5 Overrated Training Methods (Article)

The author of this article is Nick Tumminello who is a "trainers trainer" of sorts as far as education is concerned.

Here he looks 5 training methods and how you probably shouldn't be all too  consumed and gung-ho with them (Paleo Crossfit with Chia anyone?)

I'll break this down Young MC style for y'all:

POSTURAL ASSESSMENTS

 - The curvature of your spine, whether it be extreme or near non existent is not associated with health and spinal pain (everyone has their "own' neutral spine)
 - Rounded/forward shoulders can be present with and without pain although greater range if motion is often obtained with a more erect posture
 - Rounded/forward shoulders may not be a key contributor to shoulder pain
 - A 1997 study found that not even 1 of the 427 people examined presented with the text book perfect head resting position proving there is no such thing as perfect posture and it is specific to each one of us
 - There is nothing to support exercise will lead to changes in posture as they are of insufficient volume and frequency to offset daily living activities

MOVEMENT SCREENS

 - Any scoring system has limited ability to predict injury and increased scores often do nothing to improve performance
 - Those with a current or recent injury, a known risk factor for future problems will tend to score lower which is obvious and just identities a risk factor we already knew about
 - Movement screens that only consist of low demand activities may not adequately reflect an individuals capacity, or their risk of injury for movements that occur with higher loads and speeds

CORRECTIVE EXERCISE

 - Every exercise when executed with constant guidance and feedback is "corrective"
 - Language is important here as a client being prescribed "correctives" will stay in a mindset of "being corrected" which is followed by over protection and low movement variation (staying in the safe zone)

CORE STRENGTH TRAINING

 - Core muscle strength plays only a minor role for physical fitness and athletic performance in trained individuals when compared with no or only regular training
 - This doesn't mean to not bother with training your core muscles but you probably don't need 3 hours of Pilates a week doing so
 - For the lifting crowd, Squats and deadlifts don't activate the anterior core muscles all that well so you do need to add some more specific exercises into your program to train them.

CORE STABILITY TRAINING

 - A study compared general exercise treatment versus general exercise treatment plus spinal stabilisation exercises and found that the general exercise treatment reduced disability in the short term (immediately after treatment) to a greater extent than the stabilisation enhanced treatment.
 - There was no difference in long term  follow ups either
 - Motor control exercises and general exercise appear equally as effective at treating low back pain and movement control impairment with disability being reduced considerably by both interventions.\
 - The type of treatment is not of great importance compared to being guided through a long term exercise lifestyle

In the past I've followed each of these methods blindly thinking it was the holy grail of personal training but over time I've learnt to use them for what they are, and stop using some of them all together.

You can read the full article here.