Every time I log on to social media I see videos of people performing all kinds of stupid “exercises” in what I can only assume is an attempt to appear innovative and differentiate themselves or simply for attention.
First, you can’t innovate if you don’t know what you’re doing to begin with. If these people actually understood exercise they wouldn’t be attempting to combine different exercises in ways that compromise their effectiveness and safety, wouldn’t be moving quickly, wouldn’t be on an unstable base, wouldn’t be attempting to mimic other activities with weights, etc.
The purpose of an exercise is to efficiently load the target muscles to create tension, fatigue, and microtrauma to stimulate improvements in strength and the other factors of functional ability, and a good exercise does this while minimizing the risk of overuse and acute injuries. If a movement does not provide relatively consistent, challenging resistance that is at least moderately well balanced to the strength curves of the targeted muscles, in a way that does not expose the involved tissues to potentially harmful levels of force, it is not a good exercise.
Second, if you want to differentiate yourselves from the rest of the fitness industry you simply need to be competent. The vast majority of people in this field are not. Most of the people claiming to be experts don’t even really understand exercise or know what they’re doing beyond the most basic level.
You don’t have to invent and teach goofy shit. You don’t have to be the inventor or founder of something. You don’t have to have a gimmick. You just need to work hard to continuously improve your knowledge and understanding of exercise and your ability to effectively teach others about it and instruct them in performing it.
Third, I don’t care if someone wants attention, but it pisses me off when people promote utterly stupid things as exercise for this purpose. The majority of people who see this nonsense don’t know any better and may decide to emulate it, wasting their time or risking injury. Feeding your ego is no justification for misleading people about something that can affect their long-term health. Besides, the few people out there who do know better just think you’re an idiot when they see this stuff.
Finally, if you record exercise videos with the camera pointed directly at your ass you are not a fitness educator, you are not a motivator, you are a bimbo.
This is not exercise instruction, it’s sexual signalling. You might as well stop pretending to be exercising and just stand in front of the camera moving your pelvis suggestively. You’d get just as much attention but you wouldn’t look like an idiot for trying to pass this nonsense off as exercise.
Comments on this entry are closed.
It is not about ‘what is being done’ it is about ‘why it is being done’. You can do any bullshit exercise you want if you do it because you like doing it. If all you care about doing ‘something’ instead of nothing, then you can do any bullshit exercise you want.
If you are in the minority of people that actually wants results, like burning calories or increasing strength, then you are going to have to breakdown and think about what you are doing. Frankly, nobody puts much thought into what they need to do, they just find a personal trainer and do time wasting
Bullshit exercises.
I see this every week in my gym drew!where do people come up with this stuff?in order to exercise a muscle,you have to know it’s function!I’m 46 and find I do best lifting every 4 to 5 days in high intensity fashion.at my age my recovery ability is superslow!most gyms are places for social gatherings.go back to being hardcore people!
designer exercises, upscale and fashionable looking so i guess people must think their some new cutting edge brake through exercise. unfortunately i workout at la fitness so i see this all the time and i cant help but notice the im the only one in the place who looks like they actually did a workout, stumbling around from station to station gasping for air. theres nothing that a sideways leg press can do for you that a basic leg press or squat cant. basic exercises that track a muscle and joints basic function preformed at a high level of intensity thats you need in a work.
designer exercises, upscale and fashionable looking so i guess people must think their some new cutting edge brake through exercise. unfortunately i workout at la fitness so i see this all the time and i cant help but notice im the only one in the place who looks like they actually did a workout, stumbling around from station to station gasping for air. theres nothing that a sideways leg press can do for you that a basic leg press or squat cant. basic exercises that track a muscle and joints basic function preformed at a high level of intensity thats all you need in a work.
Hi Drew,
I was waiting when you’ll write something to that effect. I’ve seen a lot of this bullshit lately and more so on the women side. Are people just getting dumber or what, what is wrong with exercising properly. Exercise if done properly is not fun.
Thank you for that post.
Regards
Alvin
HA!
Love it.
As my dad often said, “Just goes to prove that prostitution isn’t the only trade that was ruined by amateurs.”
THIS.
Love. It. Infinity.
Drew Friggin’ Baye…
Love to see you cut loose like this.
Don’t get me wrong… Your trademark pragmatic stoicism is great, but it’s nice to see the human side of the cyborg;)
Much respect.
Keep it coming, bro!
I follow a couple of accounts on Instagram precisely because they post so much insanely stupid shit. Is that fuelling the fire, I mean I’m giving them the attention they crave and I guess they don’t care if its positive or not.
….and Bud Jeffries is now doing 40kg kettlebell “exercises” with unimaginably bad form in Instagram. Did I mention the bells are on fire? I can’t not look….
Maybe he’s practicing for the circus.
Your time is too valuable to waste on nonsense.
Yeah, I’ve unfollowed….
Hi Drew,
We recently discussed the possibility of creating a nutrition and/or workout plan to help me lose a couple pounds and reach my goal of dropping from 14.6% bodyfat to 13.5% or so. You replied saying that you could help me but I’m still thinking about it.
I read almost all of your emails and I wanted to comment on this particular email. I really enjoyed it, it’s very succinct and well written and to the point. So thank you for that.
I too get really upset, sometimes infuriated at all of the hokey, gimmicky crap out there. There’s so much false and misleading information out there and much of it has monetary aspects attached (i.e., we want your money!).
It’s awful and an outrage not to mention completely irresponsible as lots of (foolish but don’t know it) people fall hook, line and sinker with often the best of intentions but misguided or just don’t want to put in the hard work.
Keep up the good work! Thank you!
Robert
PS: where can I pick up a copy of your book “Getting Ripped?”
Thanks again!
Hey Robert, you’re welcome! You can get Getting Ripped and my other books in the store.
Years ago weider let the fitness people into his magazine, to boost sales, and it did! Likewise the gyms followed suit to boost memberships and it did big time!
People like to follow the fads…and the con artist are there to help it along$$$
Dan
well said Drew,
its amazing what I see in the gym, I once saw a trainer having a 60+ woman that was heavy, stand on some kind balance platform and do dumbbell curls
I went and spoke to the manager and told him how unsafe that was and if he was looking for a lawsuit if she fell
people are so unbelievable
dan
Unfortunately this kind of nonsense is everywhere. The fitness industry is full of idiots and hucksters.
Drew well said. I see this crap all the time, especially with the women folk.
More and more people are buying into this notion of dynamic strength (basically all exercise is dynamic except for statics), where the belief is that exercise has more value if it combines 3, 4 or 5 movements in one. All that happens is nothing is trained maximally and you produce a combination movement that is far from what I assume is meant to somehow be functional.
This craziness seems more prevalent with the kettlebell and crossfit nutters. By the way did you notice the look of the top place-getters in the latest crossfit world championships. These guys were built like state level bodybuilders. Then you read that there was no steroid testing at the event..
Of course they didn’t test for steroids. They would have had to disqualify all of the participants and cancel the event, losing face and a lot of money.
Hi Drew,
Excellent rant & observations – thanks for keeping us all on track. There is so much “fake” out there now its hard to know whats real.I’ve been training just once a week for twenty focussed minutes & am making more real gains than when I used to hang round the gym for two hours 3 times a week.
Best Regards,
R.Marsh
United Kingdom
Hey Drew,
Excellent article again. This is so true. I get sick of all those exercise videos posted on youtube when I only go there once in a while to find something of yours or from this community. And As much as I enjoy looking at beautiful girls, I also get sick of seeing them in these “exercise videos” wearing there fitness clothes.
BTW, are you still working on a new UXS and attachments? Oh, There’s a small chance I might be moving down south to Florida from here in Massachusetts. I’ve been job-hunting and wanting to relocate. Florida is one location I’m considering. My dad lives there. If I do, I want to look you up, if I’m not too far from you.
Thanks, John Beynor
The new UXS design is complete but I have no plans to design attachments for it. You can read more about it at https://www.baye.com/uxs/
Drew, I really enjoy your rants. They reinforce mine. Unfortunately, the people who promote this stuff won’t listen and won’t learn until one of them injures themselves or eventually develops a chronic debility later in life. If they have any degree of intelligence or integrity they’ll come around to the truth and finally educate themselves. But of course, with media, the sexual innuendo is just too tempting. Another side to the fitness crap are the U-Tube stars who are genetically predisposed to athleticism. Like most stupid trainers they enjoy flaunting their inherited abilities (and looks) at the expense of those seeking help. I once saw a personal trainer making fun of his own client for not having any athletic ability.
Hey Trace, you’re right, but I’m going to keep trying anyway.
Hi Drew,
The other day I heard someone say words to the effect.
Advertising – is about selling something to uniformed so that they make an irrational decision.
I think that this quote sums up all the fitness industry advertising and marketing.
If only people were informed about proper exercise than there would be nothing for the fitness industry to sell.
If more people were informed there would still be a market for exercise information, instruction, and equipment, but it would have to be sensible, and that would eliminate most of what the fitness industry sells now.
I’m sure if you talked to any of the dopes pictured here the response would be “I bet you can’t do this!” Which might be true, although being able to do a ridiculous “exercise” and wanting to do it are two different things.
Drew, did you happen to catch 60 Minutes last night? The founder of cross fit was interviewed and I’m sure that wouldn’t have improved your opinion of the fitness industry.
Exactly. They’d be missing the point. Whether someone else is capable of doing it has nothing to do with whether or not it is a good exercise.
Greg Glassman is an idiot and an asshole. He may be the worst thing to happen to the fitness industry since Kenneth Cooper.
But, but, but Drew! These girls are so hot!
They MUST be the product of their workout!
Ya know, causation=correlation, etc, etc.
😉
Then there are those folks who do the right thing the wrong way. I frequently see people who do use the weight machines, but for some reason think they will get better results if they move the weight as fast as they can or they spend most of their workout doing multiple sets (sometimes 5 or more) of an exercise like leg extensions. I guess all gyms have what I call the “three tenors”. Somewhere along the line it has been ingrained into people’s minds that you must do at least 3 sets of 10 on all exercises to get results.
Hey Craig, there are plenty of those, too. Hopefully I can reach and teach at least some of them to exercise more safely and efficiently.
The lady in the first picture seems to be doing a split squat/lunge/one legged deadlift/triceps kickback all rolled into one. No idea what she hopes to achieve.
I was one of the bunch who searched for ‘innovative’ exercises to do until i found you and this website.
But i got a totally off topic question that’s been bothering me for a while :
What will happen to our body when we consume enough calories for our goal, but not enough protein and too much carb?
Depending on how far below your protein needs your intake is you may fail to build new muscle or start losing the muscle you have.