What presents itself as "personal training" in the greed-infested waters of our society today is --- too often and in too many venues --- a mixture of gimmicks and quackery feasting upon ignorance of what produces a legitimate physiological adaptation versus development of a specific and useless skill.

Avoid BALANCING and/or BOUNCING in your workouts. At all costs. Balancing is ineffective, bouncing is injurious.

When you're put into a position to control balance while lifting a weight,
you're limited to sub-maximal contraction, albeit multiple ones because of
the various muscles needed for balance. You get better at the endeavor
because your brain synchronizes these exertions. That's a skill -- not
increased strength, nor even improved balance for anything other than that
motion itself. It doesn't apply or help you do anything else; just like
practicing your free throw shooting won't make you stronger or a better
bowler.

To understand this better, refer back to an article I posted about a year
ago:

http://www.floridafitness.com/AAA/blog/previous.html

Ballistic movements, accomplished through bursts of momentum or activities
such as hopping or jumping, produce high-tension muscle contraction ---
which is good. But they do so with terrible repercussion in your joints --
which is bad. You never know the structural integrity of a joint until
you've exceeded it -- and then it's too late.

Immediate injury is not prevalent from this activity but the wear on
connective tissue has a long-range consequence -- it's called ARTHRITIS.

I referenced Dr. McGuff's book in my podcast program when talking about your
muscles as the storage depot of glucose. He's the one who pointed out that
if you fail to regularly produce maximal muscle contraction, your
fast-twitch fibers will go dormant and glucose (or glycogen) from your diet
turns to fat.

Almost everybody I've ever trained initially suffered muscle tremor on the
Leg Extension machine. You might recall I pointed out that your muscles have
to become better at storing glucose -- and in a couple of weeks these
tremors went away.

Walking, a treadmill, elliptical trainer, biking, running, etc. do not have
the potency of improving your musculoskeletal health and function that
matches effective -- and legitimate -- strength training.

I hope somebody does themselves a huge favor and reads McGuff's book. After
doing so, if you want a 1x/wk 20-minute workout, please call me.

Besides a link to the book, McGuff's website also has a collection of
articles. Go to:

http://www.Ultimate-exercise.com

The video below is a sample of the type of workout Dr. McGuff advocates, although it was actually shot at an Indianapolis fitness studio:

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