-exercise identities</p><p>• How diagnostic labels can influence someone’s perception of their own body</p><p>• Why good coaches need to become comfortable operating in uncertainty</p><p>• And much more</p><p><br></p><p>Follow Ben on Instagram:</p><p><br></p><p>@ben_yanes</p><p><br></p><p>CHAPTERS</p><p><br></p><p>01:32 The Evolution of Fitness Social Media</p><p>02:18 Why Most Assessments Are Overrated</p><p>05:21 Training Is an Assessment</p><p>07:56 Science-Based Versus Anti-Science Fitness</p><p>16:07 Why Nuance Loses to Hot Takes</p><p>20:01 The Three Fitness Camps</p><p>25:21 Stereotypes and Exercise Selection</p><p>27:20 Rewriting Your Lifting Story</p><p>29:42 B