Better Is Better: Dumbest Things I Saw In The Gym Today

Gyms aren't all bad. There are lots of useful things you could be doing in a health club. Of course, you know that I think the majority of your time would be best spent outdoors or at home with your bodyweight, a Clubbell, a kettlebell, a sandbag or any number of other exercise modalities that take you closer to the movements of life and sport. But that's for another time.

The point here is that there are some downright dumb things that happen in gyms. Some things are just sad because they represent so much wasted time. Others are just plain d-u-m-b!

Today was a beautiful day here in Quebec City. There were tons of people outside on bikes & rollerblades or just out for a stroll. It was great to see. I had to be in the gym for some clients for a while. The place was almost empty (bravo). But our number one dumbest thing I saw in the gym today was...

Somebody climbing steps!

For one thing, it was beautiful outside. For another, Quebec City has more flights of long steep steps than any other city I've ever seen. So if ya wanna climb steps, get out of the gym!

The other thing they were doing wrong is just climbing, climbing, climbing at the same slow pace the whole time. Why not hit them hard for a bit, then slow the pace for a while. Or better yet get off the climber between intervals and do some joint mobility or flow yoga (à la Intu-Flow and Prasara).

Training with intervals has been proven time and again to outperform steady state cardio for fat loss and cardiovascular benefits. Why do we insist on maintaining our clutch on the chronic cardio?

The prize for the second dumbest thing I saw in the gym today goes to someone who was confident in the "functionality" of what he was doing.

Heavy biceps curls with each foot on a balance disk.

It looked like a circus side show.

First off, I'm not too keen on biceps curls to begin with. They have their uses for certain people at certain times. But if I'm using them with someone, it's to specifically address certain concerns related to hypertrophy or strength of the elbow flexors. At that stage, we're a long way off from applying that strength functionally. So why would you add instability to such an isolated exercise? I thought about that all the way home in the car and couldn't come up with any decent reasons.

And even if I was trying to add functionality to an exercise, rarely would I add the balance challenge to the bottom of the feet. It is very rare to a apply force in real life or in sport from a position of instability at the contact point between the ground and the foot. Even in sliding sports like skiing we create a solid platform between the snow and the foot through the edges of the ski. In cutting during field sports the foot is planted solidly to allow the application of force.

Very rare are occasions when the foot is not in solid contact with something. So why are so many trainers using instability under the foot? Doesn't it make much more sense to apply instability from the other end of the chain? That's why I love Clubbells so much. They're the perfect tool to add instability and chaos to the structure while working through a solid foundation underneath.

Anyhow, those are the two dumbest things I saw in the gym today. What have you seen lately?

Comments

I once saw a middle-aged female fast walking on a treadmill wearing DRESS SHOES. They had about a 1-inch heel, but no heel strap, so with every footstep, her shoe would slap up and hit her heel. Not only was it annoying, it was dangerous to boot.

Posted by: Palidor | August 09, 2009 at 07:32 AM