Balance Your Workouts

Balance Your Workouts

     This blog was inspired by Martin Rooney’s newest youtube video. If you have not seen it check out the link below and then finish reading our blog:

http://youtu.be/H6P7U176yhI

     The video is great for many reasons, but I feel the deeper issue behind it is lack of education. The problem is that most trainers get a cert and learn one way  of training and that’s all they ever do. I love the TRX but it is not the end all be all of fitness. It is a tool like everything else. I tell trainers that you can not build a house with just a hammer. I approach each client as a new house and find out what tools I need to make it a great house. 

    This blog is titled, Balance your workouts, because so many people have one sided ways of training. As you see in the video there are guys doing balance training with one leg and foam on their heads. Can that be used in a workout? Yes, but not the whole darn workout. Can a shoulder press be used in a workout? Yes, but not 20 sets of them.  Can foam rolling be used in a workout? Yes, but not for the whole session. The point I am getting at is that there is NO COOKIE CUTTER way to train people. Each session or workout should have a purpose and should be balanced. 

   The other issue I find is that people believe everything they hear or read. So if an article comes out saying, WATER IS BAD FOR YOU, people will believe it and stop drinking it. Trainers need to start doing their own research and looking at where some of these studies come from. I hate when a trainer tells me that you should NEVER do a bench press or that you should NEVER do barbell squats. Are you serious, I do these exercises often. They are the meat and potatoes of my programs. We need to be careful on how we use words like, Never or Always, because they are very powerful words.

    So what is a balance workout look like?  It all depends on who you are training. If it is elderly people you may need to spend more time on balance and movement. If it is a high school kid who has camp in a few weeks you may need to focus more on lifting and building strength.  It seems people want a written answer for everything but training is an art form and can be viewed in many different ways. But for the sake of making everyone happy here is an example of an “normal” workout at FLO, so you can get an idea of what we consider a balanced workout. 

Foam Rolling (calves, quads, glutes, hams, back, pecs) 10min

Correctives     5-10 min (depends on the phase of training) 

Dynamic Warm Ups  8-10min

Strength/Power/Metabolic/Speed/ Agility  30-40min (depends what we are working on that day) 

Cool Down/ Flexibility 10min

*remember all of this is subject to change depending on a large number of factors

    There needs to be a common ground that we should all agree on in this industry. It just feels like it has turn into a dog eat dog environment. Many of you new “functional” trainers need to learn about good ole weight lifting and some of the dinosaurs need to learn about movement and flexibility. The best trainers know about each world and how it applies to each client. I hope this blog inspires you to go out and learn about a subject that you currently do not know about. The application of new knowledge is where all our power lies. 

-FLO