There are massive problems with the way group exercise is performed by personal trainers in Dublin. Whether you do a WOD in Crossfit, a small group session with your Dublin personal trainer, or a group exercise class like body pump in a gym in Dublin, it could be doing you more harm than good.

Why?

A workout for everybody suits nobody!

I completed my 2nd Cadaver course analysing individual differences in human anatomy. My previous course is when I studied at the RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons Ireland) in 2011.

The problem is I don’t see coaches or Dublin personal trainers looking beyond the exercise and analysing the differences in human anatomy of the people who they are going to train and whether they should be doing certain exercises.

There is a one size fits all mentality to exercise prescription.

Here are five lessons in anatomy why group training, done in it’s current format in most gyms will do you more harm than good.

 

 

#1 Your bones are different lengths from your friends.

The segmental proportions in length between your tibia (shin bone), femur (thigh bone), torso length, humerus bones (in your arm) and all your joint angles are all different.

Look at the attached picture at the angle of inclination of the femur into the socket.

How do you think that affects your ability to squat and deadlift? What influence is bone lengths influence your ability to bench?

So in a class of 4,8 or 20 people why does your Dublin personal trainer make everyone do the same exercise?

Some people are suited to squatting and some people are not. One size range of motion, bum to the ground can be a medicine for one person and a poison to others.

#2 Your Dublin personal trainer follows the “Rules of Exercise”

Weight training is being taught like a dance class. In body pump classes, Crossfit gyms and small groups classes across the country the trainer emerges from his 2,6 or 12 week training course with pre-determined exercise choreography.

For the squat, your trainer tells you to put your feet hip distance apart, toes slightly turned out with hands just outside your shoulders.

Bench Press- hands outside your shoulders, bar touches your chest!

Why? Please refer to point #1.

Who set the rules and how does the same cue fit everybody if we all have different size joints, bones and muscles?

 

 

#3 Anatomy book images are guidelines that have been simplified, not absolutes

The muscle fibres and fascia directions on people vary. This will influence your training in multiple ways. It can influence your bench angle of a chest press that gives you the biggest return of your pectoral (chest muscles), your foot placement in legs can influence what leg muscles you choose to work and your hand placement in upper body exercises can influence whether you choose arms, shoulders or your back muscles.

#4 We are as different on the inside as we are on the outside

Roger Williams wrote a book many years ago called Biochemical Individuality. He analysed many cadavers and his findings are similar to my own. Your organs are different from your friends. They are different sizes and sometimes in different positions of your body.

How does that affect your bodily functions, fuel consumption and nutrient consumption.

 

 

 

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#5 Your ribcage has a different depth than your friends

A deep ribcage reduces the range of motion that you have to move a bar to on your chest. Some people have to move a bar a bigger distance than others. The “rules of exercise” choreography say that the bar must hit your chest.

Medicine for one glenohumeral joint of the shoulder and a poison for another.

It also means a steeper sternal angle (joint down the centre of your chest) and this muscle fibre direction of the sternal angle increases the tension of a muscle much like a bow and arrow to allow you more strength to get out of the bottom range. So the lever is stronger to push a heavier weight from your chest than someone whose chest if less steep.

Oh, and for people influenced by the marketing of Yoga and Pilates!!

There are no separate areas for the long lean muscle section from people who did yoga and a short stumpy section for the people who did weights.

Something to think about!

Damien

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