Have you ever seen the person at the gym that just does everything different? They always throw their legs in the air during bench press because it "isolates" the chest, they use random machines like the calf raise machine to do their shoulder presses, they stand on a bosu ball doing one legged squats with one arm doing a bicep curl and the other picking their nose. Okay, I digress. You get my point. And in fact, sometimes they do things that are cool to try or do on occasion. The problem is, that's the foundation of their workout. They always have some super specific, seemingly logical explanation for why the way they're doing it is "better."
Let's just break down a couple of these more common "advanced" movements for a second. Let's look at the basic bosu ball shoulder press. A person stands on a bosu ball while holding two dumbbells and performs shoulder presses while balancing. They will say (like many of these exercises) it is focusing on stability and their "core." Well, there is some validity to that. And you know what, there may be some benefit. But, just looking at the main movement, the shoulder press, let's say you can shoulder press with 35 pound dumbbells (70 pounds.) Now, while standing on the bosu ball, you can only do 20 pound dumbbells (40 pounds.) That's at least a fairly realistic weight comparison. Now, if you're capable of doing 70 pounds for 10 reps but wind up only doing 40 pounds for 10 reps, what you've done is completely hindered your shoulder pressing capability and reduced their workload almost in half. You've also put yourself in a position to allow weight to move all around while trying to balance, putting extra risk and leverage against your shoulder girdle. If you're familiar with fulcrums and basic leverages, you can imagine, the weight shifting in front of the body even an inch, then laterally, then behind the body, etc is all extremely risky. But at the end of the day, even if done "properly," you're still not allowing your shoulders to be worked nearly as well. You're missing out on an opportunity to get seriously stronger because you'd what-- like to work on your core and balance? Can't you do that some other way? Or couldn't you do that occasionally? Squatting standing on a mattress would be difficult and require much more stabilization and balance, but it doesn't sound like the best way to squat, right? I can promise you, the best strength coaches and best squatters in the world aren't squatting standing on trampolines every week.
Even the very common "legs in the air isolates the chest" bench press is just... wrong. Legs in the air will influence a flat back. When your back is flat, the fulcrum and bar path will be in line with the shoulders. When you arch your back (which requires getting your feet under your body,) you will now be pressing in a plane over the meat of your chest, incorporating much more chest than the unorthodox method (which is hard on the shoulders.) On top of all that, just like standing on the bosu ball, you are now doing less weight and as a result, working your chest less than if you just put your feet on the floor like every damned expert in the entire world.
I could breakdown all of the goofy things people pass off as intellectual lifts, but that wouldn't fit my point. My point is that people are abandoning the lifts that the experts want you to do. It's not that there is never a benefit to these unorthodox methods. There can be. But why are you trying to do one arm dumbbell bench press, if you've never even learned a regular bench press? Why are you doing squats with one foot on a a step, if you've never done a traditional squat? These "basic" (they're anything but) movements are the foundation of every program used and written by experts when trying to make serious progress. The ceiling on these unorthodox movements is typically low because of the hindrance the modification puts on the lift.
And the weirdest part is, these people usually think these variations will help the primary lift more than the primary lift itself. They think these weird bench variations are going to be the missing link to a 300 pound bench press whilst stopping regular bench pressing all together. It just makes zero sense. Sure, doing dumbbells can help your barbell movements, but if you had to guess which one is more vital to increasing it, I'd hope as the intelligent reader of my blog that you are, you'd realize doing the actual lift you're trying to improve is more important.
To be honest, a lot of personal trainers are to blame. Don't assume we're experts. We're not. It's easy as hell to get a training certification. Don't trust me, trust the experts -- ie. Mark Bell, Steve Maxwell, Joe DeFranco, Kelly Starrett, Jill Miller, Mark Rippetoe, Ivan Abadjiev, etc. A lot of local gym trainers like these goofy exercises because they make you rely on them. They'll constantly show you complicated variations of a lift, have no regularity in your routine, etc so that you don't feel like you could do it on your own. Either that, or they too think they know more than world renowned experts themselves, when in fact, most trainers don't know a clean from a reverse curl or a low bar squat from a high bar squat, but they can definitely teach you how to do one legged hack squats while holding a dumbbell and counting to 3 on the way up and down. A lot of times, you're being sold on the coolness of the lift -- it looks so extravagant and fun, just like fitness fads that come and go, but you know what else is fun? Getting stronger. I can't tell you that my way of doing things is right, but I can tell you it is all based off renowned people and not just some thing I concocted since I took a test that virtually anyone who pays for passes.
Look, just squat, bench, shoulder press, row, deadlift, clean, front squat, throw in the occasional accessory or two and be a bad ass like you know you can be and stop picking your nose while standing on one leg.
