Another interesting fact came out of my conversation with Alwyn Cosgrove yesterday--a kind of corollary to yesterday's point about the importance of fitness pros making things fun for their clients.  That's this:  People Don't Have Unlimited Time To Exercise. 

I made the point that most fitness pros--myself included--are exercise freaks.  We love working out.  We're fascinated by exercise.  Cosgrove said, "I bet the last vacation you took, the first thing you did when you got to the hotel was check out the fitness room."  Well, it might not have been the first thing, but he was right. 

The point is that the fitness pro needs to put himself into the head-space of a person who hates exercising.  Who wants the maximum for the minimum--not into the head-space of another person like him.  Most trainers don't want or need trainers because they're perfectly able to push themselves to exercise, thanks very much.  They're already motivated.  Their clients?  Not so much.  Not very often, anyway. 

So:  Given that people don't have unlimited exercise time or motivation, what does that mean for their workouts?  For one thing, it means that they're going to have to pick and choose their exercises. 

I see new, cool exercises cropping up all the time:  wobble board this, cable bench press that.  Some are of genuine value:  they add intensity to an already effective movement pattern, or they combine a couple of different movements in one exercise.  A few have value but aren't really worth the time:  there are, for example, a billion shoulder-rotator exercises out there that might make my oft-dislocated right shoulder marginally more stable, but I just don't have the time or energy to do more than one or two of them in my warm-up before I need to get on with my real workout.  And some, of course, are of extremely questionable value indeed. 

So again, you need to pick and choose.  This is part of why the "Squat or Don't" argument rages so furiously.  A few years ago I would have contended, like many people, that squats seem like a top-tier movement that everyone should do.  Now I'm not so sure.  If someone of Mike Boyle's caliber had said he didn't believe in the forearm roller, no one would have cared much. 

Whatever cool new movement you choose--and, again, I credit Cosgrove with this point--it's got to knock some other exercise out of the lineup.  And the top half-dozen or so movements and their immediate descendants are pretty convincingly entrenched.

(Don't think it hasn't occurred to me.)

So the next time you think about putting some new exercise into the lineup, particularly one that's named after someone (I'm still taking suggestions for the Heffernan Press, Row, Leg Raise, or more obscure exercise name like the "sidewinder" or some such), consider what you'll be replacing in your lineup.  If it legitimately takes the place of one of the big movements, and trains that pattern effectively--go for it.  But if it doesn't--take a pass. 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.