Training Related Stupidity

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ciara bares it all 2 Training Related Stupidity Here’s a list of some training related items that I personally find to be really, really stupid. This is all in good fun, but I realize some people will be very offended. I would expect nothing less…

The supposed inverse relationship between reps and rest periods. According to this rule you should rest longer when you are doing sets of three than when you are doing sets of twenty. So if you squat 455 for three you need way more rest than you do when you squat 295 for twenty. The rule is based on CNS recovery but makes absolutely no sense to anyone who is stronger than an eight year old girl.

Using the acronym “ATG” squats. It took me quite a while to figure out what this meant. When I realized it stood for I am “A Total Geek” I vowed never to use it; because although I may appear to be A Total Geek, I don’t want to go around promoting that fact. Saying “full squats” is more than sufficient. And unless you are an Olympic lifter with decades of training experience you probably aren’t getting ass to the grass without some serious spinal flexion. Something you will regret many years later if you do enough of it.

Saying PWO shake. PWO?! Are you serious? Are we getting that lazy as a society that we can’t type out post workout? And isn’t workout one word?Moreover, imagine you just finished training and meet up with a smoking hot girl somewhere down the street a few minutes later. She asks what that hideous looking pink mixture you are sipping is. And you respond with, “Oh that’s my PWO shake.” How far do you think that relationship is going? You may as well have said, “I am a Pussy With Onion breath.” That’s what she heard when you said PWO. I wonder if I asked Dorian Yates, Bill Kazmaier or Arnold what that stood for if they would have a clue. Hopefully they would punch my teeth out. Each time you use this phrase your balls will shrink by 20%. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Saying that because the hamstrings have two functions; hip extension and knee flexion, athletes should train knee flexion in isolation. Athletes will actually be fine if they never train knee flexion. Hip extension is where it’s at for speed and power. Glute hams are nice but if you get them squatting, deadlifting, doing single leg and sled work they’ll be fine. However, if they do leg curls they will usually end up injured come game time. Just ask Shaun Springs, David Boston and Mo Vaughn. If you want to train knee flexion, you should only do so while also training hip extension in the same movement. The only way this can be done is with a glute ham raise bench.

Saying that the longer you have been training the lower your average number of reps should be. This means that a guy who has been training for twenty years, has gotten incredibly strong and can squat 600 pounds should never do above 2-3 reps. He should always pummel himself into the ground and destroy his joints with massively heavy loads. And in another ten years when he is 50 I guess that would leave him no choice but do only do heavy supramaximal eccentrics every time he goes to the gym? That is what some experts are recommending. This is probably the most ridiculous rule of all time. The truth is exactly 180 degrees in the opposite direction. I would rather have this guy keep his average number of reps a little higher at that stage of his career if he is that strong already. Why continually inflict more and more damage on the body?

Doing External Rotations. For years I did these and recommended them. I was always against most isolation exercises but thought that these were one of the few that actually had some benefit. The fact is that you would never do that motion in real life and the external rotators will never work in isolation. You train them with all variations of snatches, pushups on the Jungle Gym Straps, hand walks, overhead presses, etc. But never in isolation. Unless you are rehabbing this is largely a waste of time, and a mistake I made for a long time.

Writing workouts in an A1, A2 outline format instead of 1A, 1B. This is not the way you were taught to create an outline in first grade. The number always goes before the letter; remember that.

Underestimating the importance of conditioning. This is another mistake I made for a long time. Conditioning is just as important as strength is for many athletes. Not so much for baseball players but definitely for wide receivers and d-backs. Conditioning can be a confusing topic for some because there are many gray areas. For example, a football lineman works hard in what is basically a test of strength for 6-8 seconds and then has a half a minute of rest. So he doesn’t need the same level of conditioning as an MMA fighter, but definitely needs increased work capacity. This is an article in itself; the point is to pay as much attention to conditioning as you do strength. That’s why it’s called strength AND CONDITIONING.

Please leave your comments and questions below and feel free to add to my list or create your own.