WARNING RANT AHEAD!
This morning I had just finished training one of my morning groups in the city and we were running through our cool down.
What I saw nearly made me choke in horror.
This came straight from the bad workout exercises 101 text book. Unfortunately, it was a personal trainer putting a poor soul through their paces.
Now unless the guy is an olympic gymnast which I highly doubt, the exercise that I am about to describe to you is absolutely pointless.
It may make you look cool when you perform it (well they may think it does) but for something that is supposed to represent “functional training” it is a laugh.
So what was it?
Drumroll…
An overhead Squat with what would have been a 5kg medicine ball – wait for it – on a BOSU ball!
For crying out loud.
But that wasn’t it.
The poor guys knees were going so far over his toes that I could feel his knee scream in protest.
Then there was more fun.
Arm Curls on the BOSU with a barbell.
What on earth are you trying to prove?
That you can find 2 new ways to ruin a client forever? The only progress that guy is going to be making is at the physio after all the damage has been done.
There are no winners – well maybe except a physio but the guy doesn’t win and the poor trainer certainly isn’t winning because they are doing what they thought was a good exercise.
Is it negligence or just having having no idea?
A bit of both really.
Just because the BOSU was popular a few years ago doesn’t mean that it is the right way to train someone.
Especially for when you’re training with weight loss workouts in mind
It is completely useless.
Especially when you are overhead squatting a 5kg medicine ball.
What should he be doing instead?
How about real squats with a kettlebell or a decent size dumbbells?
Is that too much to ask?
For people looking for a real Sydney Personal Trainer check out DPM Performance – the group training solution for busy people in the Sydney CBD. I promise you we won’t be doing any Overhead Squats or Arm Curls on a BOSU ball!
What are some of the bad workout exercises that you’ve seen? I’d love to hear your comments below.
Rant over.
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The most ridiculous thing I’ve seen in the gym is a guy doing squats on the smith machine…..standing on a wobble board with no weight on the bar?????
After each set he rubbed his kness wondering why they were aching…
that must’ve been affective! Some things never cease to amaze me
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Actually, I use the Bosu ball quite a bit with my clients.However, I would never let their knees go beyond their toes! I’m a big fan of unstable surfaces when working with my clients. Working on balance and your stabalizing muscles is really important. I teach a lot of golf conditioning classes and find any balancing exercises to be very useful in strengthening your core and preventing back injuries. Adding extra weight like a medicine ball and dumbells along with the Bosu or any kind of balancing tool just further challenges your stabalizing muscles.
Karen
thanks for your comments Karen. In my opinion the BOSU can be useful for training golfers and the like but as far as fat loss training goes for anyone it’s completely useless because you drastically have to reduce the weight that you could otherwise lift, meaning your energy expenditure is nowhere near what it should be.
If a golfer for example needs to lose weight they shouldn’t be using BOSU stuff as they’d find that once they drop the kgs their core strength will rapidly increase anyway as they won’t have to lug around the excess baggage.
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With most new clients, fat loss or otherwise, I tend to include the stability phase of training for the purpose of building proprioceptive skills alongside training their often underused stabilizers (as is often the case with newbies, or people who have been sat on machines by a fitness instructor, and never thought about using something thats actually useful). This doesn’t mean I’d just get people squatting on bosu balls, particularly if their quality of movement is hampered by using it, but rather getting them to focus on “core activation”, and developing an understanding of good movement and good posture.
Incidentally, there is a degree of evidence to suggest that working on unstable surfaces actually increases energy expenditure vs many traditional methods due to the constant adjustments the body has to make to able to keep itself stable. Whilst I personally couldn’t tell you how accurate this research is or is not, I would certainly say its something to keep in mind so as not to be afraid of going through the stability phase of training with clients. In other words: Although other methods could possibly be more effective, it still IS effective, and you won’t be missing out on a necessary aspect of training.
thanks for your thoughts and commenting on the blog but really – anything can be proven through research if you manipulate enough of the criterias.
There is no way in the world that doing a squat on a bosu ball with 3kg d’bells is going to be even half as effective as doing a normal squat on flat ground with a heavier weight.
It gets the heart rate up higher so your metabolism is boosted and the epoc effect will be well on the way to occuring at a much higher level
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Perhaps the guy wasn’t training for weight loss…? There doesn’t appear to be anything in your observation to explicitly state he was training to lose weight. I’m solidly built but use weights on a bosu at home in order to keep my balance and core strong for snowboarding/surfing. I have never had any problems.
appreciate your comment Andrew and the bosu is appropriate for some sports – see my reply to Karen above – but even if the Bosu is a great tool nobody should EVER have their knees go over their toes when they squat. An overhead squat is an advanced exercise that most people cannot master on flat ground so it is plain and simply dangerous to get clients (who are overweight and possibly beginners themselves) doing such exercises.
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