About 5 Minutes at the Gym...

This post is inspired by a post from Mike Robertson from last week. After reading this post I realized I have a great opportunity to add to the list of typical mistakes made at a big gym. And, even better, try to do something about it. So here are just a few of the things I'm watching people do as I write this:

• Right now there are nine people doing steady state cardio. Three are on treadmills, one on a bike, 6 on eliptical machines. (Yup, a 10th joined the crowd.) All of whom are overweight. (here comes an 11th.) This is such a big part of the fitness culture that we are trying to change. People associate fitness with cario. They think they are going to become skinny if they spend 45 minutes walking on a treadmill or pedalling slowly on a bike. (12th on her way.) What these people need is metabolic resistence training. Working with weights will result in EPOC (excess post exercise oxygen consumption.) What that means is lifting weights will result in an elevated metabolism for up to 48 hours post workout (as compared to about three minutes of elevated metabolism after 45 minutes of slow state cardio.) People always say they stay in the "fat burning zone" but truth is they are in the "stay fat zone."
  
• There is a class going on in the dreaded aerobics room. Just a few problems I saw in the 3 seconds I spent walking by the room:
  

1. The instructor was setting the group up to perform seated bicep curls. Why are they doing bicep curls? Why are they seated? These people need to be on their feet performing full body mulit joint exercises.
   
2. They were using teeny tiny weights. So they were wasting their time doing a useless exercise and building no strength because they weren't using enough weight.
3. The tempo was 3 seconds up, 1 second down. Tempo is important. The concentric portion of the exercise should be performed with power (speed!) The eccentric portion should be slow. Think of a chin up. You want to power your body over the bar as fast as you can then lower yourself slowly. That is how you build strength and power that is useful over the course of your life.
4. Needless to say (should I say that) all the people in the class are women. Here is a great article about training women.
5. They were doing crunches. Like 50 of them. All that is going to do is lead to back pain.
   

• Four people have used the trunk extension and trunk flexion machines in the last five minutes. Once again, back pain waiting to happen. 80% of the population either has back pain or has a disk problem but has yet to feel the symptoms. There is no need to excacerbate the problem with an exercise that isn't all that useful anyway. Try a plank first. Then move to some chops and lifts. You will feel a stronger core and alleviate back pain.
  
• And here's something I didn't see one person doing. Nobody has done a posterior chain exercise. No deadlifts, no pull ups, no rows. These should be the foundation of your program. Also, I haven't seen anyone on a foam roller.
  

That's it for today. I'm going to head over and talk to some folks still walking on the treadmills now.