Which exercise is “best”?
So, recently, I made the mistake of adding a comment to a well-known strength training blog. As we all know, the internet is full of experts and you don’t truly know your stuff until you’ve graduated from “Instagram University.”
I won’t bore you with the details but the other debater was telling me that a popular recovery method was rubbish and “80% placebo.” Now, my argument is that even if the method was 100% placebo, it would still be worth doing. I’ll save the placebo effect debate for another time, but, I believe, at least a portion of all medicine is placebo and this shouldn’t be down-played. This debate deserves its own blog post.
This got me thinking; is there such a thing as a bad programme? Are there bad exercises? Are there bad therapy tools?
No, it ALL works!
Everything works. Every diet, every training programme, every therapy tool – but you have to remember that these are just that, they are tools. We all have a very specific genetic makeup and we all have different hormone balances. For example, I have short femurs which make me really good at squatting but my long arms make me bad at pressing.
I think people sometimes forget that we are individuals. I will have a very different ratio of fast to slow twitch muscle fibres than you do. Our differences are what make us human. I had to admit to myself a very long time ago I’d make a terrible basketball player. There’s not much call for a 5’10” 245lb stubby legged 26 year old in the NBA.
However, my fast twitch muscle fibre ratio makes me explosive. I can run 100m in under 12 seconds with no formal sprint training. My short femurs make me a fantastic squatter. This brings me to the point I’ve been trying to make; there are tools in the trainers toolbox and each tool with have some kind of effect. Sometimes the effect is the adaptation you want, and sometimes it isn’t but here’s the key; don’t blame the tool.
The reason you shouldn’t always follow someone else’s exercise programme is because what works for them won’t necessarily work for you. Yet I see so many Internet “experts” marketing a certain diet or exercise programme to the masses. There is no “one size fits all” programme.
There are tools, some of which will work for you and some which won’t. This is a discussion I’ve been having with my students recently.
Here’s my analogy: If you saw a guy trying to use a hammer for everything would you blame the hammer? If he tried to saw wood with the hammer, would you say, “Man, that hammer sucks”? Or, would you call the guy an idiot for trying to use a hammer to saw wood? Hopefully you opted for the latter.
The whole health and fitness industry can’t be simplified to good and bad: What works for you? What’s your goal? What’s your injury history like? How experienced are you with exercise and serious training? Are you in-season or are you out of season?
There are so many factors we need to address here, yet I see so many people – and personal trainers – trying to address an individual problem with a “one size fits all“ scheme.
I consider this basic “101” stuff, but it’s clear that people still don’t put this law into practice. There aren’t many bad exercises. Instead, there is only bad application and inappropriate exercise selection.
Next week I will be getting some of my sprinters to do very heavy and slow, eccentric exercises. This is likely to make them sore and possibly even add a little muscle. Now, the exercises I will be giving them would be completely inappropriate in-season. However, they are out of season and I’m looking to increase their max strength at this part of the programme. This is so I can build upon it later with power and velocity work. The eccentric loading will help them deal with the high amount of force they will encounter when we ramp up the speed later on and it will dramatically reduce their injury risk throughout next season.
Like I say, there are no bad exercises. Exercises are tools and our job as personal trainers, coaches and therapists is to individualise the programme for you and to pick the right tools for the job.
I hope this helps you in your health and fitness journey. If you’d like to find me on Instagram my username is Ursell73.
