Safe, Effective Exercise

A buddy in San Francisco is a bit of a curmudgeon. He's old-school when it comes to the gym: workout one, maybe two body parts a day; bigger is best; and avoid cardio (gotta keep that weight up). I love the look on his face when a trainer is having his/her client perform certain activities which he labels "Stupid Human Tricks" (that would be anything not involving weights, machines or cables). He'll sit there surveying the situation and then issue a whole litany of comments about what-could-go-wrong and why-it-looks-stupid while rolling his eyes and shaking his head. I'm sure my narrow-minded buddy, and I mean that in the nicest, possible way, didn't see the value in what this trainer was trying to accomplish with his client. I'm not sure that I did either. Not that what they were doing was bad, so to speak. But was this movement appropriate for the client?

As trainers, myself included, we like to mix it up for our clients to keep things interesting and fun. We take continuing education classes and workshops where we learn all of the latest moves with all of the latest gizmos (remind me to tell you the story about the Frisbees). We come back to the gym invigorated and renewed hoping to show our students something exciting. But again, are these exercises appropriate for our client's capability or are we as trainers, just showing off? I'm sure you've heard the saying, "you've got to crawl, before you walk." Personal Trainers have to be able to evaluate where there client's are in that process to provide safe and effective exercise. Then, and only then, can they transition their clients to more dynamic and difficult movements.

About the Frisbees? A class instructor came up with a brilliant idea to use Frisbees, or paper plates, for an entire workout which involved sliding all over the floor and dragging our butts along using these discs to make it easy. Needless to say my clients didn't get any of that action.