I go to a few gyms around Las Vegas, and I watch a decent amount of people work out.  They work out alone, or with a personal trainer.  They have friends or significant others they work out with.  So, a lot of people, do a lot of different things for their workout.  My question to all of you, personal trainers, avid exercisers, and first timers alike, is, do you know, why you are doing, what you are doing?  Why have you picked the exercises you do?  (that didn’t sound right, but Step Brothers is on, and I love that movie.  A little distracted.)  But yeah, why do you pick your exercises?  I get it, if you are with a personal trainer, because most likely, that trainer picked your exercises for you.  But if you ARE that trainer, why did you pick those exercises for your client?  Did you pick them out of a hat?  Did you see them in a magazine, and thought it looked cool?  Do you want to impress the other people in the gym and get more prospective clients from the “cool” exercises you are doing with this client?  Or is there an actual purpose, for that client, to do the exercises you are giving to them?  These are all questions, if you are that client, that you need to be asking your personal trainer, and your personal trainer, should be asking themselves.

If you aren’t working with a personal trainer, why do you do the exercises you do?  Did you see them on the newest infomercial?  Did your friend say they worked for them, or worse yet, just someone you saw in the gym who seemed to be in great shape recommended to you?  Maybe you just do them because you don’t know what else to do.  Maybe it was your high school football teams workout, or that’s what the trainer on one of those TV shows was having the contestants do.

Whatever the reason, you need to ask yourselves WHY you are doing those exercises.  You need to do exercises that work for you, and serve a purpose for you.  If you are a 130 pound woman, who just wants to make sure her triceps don’t jiggle when she waves, you might not want to be doing bench presses with 600 pounds, or flipping tires around a junkyard.  If you are a 45 year old man with knee problems, you might not want to be doing heavy squats because you saw them on whatever the newest DVD program is.  Maybe there is a cool machine you just want to try out at the gym.  Could be a big mistake for you.

Whatever the case, know the purpose of your exercise program.  There are plenty of routines on maybe websites like fitness.com and ideafit.com.  But your routines should be based on your goals, and what you can and can’t do individually.  If you have previous injuries, you shouldn’t be doing the same exercises or routine, that people without those injuries.  This doesn’t sound like it’s all that important, but if you think about it, it’s pretty logical.  If I can’t push off my knee to jump, and the person next to me can, would it make sense that we both do barbell squats?  No.  I need fix the inhibition in my knee before I compound the problem.  This goes for almost any muscle, joint, or bone injury.

We all have different bodies, and different ailments.  We can’t all do the same workouts.  Know what workouts and exercises will help you become more movement optimized.  Now, I’m gonna fall asleep while watching the rendition of “Sweet Child Of Mine” on Step Brothers.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty amazing.