Elite Fitness

I am an aspiring superhero.  The desire for being a ninja means that it is my duty to master all trades.  I owe that to humanity.

In my inquiry for these required skills and knowledge, I have come across all kinds of fitness training methods.  The one that got my attention in particular, solicits different methodologies and combines them into one giant heap of confusion.

I believe in cross training as it improves your fitness, enhances your efficiency, increases power, and the list goes on.  However it is all determined by how your methods are combined.  The illogical programming of taking several different exercises and combining them together into three day long battles and calling it cross training is not quite the science one would have in mind.

Yes, it may keep people excited about their workouts but that's like bringing a clown to make balloon animals to a thirtieth birthday party.  Utterly pointless.

These training organizations that are integrating Olympic lifts at maximum aerobic capacities and blending them with high intensity kettlebell snatches and overhead swings (might I add, that these overhead swings can cause impingement of the shoulders, and virtually wipes out the entire point of the lateral force a swing is supposed to generate) are making a mockery out of some serious specialisations.

To add fuel to the fire, the trainer certifications require no basic knowledge of anatomy or biochemistry, so the coaches running the show have attended short courses on how to master an Olympic lift that would take a normal strength coach years to perfect.  Concerning? a little.

The lack of quality control is what gets my goat the most.  Watching recent competitions televised locally had me on the edge of my seat, not from the sheer excitement of the event but because it was nauseating and I may have needed a quick escape to ruminate.

How does one possibly screw up an exercise such as the pull up? This must be the easiest move technique wise to get ones head around.  All it involves is pulling ones self up from a static position, over a bar.  However some organizations have added the infamous 'kip' to a pull up, so much so, that its almost as if, if it wasn't included it wouldn't be right.  Kipping makes pull ups child's play.  Since when does momentum build muscles? I was always under the impression that controlled movements built muscles.

Another great exercise included in the workout battle, is the power clean, except in this circumstance it is completed at high repetition.  What is the purpose of a power clean?  Is it to get you into better aerobic shape or is it to build explosive power from the ground up?  High repetition power cleans cause injury.  That's my only explanation.

So, in closing, my findings are in focus.  Finding one specialization and mastering it, is the answer.  Once I have mastered my first specialization only then will I move forward.  Or I will find myself on a list of statistics.