Spiraling off of yesterday's topic a bit:  whatever you do for exercise, it's got to be balanced with rest, recovery, nutritional support, and general care for the health of your joints, bones, and connective tissue.  Exercise, it must be remembered, is a stressor on your system.  Your body then compensates by getting stronger, bigger, more flexible, more coordinated.  The stress -- the stimulus for compensation -- is a necessary part of the equation, but it IS stress. 

So the challenge of program design--particularly of the individualized, one-on-one variety practiced by my fitness-coaching brethren and I--is to provide appropriate stimulus for  improvement and growth, but NO MORE.  Some people err in one direction ("I work out for 2 hours a day, hardcore, big lifts only.  Rest is for the weak."); others in another ("I do a half-hour of dynamic stretching, twenty minutes of Bosu Ball work, and then I take a steam and get a massage.").  Neither extreme is productive. 

It takes a smart trainer--one who's spent some time in the trenches and made his share of mistakes--to man up and say that this or that hardcore technique isn't worth the damage it can do when you screw it up.  I mean, trainers are supposed to be badass, kick-your-butt types who yell and scream and make you sore as hell, so you can brag about your weight room exploits to all your friends at work--right?

Well, sort of.  But we're also supposed to keep our clients safe.  We're ultimately supposed to make clients' bodies work better, and that takes more than just running them until they puke.  To paraphrase Alwyn Cosgrove:

Ya want ta be sore?  Noothin' aysier.  Och'aye, ay'll tayk yer sorry arse ootsiyde and beeat yer hiyde with a chaiyn for twenny minoots.

Which I imagine he's done in the past to some of his particularly recalcitrant clients. We're supposed to find a balance.  Our clients trust us to do that.

Which is why--and here comes the topic of today's post--I like Mike Boyle's work so much.  Coach Boyle is no dogmatist:  in the few years I've followed his work (including a couple of personal interviews), he's changed his opinion on a number of things, and quite openly.  Years ago, he was a powerlifter--meaning his entire training regimen was centered around bench pressing, deadlifting, and squatting--none of which he wholeheartedly endorses any more.  His 2004 book, Functional Training For Sports, has a large section on drawing in the abs, an approach he seems to have largely abandoned. 

Boyle's ever-changing approach seems guided by two simple principles:  1) what's safe (long-term) and 2) what works (on the playing field and in life).  And #2 never overrides #1. If something either makes people hurt too much, or doesn't help their performance, it's gone.  Sacred cows be damned.

I mean, one of the definitions of insanity is repeating the same way-overdone "definition of insanity" quote and believing that people will think you're clever for using it.

There are enough egos out there, enough trainers and gurus who doggedly adhere to a set of exercises or principles or ideas because they thought of them, dammit, and they MUST BE RIGHT (and besides, I need to make rent this month and so I need to keep claiming that HefferHealth is the best thing since Nautilu...er, the ThighMast...er...crunches...er...the elbow joint?).

In this T-Nation article, Coach Boyle talks about a few of his ideas and how they've changed over the years.  Worth a look.

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