Have you ever heard your own voice? Before you hastily answer that question, stop and think about it as i further clarify that question. Have you ever heard your own voice devoid of ambient noise, background chatter, wind, etc? Chances are you haven’t unless you’ve entered one of these:

An Anechoic chamber is a room that can be as large as an airplane hangar in size and is a place where no ambient noise is present. These are the quietest places on earth. They use them to test radio frequencies and for testing the true characteristics of speakers without echo and ambient noise interfering. Pretty wild stuff. I have never stepped foot inside of one of these rooms, however i imagine the sensation would be like witnessing a painting in a gallery where the paint floated still between the frames with no adherence to any kind of canvas or equivalent surface. It must be as if your voice would just hang there with no reference to outside noise coloring the tone. It would just be your voice occupying that space.

So what are you getting at, Charlie?

After sitting on the idea of such a room, i started thinking about thoughts and how we manifest our thoughts in light of others’ influence. This can be a very good thing, as it is good to bring in outside influences when turning those decisions into actions. We need others to bounce ideas off of, however i also believe it to be important that we are acutely aware of our own internal voice first, our instincts, if you will. In regards to health and fitness, we often make things too complicated. We assess the needs of clients and ourselves and assign protocol that may not match directly with those goals. Our instincts may tell us one thing, but outside pressure from other sources may tell us otherwise.

For example: Client A wants to get his whole body stronger. This client typically lifts weights with isolation bodybuilding exercises for 3 sets of 12-15 reps 3 times a week. He hasn’t seen gains in years and now wants to work with a trainer to get bigger and stronger. So, he enlists the help of a trainer to get stronger. This trainers instincts tell him that his client needs to start lifting heavier weights. However, somewhere along the line, because of outside influence and fear of being judged, the trainer steers the ship of program design off course.

In his head, he’s thinking…

Heavy Press for sets of 5 reps
Heavy Pull for sets of 5 reps
Heavy Squat for sets of 5

However, in light of pressure from other trainers, colleagues, and the trainee (either perceived or actual), he thinks it may look too simple. So, instead, he caves and does this…

BOSU Ball Dumbbell Overhead Press with one leg balancing
Dumbbell lunge matrix with side lateral raises
One-arm dumbbell row with t-spine rotation on a BOSU ball
Wall Squats with Physio Ball to Bicep Curl
Dumbbell Close-stance squats on BOSU to Tricep Extension
Core plank sequence on Physio ball

You get where i’m going with this? The latter program may have all these cool and trendy exercises, however the trainer has lost sight of the goals of the trainee. Not to say that the above exercises are bad, however they don’t efficiently match up with the stated goals of getting stronger. Even though something like a Bench Press, Bent over Row and Squat are not as trendy or, as some may say, not “functional” enough (whatever that means), those compound forms of exercises are the lifts that the client can put the most load on his body with; heavy compound lifts will be the most efficient way to get the client to where he wants to go. As Dan John, one of my favorite strength coaches of all time, once said (or similarly stated), the reason that world-class programs are so great is because they are simple, and simple works!

All things being equal, the simplest solution is usually the best solution (Occam’s Razor).

The lesson: Trust your instincts first and keep things simple. Look first not to what you can ADD to the program, but what extraneous things you can take away. Put yourself in the Anechoic chamber of thought first, and hear your own voice before adding to the fray of outside influence.

Charlie Reid Uncategorized