I like to think that I am a fair man. Admittedly I can sometimes be hard, but I hope always fair and quick to praise when praise is due. However, I am also prepared to stand up for my amazing, wonderfully rewarding, and continuously enlightening passion of personal training when I feel that it is being dragged down into the world of circus trickery and entirely risible showboating. This is, to be frank, the politest way that I can describe the above cartoon. Sorry, I mean video.
Let us forget for a moment that the concept of unstable training (showboating on Bosu Balls, balancing on Swiss Balls – see the horrendous picture below, it just boggles the mind!) for UNINJURED trainees has largely been debunked as a waste of time. In fact, let us be charitable to the enter-trainers (kudos to Charles Poliquin for introducing me to this term) and rent-a-friend PTs out there and not argue that Bosu Ball training is merely the best way for the mentally weak and infirm “strength coach” to mask how his puny intellect and physique are in perfect synchronicity with each other. Instead let us merely ask a few questions of the above exercise and see what answers form in your head:
1) Is bending over on a wobbling board and then sticking one leg back the best way to strengthen any part of your body? Maybe if you are in prison (a place in which the above gentleman arguably well deserves to be), but not in the gym where we have a thing called “barbells” and “dumbells”. Take this test at home – stand on one leg and then have a friend, partner, or mistress / master shake you a little. Once you have finished, pause for a moment and contemplate how it feels to lift a heavy weight from the floor (note to enter-trainers – this is called “deadlifting”), then imagine squatting with a weight across your back, then go wild and think on what it is like to press a weight overhead. Now you tell me the best way to strengthen not just the so-called “big” muscles, but also the tiny stabilisers and “core” muscles needed to stop you crumpling into a heap when you perform any basic lift with any level of challenging resistance.
2) How much weight do you think one could use in the barbell curl version of the above “advanced exercise”? How much weight do you think could be used when performing a regular barbell curl with the rather boring and totally passe concept of standing with two feet firmly on the ground? Now please have a think about which movement will provide the best stimulation for the bicep muscles…
Michael Hoad before Ultimate Performance!
I know I sound a little ratty with today’s blog and really that isn’t my intent. The truth is that when I wear my commercial hat I adore videos like this as from a purely business perspective self indulgent masturbation of this nature only makes the authentic trainer appear even more credible. However, the purist in me despairs – personal training should be all about the passion to improve human performance, appearance, and function – where did it all go wrong?
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