Movement with Upside

When considering what movements to practice in any fitness pursuit, at least some consideration must be given to the potential of the movement in question. The question to ask is, “Does this movement scale up? Or, is it a dead end?”

Sure, cranking away on this thing could get a novice to sweat and even see some adaptation, but what’s the upside? Can it scale? Would the world’s best athletes benefit from this? Probably not. What does that mean about the movement?

Take a look at something just as hilarious as the Shake Weight. It’s ironic, albeit accidental success makes for a great example of this point. Could one experience a fitness challenge using the Shake Weight? Potentially. But, where does one go from there? Do you just Shake Weight longer? More vigorously? This movement fails to scale up. It’s a deadened street.

Soon, we start to see that not all movements are created equal. Being a beginner doesn’t mean selecting from a beginner selection of exercises. Push, pull, load, run, and jump like a human being. Choose the movements that allow you to accomplish these tasks on the biggest scale as the foundation for your training and you’ll both make the most of your time and have a chance to have lasting impact.

When people say doing dumb things like this are great for stability, the question we should ask is, “Compared to what?” Compared to doing nothing, this exercise creates tons of stability. Will an athlete be able to create as much stability as possible jumping laterally on a half boss-ball thing? Absolutely not. And, that is just one metric of evaluation that is enough for me to look elsewhere.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach

 

PS – As an aside, the filter for which I’m encouraging you all to look through movement with inadvertently describes the essence of functional movements. These movements are those that which we are afforded the greatest deal of power output (SEE: work capacity). Simply put, they have a definitive characteristic to move large loads long distances quickly.