Little Johnny decides he wants to learn how to play soccer. He shows up for his first training session and is told to shoot. Johnny, as with all beginners is not able to shoot very well, his coach tells him “Johnny I’m going to show you how to shoot, and after I show you how to shoot, you are going to practice shooting every week ONCE a week”. They move on to passing……Johnny is not very good at passing…….His coach tells him, “Johnny I’m going to show you how to pass, and after I show you how to pass, you are also going to practice passing every week ONCE a week, I will advise you throughout” and so on they go throughout this method until Johnny has been shown all the fundamentals of soccer.
Little Jimmy decides he too wants to learn how to play soccer. He shows up for his first training session and is told to shoot. Jimmy, as with all beginners is not able to shoot very well, his coach tells him “Jimmy I’m going to show you how to shoot, and after I show you how to shoot, you are going to practice shooting every week THREE times a week,I will advise you throughout”. They move on to passing……Jimmy is not very good at passing…….His coach tells him, “Jimmy I’m going to show you how to pass, and after I show you how to pass, you are also going to practice passing every week THREE times a week, I will advise you throughout” and so on they go throughout this method until Jimmy has been shown all the fundamentals of soccer.
Unsurprisingly Jimmy overtakes Johnny in his development dedicating nearly three times as much of his efforts to the basic skills of soccer.
Little Johnny becomes increasingly frustrated with his slow progress and so some years later decides, instead of soccer, he wants to learn how to use the gym. Johnny meets his trainer and the trainer asks him to perform the basic lifts, squat, deadlift, lunge, press and pull and soon it becomes apparent Johnny is not good at any of these skills. His trainer tells him “Johnny I will show you how to do all these movements and after I’ve shown you you are going to perform them every week ONCE a week.”
Little Jimmy is told that the gym may benefit his ever-impressive soccer career by increasing strength and preventing injury. Jimmy meets his trainer and the trainer asks him to perform the basic lifts, squat, deadlift, lunge, press and pull and soon it becomes apparent Jimmy is not good at any of these. His trainer tells him “Jimmy I will show you how to do all these movements and after I’ve shown you you are going to perform them with me every week THREE times a week.”
Who do you think improves faster?
It must happen to nearly every person who begins their first program in the gym. The trainer arrives, goes through all these new movements with you and then afterwards tells you the program is going to be divided up into one day of back and biceps, another day of chest and triceps and the third day legs and shoulders. One person asks to increase their strength another wants to decrease bodyfat another may just want to get strong for their chosen sport, doesn’t matter, here’s the program, chest day, legs day, back day, get it done, feel the burn, no pain no gain, protein balls, gainz, shock the body etc etc etc etc.
The truth of the matter is when you are a beginner to the gym anything will work, and I mean anything. The worst program in the world will work, the best program in the world will work. It is what a lot of the industry strives on, beginners. Trainers lap it up, “a beginner, time for me to shine!” Soon word gets around that there’s a trainer in the local gym with Mary, who has never even stepped inside of a gym before this, looking like a million dollars. Mary has not mastered too many of the movements, if any, due to her low exposure to them but if Mary was taught the fundamentals from the start and these fundamentals were enforced and implemented throughout her program she would than have taken away something from her eight week gym going experience other then just a before and after photo.
A client or athlete who is a beginner should be taught and coached the basics from the start. Squat, deadlift, lunge, press and pull are the basics and there’s no reason why these can’t be implemented every training day (unless you’re doing them to failure which is a topic for another blog). Telling somebody to do split days, 5 x 5, 10 x 10, supersets, giant sets, drop sets, BFR and whatever else when they have at most a couple of months of training done is putting the cart before the horse. If you lay down the fundamentals from the start and do them as often as possible with them they will become better at learning the skill of each movement. These fundamental movements are skill based and the only way to get better at doing them is to do them often. I have met and coached people who have been training for months,years and even decades and when asked to do the basic movements they can’t do them. The only legitimate reason to change a program would be if it stops working yet people’s programs change so often they don’t actually know when it does or doesn’t work. Fundamentals work, you can control the volume and intensity for each of these movements and achieve fantastic results. In my experience the trainer changes the athletes program so often because he or she is bored of the program and not the other way around. Don’t be concerned about them getting bored be concerned about them getting better.
Steve
#raisethebar
The Basics…..
