Your Training is NOT Specific Enough
Why the things you are doing may not be getting you or your clients the results you think they are
Major Key Alert!! Oftentimes people do non-specific things and expect specific results, selecting general exercises, program them in with the expectation that we will get specific outcomes.
I was having a conversation with a client about Squats and she said “squats are good for me so I should do them right” and I responded “You don’t have to do squats if you don’t want to. The squat is only a tool.”
This opened us up to a discussion… the same discussion I’m about to share with you.
So she said, “but squats make my legs stronger.’ I said that I agree that squats will make your legs stronger, but only within the specific constraints of your body’s capacity.
Oh, my god… WTF does that even mean?
Ok, so look, we’ve all see a person who has the ability to squat very low to the ground… Ass to grass as they call it. But the average person/American cannot do this. Let’s say this average American (Chad) cannot squat deeper than 90 degrees. This could be due to a plethora of reasons. Lack of Spinal mobility, Hip mobility, Ankle Dorsiflexion, or some combination.
Well, since Chad is only able to squat to that depth, he’s only training his tissue in those specific ranges. And what usually happens as Chad adds load, is he has less range of motion, not more. And IF he does have deeper range of motion, it’s usually due to some compensation or ability for the body to find a way to organize itself to allow it.
But that might not be the optimal loading strategy for health and longevity.