A Challenge to all fitness enthusiasts and personal trainers

A challenge to all fitness enthusiasts and personal trainers

Fitness is my life, my passion and my obsession.  It is what I think about the majority of my days.  I enthusiastically live to educate people on creating effective, safe and properly designed fitness and nutrition plans.  The goal is to assist people achieve better fitness and performance levels, improve their movement and range of motion, help them develop healthier nutritional habits and guide them to overall better ways of living.  This is my mission.  I am offering up a fitness community wide challenge to general fitness enthusiasts, all personal trainers and fitness coaches, any sport coach that designs strength and fitness programs, runners, triathletes and any weekend warriors who enjoy hitting the gym.  Here is my challenge: clean up your movement; focus on quality repetitions; eliminate sloppy exercise technique; And truly be dedicated to mastering exercises instead of carelessly running through your training.  

 

I become frustrated when I see poor exercise programming, sloppy technique, and haphazard fitness training.  Utilizing complex movement patterns and high intensities for people who lack a baseline of conditioning, have dysfunctional movement patterns and who have not yet mastered basic movement is a recipe for disaster.   

 

It is quite easy to design a workout that will crush someone.  Anyone can put together this type of workout.  But this is poor and random exercise programming that will lead you or the people you work with down the wrong path.   

The idea is to create first, a safe program.  It’s a bad sign if injury is continuously happening and pain is always surfacing.  When you start prescribing exercises for yourself or the people you work with, you should add exercises that will be within their movement and fitness capability.  If the exercise or aerobic activity is out of an individual’s potential, injury rates dramatically increase.  I am not saying you shouldn’t push yourself, that is not the message.  What I am saying is, just because a training session makes you sore and tired, that doesn’t mean it will guide you to achieving your goals.   

“Anyone can make you tired, but not just anyone can make you better!” - See more at: http://www.trainingforwarriors.com/2013/11/my-10-lessons-learned/#sthash.n1zNVteQ.dpuf

 "Anyone can make you tired.  Not anyone can make you better."   Martin Rooney

“Anyone can make you tired, but not just anyone can make you better!” - See more at: http://www.trainingforwarriors.com/2013/11/my-10-lessons-learned/#sthash.n1zNVteQ.dpuf

Exercise training is not a “one size fits all” approach.  All bodies are not the same and people express their own unique ways to move.  Some people are hypermobile and their joints move excessively, which can cause joint trauma and injury.  Some people lack range of motion and mobility and need movement practice to improve this dysfunctional pattern.  Some people have limited fitness capacity and shouldn’t be performing high intensity intervals until they have built a better foundation.  These are situations where exercise individualization is needed to truly see results. 

Your challenge continues by making sure you choose appropriate exercise selections and training intensities and utilize smart progressions.  We are not looking for perfection but we are looking for a smarter approach.  Smarter training equals better results and less injury and pain.  To enhance your program ask yourself a few questions.  What did I do last week?  What is the plan next week?  Do my workouts follow some type of progression?  Am I performing the exercise correctly?  How do I feel physically?  Did I get adequate sleep last night?  Am I nourishing my body with nutrient dense foods?  What is my overall goal?  Answering these questions will give you direction regarding your exercise program.  Random and unsystematic training will eventually cause injury, burnout and/or demotivation to train. 

The challenge has been given.  Whoever takes this challenge is promised better fitness, improved movement and superior performance.  I dare you!