There is so much FREE content available on the internet these days, specifically fitness and health information. There is no end to what you can find online: from google searches and AI chat programs to YouTube video "how-to's''. Most people follow at least one person on social media, a “fit-fluencer”, who tells you constantly about that "ONE THING YOU'RE NOT DOING'' that could fix your pain! But who are these people telling you this, and what credibility do they have behind telling you this? What motivations do they have for giving you this free information, and is it really as easy to fix your problems as they make it seem? In this post, I’ll break down how to better discern good advice from bad advice, and also 3 ways to spot the difference between a real expert and a self-identified expert, so keep reading!

First, it’s important to understand that the answer is usually not attractive, it’s usually not showy, nor does it make you WANT to do it. As much as we want to think that those fun, complicated exercises or cool looking gadgets and tools are the most effective things to lose weight or gain muscle or fix your back pain, that is usually not the case. One piece of advice that is simple and applicable in many areas is maintain consistency; doing the right thing for a long time. Oftentimes, the solution isn’t anything specific, the “right thing” isn’t one specific exercise, but rather a change to your routine; an extra habit in your daily schedule. Whatever that solution is for you, it won’t help if you don’t stick to it.

Consistency, more than intensity, leads to results. The patients who do their exercises as prescribed tend to progress more quickly than those who try really hard in their PT sessions but have too much in their daily life to carry over what they learned. What you do every day matters more than what you do twice a week. Of course, there is more nuance than this, but the point remains. And despite the evidence to reinforce the importance of consistency, as many as 50% of people who choose to pursue rehabilitation of musculoskeletal injury or chronic low back pain forgo this consistency. (1) We all know people who want to lose or gain weight, but aren’t consistent with a dietary regimen for one reason or another. That someone may be YOU! It sure is me sometimes. As nuanced as achieving consistency is, it remains one of the most important factors to achieve your goals, and finding a way to be consistent should be your secondary objective after finding out what the solution is.

The right thing for you is specific to your situation and typically not flashy. In addition to this, you want to maximize your likelihood of success by being consistent in a number of other areas as well, such as nutrition, sleep, self-care, and dealing with stress appropriately. Sometimes we forget that we humans are built up of complex systems that interact with each other, and that they don’t exist in separate exclusive compartments, yet we treat ourselves that way. Our brains talk to the rest of our body via neurons, nerve fibers, and they never stop talking even when you’re asleep! Consistently taking care of ourselves in a complete or holistic way is as important as being consistent with our specific solution.

Another example: a very fit person on instagram claims that doing one specific exercise like a dumbbell suitcase carry helped rid them of their back pain forever and implying that it’ll do the same for you. Now, I’m not saying that they didn’t experience relief by doing that, but to post online as if they just found the cure for everyone is misleading and harmful for a number of reasons. Depending on the cause of your back pain, you may need more specific interventions, possibly even a physician consultation and imaging to rule out insidious pathology, or it could have been caused by a little too much yard work last weekend, and it’ll go away in a few more days all on its own. The point is, neither you, nor they, know without at least evaluating you. 

I also want to point out the sometimes-not-so-obvious fact, that just because someone is educated about one thing doesn't make them educated about another. I see countless PhD's, MD's, PT's, "fitness guru's", and other's talking about things of which they recieved no training, but due to their training in another area have a huge following of people who believe anything they say. After all, the man who discovered DNA, James Watson, who changed our understanding of science and medicine as we know it, was also a racist, so I wouldn't go trusting his word about social policies. This may not always be the case, but the point is don't just take someone's word because of their unrelated title in something else.

So as you can see, the things that are important for your success have little to do with some specific, cool exercise, and more to do with consistency in the daily. But you may be asking, “so can I still learn from experts online?” Of course you can, but the question is how do you know what information to trust? Well here are 3 points on how to identify if someone is truly an expert in a specific area, or if you should question their expertise.

Experts ask for context. What worked for one person may not work for another! This has a lot to do with the fact that problems don’t stand isolated from everything else, rather they are influenced by many factors in your life. As mentioned before, sleep, nutrition, and stress management all play a part in your situation. In addition, prior injury, other medical problems, and the mechanism of injury are all important in order to understand an issue and how to approach and provide a solution.