How you train is determined by WHY you train.
In other words, what are you looking to achieve.
A destination
You must also know where you are.
Once you have both your current location and your destination then you can plot a course to take you from one to the other.
In the context of travel, that’s obvious. I go onto Google maps in my phone, enter both my location and my destination and Google does the rest.
Look, it made me laugh alright!
No start point, Google gets confused No end point same story.
In training, your Coach is your Google
You Coach is the person who helps figure out the process of getting from where you are to where you want to be in the most effective and effective manner possible.
And everytime I look online and I see Coaches posting clients achieving stuff with piss poor form, it makes me cringe. These are coaches that have taken shortcuts to get to the destination, or even substituted the destination.
Imaging asking google the way to a great restaurant and it sending you to McDonalds instead
That’s what I think when I see crap on the internet.
The current favourite seems to be butchering the Hanging Leg Raise into this “Toes to the Bar” exercise.
The Hanging Leg Raise is a solid abdominal strength exercise that also requires a high degree flexibility and control. It’s been a staple of Gymnastics training and older school body building for decades.
But now, instead of having an exercise that aims to develop anterior core strength and spinal flexion, we have the “Toes to the Bar” Where the goal is no longer the development of physical attributes but rather accomplashing a task in any way possible.
Imaging asking google for directions and it simply sent you in a straight line, through some random dudes house, over walls, ford the river, down the cliff and you’re there!
You wouldn’t be best impressed
That is modern “coaching”
Just touch your toes to the bar, who gives a fuck about how you get there, just get there!
You can say the same about Pull Ups, Deadlifts, Kettlebell work and whole host of other exercises, it’s just that the T2B (as the cool kids call it) is the current internet favourite.
So here’s my closing statement.
Getting where you want to go is no good unless it’s actually where you want to go.
When started Karate all those years ago I desperately wanted to do what the Black Belts were doing, but I was neither capable, nor was I allowed.
We followed a process.
Before we could do the high Side kicks and spinning reverse roundhouse, we had to learn the low side kick and the basic roundhouse.
Only when they we to a good enough standard to pass a test, did you work them higher, or in combination with something else. Then once a level of mastery is achieved, then you go to the next level.
Physical training in a gym environment should follow the same process
Progressive
Resistance
Training
It’s a journey. There are no short cuts. At least non worth taking
Regards Dave Hedges www.WG-Fit.com
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