Stop Wasting Your Time – Guest Blog from TrueFitness

So in the past I have written about aesthetic beauty and how lifting for aesthetic beauty should not be a priority in a sports performance program. Lifting for bigger muscles or lifting to look better will not directly help with on field performance. Doing these exercises is allowable only after the necessities of sports training are fulfilled. But sometimes vanity wins the day and “beauty” lifts become the priority. This is done to the detriment of your athletic ability and training priority. So today I would like to start a list of exercises that are on the aesthetic beauty lift list so that you know whether or not you are mixed up in your priorities and need to re-focus. Remember, these exercises can be done but only after the sports training exercises are complete and you are not taking your body into an overtraining state.

Today’s title is “Stop Wasting Your Time” and is appropriate to anyone who walks into the gym and begins doing the exercises that are not sports performance based and instead only serve the purpose of looking “pretty”. You get one chance to be your best on the pitch so stop blowing that chance and wasting your time. Next week we will begin to discuss our favorite exercise for becoming a better athlete but today we list exercises we see minimal value in with exception to rehab. We are athletes and need to train as such.

So I thought about doing bullet points but that would have made this blog three pages long so I will just list out some exercises that should be considered a waste of your time as an athlete: Leg Press- Do Squats! Leg Extension- Do Squats! Leg Curl- Do Squats! Bicep Curls, Concentration Curls, Triceps Kickbacks, Side Lunges. Cable Side Hip Raise, Planks, Bridges, Side Plank, Seated Calf Raise, DB flyes, Pec Dec, Reverse Flyes, Triceps Pulldown, Skullcrushers, Cable Ab Crunch, Step-Up, Hip Adduction and Hip Abduction machines. This is not a complete list but these are the exercises that most athletes are guilty of mistakenly doing when training for their sport. The exercises listed above are mostly single joint exercises and mostly are a waste of time for an athlete. Single joint exercises (doing only one of the body’s joints at a time) are not applicable to sport since sport rarely if ever uses just one joint at a time. Doing them will take up valuable time and limit your ability to improve for your sport. The exercises are simply not effective at improving sports performance. Doing these in a slow and controlled manner as is usually the case actually trains the body to be slower and less explosive. No athlete should ever want to be slower and less explosive. In essence these exercises are ruining your athleticism.

Train explosive to be explosive. Train hard to become hard. These clichés apply as does train beauty to become beauty. Sport is not beauty. Sport is power, intensity, ugly and fierce. Training that way MUST be the goal and the exercises listed above simply don’t relate to the needs of sport and especially powerful and intense sports like Rugby.

Next week we will go into the exercises that should be building blocks for any sports performance training program, especially Rugby. We will explain why they are important and the results that you will see when those exercises are added to your workout program. Until then keep working hard and your goals will always become one step closer to reality.

Anyone in the San Diego area is welcome to drop in at our studio at 2949 Garnet Ave. 3rd floor, Pacific Beach, CA. We would love to put you through our workout.

Please feel free to call or email Annalise Evans of TrueFitness with any questions: (760) 809 1848 annalise@truefitness.biz and join her fan page on Facebook: TrueFitness Annalise Evans

Article written by Spencer Aiken, CSCS, CEO, TrueFitness