ALL THE WAY..

As I was backing out of the driveway Saturday morning, I had to brake for a dozen women standing on the road.

Turned out they were working out.  One foot was up on the curb, the other on the road, and they were split squatting approximately 10cm down, and back up.

Now, I don't have to tell the members of this gym that increasing the height of one foot, serves one purpose, to increase the depth of the squat.   What I saw on Saturday was the equivilent of filling your cart to overflowing at the supermarket, and then just buying a pack of chewing gum.

This is not really a criticism of the bootcamp (ok maybe a little bit....), the trainer was no doubt just searching for ways to mix things up and keep the participants engaged.  It looked like they were having fun.  But it's easier to create a community than it is to deliver results.

We like variety here too, but first, we do the basics, and we do the basics well.

There's no point in trying to snatch a barbell, if you can't swing a kettlebell first.

Forget about ring dips, if I need to throw Chelsea the squeaky chicken under your chest to check if you're touching the ground....

There's no point in trying to learn a muscle up, if your pull ups are still shaky.

And there's almost never any reason to lose your range of motion, in order to perform a 'trickier' or heavier version of an exercise.

Exceptions might be if we're working on a particular section of a movement, or a defined progression (like with our Handstand Pushup work over the last month).