Do fewer things better: standing on the shoulders of giants, mastering the three lifts
19 September 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
People are amazed when we inform them that under the Purposeful Primitive philosophy when we train the untrained, the out-of-shape, the beginner, we have them do three lifts and three lifts only for a protracted period of time. We will not allow them to pass go or collect $200 until these three movements are technically mastered. The three key core lifts are done using a barbell. We have beginners do the three lifts for three sets apiece three times a week. What about the other exercises, the isolation exercises, the various cable exercises, machine exercises and abdominal work? No ab work!? As Purposeful Primitives our credo is: do fewer things better. The three lifts, the squat, bench press and deadlift are compound multi-joint exercises that require groups of muscle to work in a coordinated synchronized fashion to complete the assigned muscular task. There are approximately 600 muscles on the human body and these three exercises stimulate every single muscle to a greater or lesser degree. This brings up a larger point: in this day and age, fitness adherents are taught a variety of modes and methods and personal trainers and other experts love to dazzle new clients with exotic exercises done in unusual ways by assembling a menu of unique exercises, each done in a unique manner or fashion, this expert differentiates himself from that expert and creates the next new-thing buzz necessary to attract business. This quest for uniqueness leads to the assemblage of methods and modes designed to present an individualized perspective on fitness. The problem is no one teaches the basics anymore assuming they knew them to begin with.
Purposeful Primitives argue that this eternal quest for new and different exercise variations, exercises that offer new twists and exotic techniques, is nothing more than a clever rearranging of deck chairs, a careful reordering of the contents of the box. Step outside the box and its clear to see that no one stresses the basics anymore because the basics are hardly exotic or unique and the basics are decidedly un-sexy. Its hard to attract new business selling plain vanilla. In classical music one format composers use to display their imaginative expertise is to construct a musical theme then develop variations on that theme with each variant different and more elaborate than its predecessor. For example Bachs Goldberg Variations by Purposeful Primitive Glenn Gould has a thematic Aria followed by thirty variations on the initial theme. In the world of fitness our Primitive conclusion is that experts are so enamored by variations on a theme that the theme has been forgotten (at best) or purposefully discarded assuming the experts were aware of the thematic exercise Aria to begin with. The thematic foundation of progressive resistance training is compound multi-joint exercises done with barbells and dumbbells. Old timers like myself grew up in a time where machines and mechanical devices that mimic free-weight exercise did not exist. There were no variations on the basic progressive resistance exercises by which to be distracted. Nowadays several generations of fitness personal trainers have grown up an era where thematic variations are the norm and the root-core themes have been forgotten, purposefully discarded or never learned to begin with. What a pity. The clientele of the theme-less trainers are the big losers.
The most basic theme in progressive resistance training is compound multi-joint exercises and the most elemental of compound multi-joint exercises are the squat, the bench press and the deadlift. By teaching them to exclusion, many things are accomplished. First, by performing the three core exercises three times a week we develop a continuum of practice that allows the beginner to really get inside the lift; proper technical execution requires study and thought and lots of reps and practice. A properly performed deep-knee bend is every bit as technically complex as learning a proper golf or tennis swing some would credibly argue a squat is more complex as you dont have to learn how to swing a 200-pound racquet or sand wedge. Practice makes perfect and as Zen master Dogen once quipped: A little practice is shallow enlightenment and deep practice is deep enlightenment. By clearing the exercise menu of everything other than the three key core lifts the trainee really comes to understand proper technical execution, something sadly lacking today. One has only to visit a commercial training facility to see innumerable examples of piss-poor technique. Thats assuming free weights are used at all (doubtful) and thats assuming the trainees perform squats (unlikely) or deadlifts at all. Bad technique renders a lift ineffectual and dangerous. 90% of weight training injuries can be traced to the lifter allowing the weight to stray outside the proscribed technical boundary of the lift. We insist on perfect technical execution of every rep of every set using an exaggerated range-of-motion to deeply ingrain the motor pathway. By always residing within perfect technique we maximize the muscular inroad and minimize chance of injury.
By concentrating totally, exclusively and with undistracted laser-like focus on the three core lifts the beginner lays a rock-solid foundation on which every subsequent progressive resistance workout is built. Once the three lifts are learnt and truly absorbed, once the three magnificent movements are truly taken into the trainees marrow, variations can and should be incorporated. Variations without a thematic base, without foundation, are the equivalent of steak without sizzle, fluff without substance, fancy footwork designed to distract of obfuscate the fact that the gut-busting ultra-effective ultra-basics are totally absent. Throughout the Purposeful Primitives lifelong pursuit of physical transformation (which is the real goal of fitness) the three lifts are always present and practiced in some form or anotherthe plain fact is few fitness experts know about, much less practice, much less perform, much less correctly perform the three core lifts excepting the bench press. The resurrection of these three lifts amounts to a revolutionary event. Experts are so concerned about staking out a position of uniqueness that when the Purposeful Primitives come along championing plain vanilla, this seems revolutionary. We stand on the shoulders of giants and pass along profound information passed on to us to those individuals savvy enough to understand the immense implications of our message. Our flavor is vanilla - but there are an incredible variety of rich and delicious vanilla variations with many subtle textures and tastes.
Tomorrow: the who, what, where, when, how and why of subtle squatting
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