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Why ask why?
Replies
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allother94 wrote: »I find it odd that someone thinks it is okay to tell a forum of unpaid people who volunteer their time that they are helping people the wrong way.
You do? Well I disagree. And I will spend the next few hours trying to make you feel bad for thinking the way you do with flimsy arguments presented with aggressive tones.
No harm in thinking the way you do. I think a lot of things. I don't always share my thoughts and opinions.
Exactly what have you spent the last day and a half trying to accomplish here? Is this thread meant to fix a major problem with the MFP community? I ask because it seems really trivial.9 -
allother94 wrote: »allother94 wrote: »allother94 wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »Also-in my 8 years here, I have yet to see a single question asked on MFP that hasn’t been addressed by Google.
I find that hard to believe. If you want to test this theory, I will posted the last question I asked and would love to see you try to answer it with google only.
I'll play. What's the last question you asked?
Alright. Let the fun begin. I’ve doctored the question a little, but this is a typical question I would ask. For enjoyment sake, let’s just play the game using the below only.
I just finished the c25k program. This means I just completed my first 5k. As you can imagine, my time was pretty bad. If I ran a 5k twice a week, how much would you guess my time would improve in 2 months?
Challenge #1: Find something on google that would answer this specific question
Challenge #2: Explain how your answer would differ if my goal was to become a professional 5k runner vs. just someone who enjoys running 5ks
So if your goal was to become a professional 5K runner, one would assume that despite the late start you had shown some aptitude, and perhaps was a younger age, and more significantly, was doing other things towards that goal, like other running and related training on other days and getting in the best possible running shape (for most, getting both leaner and lighter). You are also focusing on nutrition and sleep, etc.
If you would have assumed this you would have been wrong and that would have negativity skewed you answer. My stance is that it would be better to ignore their goal and ask them what assumption they would like you to use or more details around their current fitness. But only if you are inclined to help.
If you just like running 5Ks, maybe you are just running 5Ks 2x a week for fun.
So yeah, that matters.
Running for fun doesn’t mean I don’t have aptitude or that I’m not in shape. Again, your assumption probably would skew your answer.
I decided to do a half ironman distance tri at age 46, and trained while basically living my life (since my goal was largely to finish and to try not to walk any of the half marathon). That affected my mindset and my goals, and I likely finished at a slower pace than I absolutely could have had I devoted more focus. But I met my goal. (I was just above average for that race for my age group and sex, so won a trophy. I would not have been above average at many other races or compared with the average person who does such races. I would have been above average for the population as a whole, obviously.)
More significantly, as it's more related to your original question, what's an above average speed for a 5K is unanswerable unless we know goals, since that shows who you are comparing yourself with:
Are you a high school runner competing in 5Ks? Are you a Div 1 college championship sprinter just starting to do longer distances? Are you a swimmer trying out running for triathlon purposes? Are you thinking of 5Ks for fun runs? Are you thinking of 5K in professional running? Are you thinking of 5K at the end of a sprint tri? Do you want to trail run or hill run or run a flat fast paved course? Are you, well, just a person and wanting to know if you are above average of the population as a whole? Are you an untrained person wanting to know if you are naturally talented? Are you a fat person wanting to claim you are otherwise fit compared to people who run? Are you wanting to know what's above average for a fit person (since you want to compare yourself to fit people)? Do you want to finish in the top half of your age group at a race (say, male, 30-34), and want to know what's above average for that race. So on, so on, etc.
Not sure if you skipped some posts, but my opinion is that asking for more detail on the question is more useful than asking what their goals are. Asking for goals leads to assumptions which leads to the risk of bad advice. Asking for more detail on the question is a far better method. Your last paragraph fits in well with my line of thinking.
Asking for goals is connected to asking for more detail.
Not sure why asking for goals bothers you; that seems very strange.
There simply is no "above average" amount of weight to bench, without more. If your goal is to be a competitor and you are comparing yourself to other competitors, above average is a certain range (depending on other details). If your goal is to be fitter than the average person and so you are comparing yourself to the population as a whole, then it's something else (and means nothing, IMO).
That you have turned this into a rant about people asking your goal (which in context is basically just a request for context), that's puzzling.
Above average for someone who runs 5Ks and wants to finish in the top half of 5K runners (depending on the type of race, whether it's within age group and sex or not, so on) is going to be different than someone who just wants (for whatever reason) to say they can run a 5K better than half the population (which might just mean being able to finish, who knows, but it's unknown and meaningless). Benching and so on are the same.7 -
Looks like you have shared your opinions over 5,000 times more than I have. Hopefully you are not suggesting that I should not have shared my observation...
I’m just posting for entertainment while I watched TV. I rarely share my opinions, hence my low post count. I just thought it was an interesting observation. I was surprised how passionately others tried to convince me I was wrong. It just amazes me when people try to argue their opinions against facts. The facts in this case being that it is not required to know someone’s goals to answer some questions, google doesn’t have all the answers, and that you do not need to have your goals set before you seek information. I was mostly curious to see if I could get anyone to admit that these facts were true even though it contradicts what the feel is right. No such luck.
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allother94 wrote: »Looks like you have shared your opinions over 5,000 times more than I have. Hopefully you are not suggesting that I should not have shared my observation...
I’m just posting for entertainment while I watched TV. I rarely share my opinions, hence my low post count. I just thought it was an interesting observation. I was surprised how passionately others tried to convince me I was wrong. It just amazes me when people try to argue their opinions against facts. The facts in this case being that it is not required to know someone’s goals to answer some questions, google doesn’t have all the answers, and that you do not need to have your goals set before you seek information. I was mostly curious to see if I could get anyone to admit that these facts were true even though it contradicts what the feel is right. No such luck.
You were most curious to see if someone would admit that your opinions were true.
Oh I really enjoyed the post count flame. I have not seen one of those in a very long time.11 -
allother94 wrote: »allother94 wrote: »allother94 wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »Also-in my 8 years here, I have yet to see a single question asked on MFP that hasn’t been addressed by Google.
I find that hard to believe. If you want to test this theory, I will posted the last question I asked and would love to see you try to answer it with google only.
I'll play. What's the last question you asked?
Alright. Let the fun begin. I’ve doctored the question a little, but this is a typical question I would ask. For enjoyment sake, let’s just play the game using the below only.
I just finished the c25k program. This means I just completed my first 5k. As you can imagine, my time was pretty bad. If I ran a 5k twice a week, how much would you guess my time would improve in 2 months?
Challenge #1: Find something on google that would answer this specific question
Challenge #2: Explain how your answer would differ if my goal was to become a professional 5k runner vs. just someone who enjoys running 5ks
So if your goal was to become a professional 5K runner, one would assume that despite the late start you had shown some aptitude, and perhaps was a younger age, and more significantly, was doing other things towards that goal, like other running and related training on other days and getting in the best possible running shape (for most, getting both leaner and lighter). You are also focusing on nutrition and sleep, etc.
If you would have assumed this you would have been wrong and that would have negativity skewed you answer. My stance is that it would be better to ignore their goal and ask them what assumption they would like you to use or more details around their current fitness. But only if you are inclined to help.
If you just like running 5Ks, maybe you are just running 5Ks 2x a week for fun.
So yeah, that matters.
Running for fun doesn’t mean I don’t have aptitude or that I’m not in shape. Again, your assumption probably would skew your answer.
I decided to do a half ironman distance tri at age 46, and trained while basically living my life (since my goal was largely to finish and to try not to walk any of the half marathon). That affected my mindset and my goals, and I likely finished at a slower pace than I absolutely could have had I devoted more focus. But I met my goal. (I was just above average for that race for my age group and sex, so won a trophy. I would not have been above average at many other races or compared with the average person who does such races. I would have been above average for the population as a whole, obviously.)
More significantly, as it's more related to your original question, what's an above average speed for a 5K is unanswerable unless we know goals, since that shows who you are comparing yourself with:
Are you a high school runner competing in 5Ks? Are you a Div 1 college championship sprinter just starting to do longer distances? Are you a swimmer trying out running for triathlon purposes? Are you thinking of 5Ks for fun runs? Are you thinking of 5K in professional running? Are you thinking of 5K at the end of a sprint tri? Do you want to trail run or hill run or run a flat fast paved course? Are you, well, just a person and wanting to know if you are above average of the population as a whole? Are you an untrained person wanting to know if you are naturally talented? Are you a fat person wanting to claim you are otherwise fit compared to people who run? Are you wanting to know what's above average for a fit person (since you want to compare yourself to fit people)? Do you want to finish in the top half of your age group at a race (say, male, 30-34), and want to know what's above average for that race. So on, so on, etc.
Not sure if you skipped some posts, but my opinion is that asking for more detail on the question is more useful than asking what their goals are. Asking for goals leads to assumptions which leads to the risk of bad advice. Asking for more detail on the question is a far better method. Your last paragraph fits in well with my line of thinking.
Asking for goals is connected to asking for more detail.
Not sure why asking for goals bothers you; that seems very strange.
There simply is no "above average" amount of weight to bench, without more. If your goal is to be a competitor and you are comparing yourself to other competitors, above average is a certain range (depending on other details). If your goal is to be fitter than the average person and so you are comparing yourself to the population as a whole, then it's something else (and means nothing, IMO).
That you have turned this into a rant about people asking your goal (which in context is basically just a request for context), that's puzzling.
Above average for someone who runs 5Ks and wants to finish in the top half of 5K runners (depending on the type of race, whether it's within age group and sex or not, so on) is going to be different than someone who just wants (for whatever reason) to say they can run a 5K better than half the population (which might just mean being able to finish, who knows, but it's unknown and meaningless). Benching and so on are the same.
Ok, you are right.
I’ll just say this one more time for closure: 1) It doesn’t bother me that people ask what my goals are. I have benefited greatly at times by answering this question. The people on this forum are help and seem to be generally decent. I enjoy most of my conversations with them.
2). To tell a competitive lifter they are a below average lifter because you have assumed they want to know how they compare to other competitive lifters is just bad practice.
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Ok, I’m done. Thanks for the mental exercise! You all seem like decent people. We can just agree to disagree.2
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allother94 wrote: »2). To tell a competitive lifter they are a below average lifter because you have assumed they want to know how they compare to other competitive lifters is just bad practice.
Indeed. Thus, "what are your goals?"
Are you asking how you compare to the competitive lifter community? Or are you just asking about the population as a whole?
Also, are you asking for people as a whole, or for 120 lb women aged 50? (This is not a goal question, but also shows why questions can be flawed for being vague.)5 -
allother94 wrote: »I’ve been posting on here for a while and have noticed something that happens in every thread. I will start the thread by asking a simple question like “what is considered an an above average bench press?”. Without fail, the responses will mostly be “it depends on your goals.” No it doesn’t. I have no goals. All I have are questions. Once I have the answers to my questions, then I will make my goals...
It's a learning process.
When you're just beginning you don't have enough information to ask the right questions, so you begin by asking questions, receiving answers and then proceding to the next layer/level of questions and thought.
That and the questions many ask are entirely subjective and requires several data points to be known first.
What gender?
What age?
What weight?
What height?
What level of training?
As a benchmark I would estimate above average for one to be able to bench their body weight.3 -
allother94 wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »Well, looking at your goals does change it because it is an indirect way of asking the clarifying question by implication: "what is the group you're looking to get an average of?".
No. Telling you my goal of becoming an above average lifter does not give you more details to answer the question.
I’m surprised I’m getting so many people here trying to convince me I’m wrong on this. I think it’s a pretty straight forward fact that my goals have no bearing on answers to properly detailed questions.
When you use the word no there, I have no clue what you think you're disagreeing with me about because your reply looks like you didn't read everything you quoted.
It does give more details to the answer because it is indirectly asking the question, the average of what population?
Like honestly, asking the average bench press with no qualifications is something no one can answer. Do you even mean the average human, so we're excluding gorillas that could bench if taught? Are you including small children? There are some that can and do bench, but they're sure going to bring down the average. Heck, just dividing it up by sex is going to make a fair difference.
Wanting to be an above average lifter does clarify that you're probably looking for the average bench of people who actually actively practice bench press.5 -
allother94 wrote: »allother94 wrote: »allother94 wrote: »allother94 wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »Also-in my 8 years here, I have yet to see a single question asked on MFP that hasn’t been addressed by Google.
I find that hard to believe. If you want to test this theory, I will posted the last question I asked and would love to see you try to answer it with google only.
I'll play. What's the last question you asked?
Alright. Let the fun begin. I’ve doctored the question a little, but this is a typical question I would ask. For enjoyment sake, let’s just play the game using the below only.
I just finished the c25k program. This means I just completed my first 5k. As you can imagine, my time was pretty bad. If I ran a 5k twice a week, how much would you guess my time would improve in 2 months?
Challenge #1: Find something on google that would answer this specific question
Challenge #2: Explain how your answer would differ if my goal was to become a professional 5k runner vs. just someone who enjoys running 5ks
So if your goal was to become a professional 5K runner, one would assume that despite the late start you had shown some aptitude, and perhaps was a younger age, and more significantly, was doing other things towards that goal, like other running and related training on other days and getting in the best possible running shape (for most, getting both leaner and lighter). You are also focusing on nutrition and sleep, etc.
If you would have assumed this you would have been wrong and that would have negativity skewed you answer. My stance is that it would be better to ignore their goal and ask them what assumption they would like you to use or more details around their current fitness. But only if you are inclined to help.
If you just like running 5Ks, maybe you are just running 5Ks 2x a week for fun.
So yeah, that matters.
Running for fun doesn’t mean I don’t have aptitude or that I’m not in shape. Again, your assumption probably would skew your answer.
I decided to do a half ironman distance tri at age 46, and trained while basically living my life (since my goal was largely to finish and to try not to walk any of the half marathon). That affected my mindset and my goals, and I likely finished at a slower pace than I absolutely could have had I devoted more focus. But I met my goal. (I was just above average for that race for my age group and sex, so won a trophy. I would not have been above average at many other races or compared with the average person who does such races. I would have been above average for the population as a whole, obviously.)
More significantly, as it's more related to your original question, what's an above average speed for a 5K is unanswerable unless we know goals, since that shows who you are comparing yourself with:
Are you a high school runner competing in 5Ks? Are you a Div 1 college championship sprinter just starting to do longer distances? Are you a swimmer trying out running for triathlon purposes? Are you thinking of 5Ks for fun runs? Are you thinking of 5K in professional running? Are you thinking of 5K at the end of a sprint tri? Do you want to trail run or hill run or run a flat fast paved course? Are you, well, just a person and wanting to know if you are above average of the population as a whole? Are you an untrained person wanting to know if you are naturally talented? Are you a fat person wanting to claim you are otherwise fit compared to people who run? Are you wanting to know what's above average for a fit person (since you want to compare yourself to fit people)? Do you want to finish in the top half of your age group at a race (say, male, 30-34), and want to know what's above average for that race. So on, so on, etc.
Not sure if you skipped some posts, but my opinion is that asking for more detail on the question is more useful than asking what their goals are. Asking for goals leads to assumptions which leads to the risk of bad advice. Asking for more detail on the question is a far better method. Your last paragraph fits in well with my line of thinking.
Asking for goals is connected to asking for more detail.
Not sure why asking for goals bothers you; that seems very strange.
There simply is no "above average" amount of weight to bench, without more. If your goal is to be a competitor and you are comparing yourself to other competitors, above average is a certain range (depending on other details). If your goal is to be fitter than the average person and so you are comparing yourself to the population as a whole, then it's something else (and means nothing, IMO).
That you have turned this into a rant about people asking your goal (which in context is basically just a request for context), that's puzzling.
Above average for someone who runs 5Ks and wants to finish in the top half of 5K runners (depending on the type of race, whether it's within age group and sex or not, so on) is going to be different than someone who just wants (for whatever reason) to say they can run a 5K better than half the population (which might just mean being able to finish, who knows, but it's unknown and meaningless). Benching and so on are the same.
Ok, you are right.
I’ll just say this one more time for closure: 1) It doesn’t bother me that people ask what my goals are. I have benefited greatly at times by answering this question. The people on this forum are help and seem to be generally decent. I enjoy most of my conversations with them.
2). To tell a competitive lifter they are a below average lifter because you have assumed they want to know how they compare to other competitive lifters is just bad practice.
You acknowledge that you have benefited from people asking what your goals are, yet you question why people do it? I think the fact that you have benefitted would show you that sometimes asking questions gives people the ability to give a more accurate answer. I think to answer the original question simply, people ask questions like that because a lot of times the original questions are so vague that its impossible to answer without more info. People ask how many calories they should be eating or what macros without including their stats or their goals. Obviously that number will vary based on whether a person wants to gain, lose, or maintain their weight. I don't think your example question of what an average bench press is makes any sense, because I have never seen someone ask that, and as already stated, that could easily be googled. A more reasonable question would be "I am a 6 foot tall, 200lb male, what should I be bench pressing?" That question is a better representation of when someone would ask what their goals are, because that would help determine the answer. I guarantee you not every man that is 6 feet tall and 200 pounds wants to bench the same thing, so its impossible to answer that question without knowing more. You keep saying it doesn't bother you that people ask this question, yet you started a thread in the debate section asking why it happens. If it doesn't bother you, and you sometimes benefit from the fact that people do this, then I don't understand why you would even question it.
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The thread wasn't started in debate. It was started in Food and Nutrition and moved here. Other than that, I agree with all of your post heartily! I think the the whole premise of the thread is nonsensical and am somewhat amazed that it has gone 4 pages.7
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The thread wasn't started in debate. It was started in Food and Nutrition and moved here. Other than that, I agree with all of your post heartily! I think the the whole premise of the thread is nonsensical and am somewhat amazed that it has gone 4 pages.
I wasn't aware it was moved and appreciate the clarification. Still, I think when people ask for additional information its a good thing. Its when people start answering questions blindly that you start to see ridiculous answers that can do more harm than good.6 -
allother94 wrote: »Wetcoaster wrote: »It sounds like all you want to do is argue.
I enjoy a stimulating debate from time to time. I have heard some good points and have tried to acknowledge them. Its not as much fun when the opposing side just disagrees with everything and just tries to painting me out to be a bad person instead of crafting logical counter arguments. But it is still fun.
There it is!
When we just answer an OP with whatever response fits their vague OP, we are told after the fact that there are actually several other issues to take into consideration which they didn't mention that make our initial response useless and a waste of our volunteered time.
When we ask for more details, we are told that one or more of those details are not only unnecessary, but it's presumptuous of us to ask the question. Can't win.
When someone posts an OP, we have no way of knowing whether they are asking a general question that merely requires a general answer, or whether they unintentionally left out details they didn't realize were important. The latter is far more likely, so most of us start out there. Unfortunately, MFP refuses to grant any of us mind-reading capability (yes, I've submitted a ticket) so unfortunately folks looking for free help will just need to put up with the annoying ways we choose to answer them.
Thanks to this thread, I'm sure going forward only posters who feel confident in a general, not-goal-specific answer to your posts will participate in your threads. Best of luck :drinker:11 -
jhanleybrown wrote: »allother94 wrote: »I’ve been posting on here for a while and have noticed something that happens in every thread. I will start the thread by asking a simple question like “what is considered an an above average bench press?”. Without fail, the responses will mostly be “it depends on your goals.” No it doesn’t. I have no goals. All I have are questions. Once I have the answers to my questions, then I will make my goals...
Ok. I would say anything that is 125% of bodyweight is above average but not hardcore lifter good.
I agree with this for this particular example. I'd even go further and link the first site in Google when searching for "Strength standards":
https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards/bench-press
Regarding the original query of the post I'm not really sure. Depends on the question.0 -
You guys need to chill out. I understand why you do it and agree that in many cases it is required to give a good answer. I just think it is odd to feel that you MUST know their goals before answering ANY question. Deal with it.1
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The thread wasn't started in debate. It was started in Food and Nutrition and moved here. Other than that, I agree with all of your post heartily! I think the the whole premise of the thread is nonsensical and am somewhat amazed that it has gone 4 pages.
I wasn't aware it was moved and appreciate the clarification. Still, I think when people ask for additional information its a good thing. Its when people start answering questions blindly that you start to see ridiculous answers that can do more harm than good.
Totally agree.1 -
allother94 wrote: »You guys need to chill out. I understand why you do it and agree that in many cases it is required to give a good answer. I just think it is odd to feel that you MUST know their goals before answering ANY question. Deal with it.
Because if we are taking the time to try to provide a thoughtful answer, we are not going to make assumptions. I also think you are over-exaggerating when this question is asked. Its not asked after literally every question, but it is asked when relevant. For someone who claims to not be bothered by the question, you seem to be the one who is decidedly un-chill.13 -
allother94 wrote: »You guys need to chill out. I understand why you do it and agree that in many cases it is required to give a good answer. I just think it is odd to feel that you MUST know their goals before answering ANY question. Deal with it.
I am not in the habit of finding someone nitpicking for their own, admitted, amusement as a good time. However I am not really worked up here so I feel little need to chill out.9 -
allother94 wrote: »I’ve been posting on here for a while and have noticed something that happens in every thread. I will start the thread by asking a simple question like “what is considered an an above average bench press?”. Without fail, the responses will mostly be “it depends on your goals.” No it doesn’t. I have no goals. All I have are questions. Once I have the answers to my questions, then I will make my goals...
I think some people in general on fourm boards, especially regular posers ( I’m talking in message boards in general) are introverts, are anti social, they may not have real life conversations so when they log on, they go off. They have the time. They want to know what when where why and how even if it’s just a simple direct question, they want to know your whole business first. Maybe just for conversation sake.
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Oh sorry. My comment was for those that are currently not chill. If you are already chill, no action is needed from you at this time. Thanks!1
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