EUGENIZATION.

The other day I had a great conversation with Dr. Warden about the perils of teaching exercises to clients. Specifically, we talked about the hazards of teaching a hang clean to a person who, shall we put it, is “coordination-challenged.”

While he detailed his difficulty in conveying the particulars of this challenging movement to his client, I had a thought, and asked him,

“Incidentally, why did you have your client doing hang cleans anyway?”

…meaning, did you do it because hang cleans are a metabolically challenging movement? (This was it, BTW)
Was it to train the “triple extension?”
Was it to strengthen the muscles of the hips and posterior chain?
Was it to improve “explosiveness” or coordination?
Was it for posture purposes?

In other words, which one of your client’s goals is this meant to support?

This is not splitting hairs - this is a main reason that trainees get paltry results from their exercise programs. If your programs or exercises do not support achievement of your goals, then how do you reasonably expect to ever achieve your goals?

More importantly, why are you continuing to do them?

Before choosing an exercise for inclusion in your program, perform a quick self-audit:

• Which of my fitness goals is this exercise meant to help me achieve?
• Is this exercise better than one I am already doing?
• Is this exercise safer than one I am already doing?
• Is there any reason as to why doing this exercise would be more beneficial than not doing it?

I’m certain that if you do this before “mixing it up”, you’ll get more in the way of results in less time than if you hadn’t. As Brian Tracy says, “Action without planning is the cause of all failure. Action with planning is the cause of all success.”

Then again, Brian Tracy also says, “Eat That Frog!” (which is questional nutritional advice, since a serving of frog’s legs delivers about 15 grams of protein along with 16 grams of carbs…)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfOBmNLCH0g]

Above: Although I’m not a big believer in “power lifts”, I will say that if I had to choose anyone to teach a hang clean, it’d be Dr. Warden. Some great hang clean instruction from coach Mark Rippetoe.