Down the Rabbit Hole

Everybody wants there to be an easier way; they want a magic pill, a secret technique or a hidden path that will enable them to do better, defeat  their opponents and  reach their goals more easily. This is even more prevalent in athletes. A study group made up of Sydney 2000 Olympians showed that 52% of those polled would take a pill if it guarenteed victory for the next five years even if it meant death in the sixth year. I think as a result of this desire one of the most common questions I get asked by other coaches and athletes is

“What’s the best exercise for sport X?”

 When what they really mean is

 “What’s the secret technique that will let me win?”

And they always seem really disapointed when I tell them that every athlete should, regardless of sport, perform

• Deadlifts
• Squats         
• Presses/jerks
• Cleans
• Snatches
• Pull ups
• Dips

You see they want to be told that “Oh yes, you’re a javlin thrower so what you need to do is dumbell rows for structural balance and twists with a tornado ball for rotational power.” And that would help provided that all of the exercises listed above were already a part of their program. The addition of any one of the above exercises would do more for someone’s athletic ability than sport specific supplementation ever can.  

The listed exercises can and should be used differently depending on the needs of your sport but regardless of whether you want to develop strength, speed or power these movements are unequalled in their ability to deliver the goods. They are all functional, compound and dynamic exercises with a high transference effect. There is only one problem with them: they’re hard.

I’m not saying that these exercises are dangerous or particularly technically demanding; driving a car is more complex and far more dangerous than any of these exercises and most of us do that without giving it a second thought. What I am saying is these exercises are bloody hard work.

This is why an athlete wants to be told to do leg extensions or tricep pull downs. It’s also why whenever you walk into a gym you’ll typically see lines of people performing curl after curl before jumping onto the pec deck machine or ‘jogging’ for 40 minutes on an elliptical while watching Oprah. It’s easy.  Now before you all spam my email protesting that steady state cardio is important for general health – it isn’t – or with descriptions of the “totally killer” bench workout you did the other week – I don’t care – you need to realise that no matter how hard you work doing these things it won’t be as difficult as putting in an equivalent amount of effort into any of the listed exercises.

Exercises like the ones listed at the beginning of this article should form the cornerstone of your athletic development. If any of them are missing from your program add them in and watch your performance skyrocket. Don’t squat? Chances are you’re lacking maximal leg strength, muscular endurance and functional mass. Haven’t a clue how to clean (a barbell, not your house)? Learn and your coordination and general athletic ability will jump. Once you know and do all of these exercises sport specific supplementation will help give you that extra edge you’re looking for. But if you are missing this grounding then all the additional exercises you can think of won’t help you as much as one good, heavy deadlift.

This isn’t to say that you should do each of these exercises every session, every week. Aside from the huge time commitment that would require you’d quickly find that the physical commitment would be beyond you. You see, these exercises give a lot but they also take a lot. All of them place a toll on both your energy systems and your nervous system and anyone attempting to do too much with them will quickly feel the ‘snap’ go out of their game. What too much is will be different for everyone out there but personally I find that going ‘hard’ with four of the exercises a week on top of my jiu jitsu training is about right. Less and my progress begins to taper off, more and my BJJ game goes to hell in a hand basket. Most people will be able to handle more than this but most people don’t do 13 sessions of jiu jitsu a week. It’s all about the individual.

Individual differences will also dictate which of these exercises you find the most challenging and which ones you feel you could do day in day out with no ill effects. For instance, squats completely kill me every time without fail but pull ups are a walk in the park. A hard squat workout is for me as mentally demanding as it is physically and I will frequently take 48 to 72 hours to properly recover. A pull up work out however, while still demanding physically, is simply a lot easier to take. What kind of pull up workout doesn’t matter either; I find neither maxing out on reps or additional weight to be any more challenging than ‘working the middle’ to build some functional mass. Shaun – one of Elements Fitness’ earliest athletes –is the other way around. To him squats are fun and pull ups an advanced form of torture. Both of us get a great workout regardless of which of these exercises are involved but the exercise which we find easiest to perform and bounce back from is drastically different.

This effect can be useful. On days where you’re feeling a bit flat but still want or need to train, it can be really useful to have an exercise that will still enable you to get in a really good workout without draining you too much further. You just have to make sure that you’re not using this as an excuse to avoid the things which you find difficult. So if you find yourself frequently pumping out squats at greater than double bodyweight but struggle to do eight straight pull ups you may have fallen into this trap. If this is you, grit your teeth, gird your loins and go work on your pull ups.

So, to recap, the main points of this article are

1. Every athlete needs to perform squats, deadlifts, presses, cleans, snatches, dips and pull ups.
2. These exercises give a lot and they take a lot.
3. Volume, frequency and percieved differculty of exercise needs to factor in the individual. 
4. Think about what you’re doing. Even if you’re doing a good exercise, are you doing it just to avoid doing something harder?

So please, if you’re going to take a pill make it a red one, wake up to reality and remember that there is no short cut to success.