Build a Strong Foundation

We regularly see new and often wacky looking exercises on social media. Should we be trying those? After all, those influencers tell us that they got those incredible bodies by doing the workouts involving these strange new ways of doing things and constantly changing their routines, because they tell us that “the body gets bored quickly”. Each one of them is doing something different and yet they all have amazing physiques. How so?

There are a few things at play here.

Firstly, influencers are getting paid to produce content that is engaging. And how do you make engaging content? By coming up with weird and wonderful exercises.

Secondly, they are flat out wrong. The body does not get bored quickly. The body adapts to stimuli over time. Constantly changing up the stimulus will hinder progress towards a goal.

Thirdly, each of those influencers will have undergone some serious training that involved basic, and “boring”, exercises to produce the body on show (and often used steroids or performance enhancing drugs which they don’t mention) .

Fourthly, it will have taken them years of working out and eating in a certain way to gain those physiques, and not the weeks or months that they are selling. There is no quick fix.

And yes, it can sometimes be good to freshen up your workouts, but do you need to be constantly changing what you do? Or should you try to work steadily and consistently, building a solid foundation for your body to perform well?

I want my clients to be physically active and able so that they can live their lives to the fullest. While they may all have certain goals that they are working towards, I am a firm believer that your body works as whole, and isolating certain muscle groups can lead to imbalances which in turn can cause injuries and niggles to surface. Which is why, unless the client specifically asks for it, there will always be an element of whole body exercises in their programming.

That whole body programming will include elements of the basic, so called, “boring” exercises. For example, there are many ways to squat that will work the legs and core in a variety of ways: bodyweight, back (high/mid/low bar), front, goblet, Zercher, suitcase, split, Bulgarian, and more. The list is pretty extensive. And that’s just the squat. There are so many variations that can be applied to each and every exercise.

The basic premise and direction of travel towards the end goal can remain the same. The route getting there will vary from time to time as progress is made, or we come across a hindrance across that route which may present in the form of an old injury or niggle or something else (life/work/etc.). But the building of the strong foundation goes on.

As the quote at the top of this edition of the newsletter intimates, building a strong foundation makes life easier. And this is especially true as we age; time and biology conspire to try and make us more frail. But we know we can avert that course of decrepitude and live long, functioning lives through working on our bodies, making them stronger, fitter, leaner and healthier.

If you’d like any help with building a strong foundation for living, please click the gold button right below this paragraph. I want to help!