That Shiny Exercise Over There

​Here’s the thing folks, if you are or want to be a quality coach in the fitness/S&C world, there’s one thing you absolutely must do. Perform the exercises yourself, that you are programming for your clients & athletes before you program them. If you want to take it one step further, you should also understand where they fit in and keep in mind that, it’s very likely, that cool new exercise you found on some random “fitspo”’s instagram page or youtube channel, is not meant for your whole roster of clients, if any.

(Spoiler alert; if it involves a bosu ball or balancing on a stability ball, just keep walking.)

Even something a simple as this 90/90 Hip Switch, is something you need at least give a trial run once, before you even consider what piece this is to a client’s puzzle. Once again, if you want to take it a step further, try doing that new movement as apart of your workouts for a few weeks at least. Now am I super proficient with these? No, as you can see, I kind of suck at them (on my list of things to work on this off-season), but I at least have experience with them, so I know what the point of them is and who they are going to best for.

I've stated before, I’m thankful to have a smart guy that not only programs for me, but also shows me the way when I need my head knocked back into place like Mike Anderson. When he programs something new for me, I know that he was smart enough to do this, so I’d be muddying his name and anyone that has educated him, if I didn’t go about the same process.

Can this lead to some somewhat vanilla programming? I suppose, it depends on a couple of things;

1. How creative you are with your tempo’s, your pauses, your variations and your set/rep schemes. I’m not saying don’t be a little creative, because doing something really vanilla is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, so you’ll have clients that will get a bit bored. Just use the brain space you've been given.
2. What are you doing as a professional to continue your education? Seminars, journals, webinars, blogs, courses, podcasts, books, etc… should all be things that help you learn new movements and drills properly.

Let’s just not be throwing them in to a some asshattery that you found on the inter webs, just for the sake of it. So next time you want to throw an exercise in a program because it looks cool ('likes' aren't worth it), maybe try it yourself, or if you're someone that's just working with a coach or trainer, have them take a look at it first. We can all save ourselves a little pain and anguish by slowing it down just a breath or 2 here.

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read my tangent/rant/lesson today folks. Find yourself a good exercise that's useful and makes sense for you (or your clients) and get after it!