What actually makes a gym? That’s actually a pretty broad question, so let me be more specific; what equipment do you need in a gym?  At our facility, we tend toward the minimal. The vast majority of our space is open and the rest is filled with free weights. This might seem strange to anyone reared in commercial gyms, where any open space is quickly occupied by expensive machinery. This is a pretty big divide. Why does it exist in the first place?

Good question. I like where you’re going with this.

Historically, we don’t need to step back terribly far. Prior to industrialized society, people were pretty active by default. Performing supplementary physical work for its own sake was relatively uncommon up until the nineteenth century. By that time, the sedentary lifestyles that technology had created were also contributing to diminished health and vitality. The physical culture movement stepped into the fray with thinkers (and doers) such as Eugene Sandow and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn.

The early proponents of physical culture used relatively little equipment – not that there was much at the time – and tended toward practices such as gymnastics, lifting free weights and stretching. Nothing changed dramatically until the 1970s. I think that there were three major events that changed the face of the commercial gym industry during this period:

1. The widening use of anabolic steroids by athletes. Although steroids were in use by Olympic athletes as early as the mid-1950s, their use didn’t become widespread for another 12-15 years. Anabolic steroids allowed athletes to work harder, longer. As bodybuilders later discovered, some types also allowed users to maximize size gains.

2. The release of the movie Pumping Iron in 1977. This movie may be remembered by many as the introduction of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, it was also the first glimpse of bodybuilding by pretty much anyone who wasn’t part of its immediate subculture. These men enjoyed a combination of genetics and newfound steroids (still legal at the time), that made them gargantuan by the standards of the day.

3. The advent of commercial gym machinery. Arthur Jones, a quirky iconoclast who fancied safaris, guns and alligators, invented the line of gym equipment that became known as Nautilus.

How did all this play out? We had big guys getting even bigger and a successful film that exposed their subculture to the world. This resulted in a deluge of young men hitting the gyms in hopes of achieving big muscles and all the rewards they brought. And if there’s one thing we know about the fitness industry, any product that promises better, faster results will gain a lot of attention. Enter the machines. It only seemed reasonable that we would evolve from coarse farm boy methods of lifting free weights to the use of sophisticated equipment designed to isolate muscles – to deconstruct the body and build it up again.

While there’s plenty more room for discussion of how the subculture of bodybuilding has evolved since the mid 1970s (and why machines have limited use), we don’t need to over-think things; the shiny new lines of equipment were not only accepted, they were expected. This made all the difference in the world.

To this day, many people evaluate a fitness club on whether it has one machine or another. Effectiveness remains inconsequential because of common expectation. Not only is it expensive and space-consuming, the presence of machines generally leads to their use – even when that use is counter-productive.

The epilogue to this story is that trends are changing. People seem to be gravitating back toward the basics.  The same things that worked in the 1800s work today. We’re starting to ditch our unnecessary baggage and moving a lot faster because of it.

GG

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a big fan of strength coach Mike Boyle’s work. He’s applied a logical and practical approach to strength and conditioning for athletes for over 30 years. Couple this with the fact that he’s always learning, always experimenting and never afraid to change his mind. What you get is an accomplished coach who’s worked with everyone from young athletes to Olympians and who is still trying to get better. He is also – and this is a direct quote from one of his friends in Boston – “as nice as he is smaht.”

I’m proud to be able to call Coach Boyle one of my mentors and I try to stay abreast of any changes in the way that he works with athletes, since he’s generally ahead of the curve. You may not always agree with what he says, but it’s always worth listening to the thought process behind it.

I try to travel up to Boston semi-regularly to check in with Coach Boyle and what he’s doing. Most recently, I attended a seminar where some really smart guys spoke on some worthwhile subjects. Here are a few of the things that I took away from that:

Brijesh Patel spoke about getting the most out of your athletes. There were a lot of real-world examples, but suffice it to say that one clear message emerged: work hard.

It’s very easy to get caught up trying to create the perfect program and many of us have fallen prey to sub-optimal workouts in the interest of doing things perfectly. Forget all that. Once you know you’re not doing anything idiotic that will get you injured, kill it! Intensity and consistency trump science a lot more often than we sometimes realize.

I think that one of the best things we do at Bang! Fitness is show people what it feels like to really push themselves. It’s part of our general policy of reducing the number of grown-up babies in the world and I can say personally that it’s inspiring on a pretty regular basis.

John Pallof dropped about a hundred smart bombs on us as he discussed the anatomy of the shoulder joint and how to keep it healthy. He got me thinking about re-integrating more shoulder isolation work into our programs. I had taken a step away from a lot of the conventional rotator cuff work because I didn’t see it as typically helpful. However, John did a great job of detailing isolation work that actually made sense and it became a lot clearer to me as to how it should be integrated into a larger continuum that spans from post-rehab into functional athletic training.

There’s a big difference between studying traditional anatomy and it’s isolationist approach to function and getting the insights of a great physio like JP on the unbelievable amount of synergy taking place – from tendons (right at the bone) to seemingly unrelated muscles – is always amazing.

Mike Boyle spoke about minimizing ACL injuries in athletes. As I mentioned, MB always takes a logical approach to training and that was clear in the way he integrates injury prevention into his conventional training. ACL (and other knee injuries are always a risk). By not addressing the demands of an athlete’s sport in training, we wind up leaving them at an increased risk of injury down the road. After all, outside of traumatic injuries, it’s typically quick stops or rapid changes of direction that will maximize stresses.

If BP’s presentation was on working hard, MB’s was on working smart. An intelligent progression of exercises helps sidestep the all-too common attempt to get people working as hard as possible for as long as possible. With the popularity of athletic training styles working their way into bootcamps and Crossfit franchises, it’s important that people understand what a decent baseline looks like. If you don’t know how to land, you have no business moving on to more ballistic forms of plyometric training. End of story.

Eric Cressey packs a big ole brain inside his 28-year-old skull and he took the time to break down some of the myriad medicine ball exercises he performs with his clients. Since he works primarily with pitchers, EC’s training approach is founded largely in the same conceptual work that applies to sprinters. On the continuum between absolute speed and absolute strength, there’s often an absence of resistance training that occupies the ground closer to speed.  In the same way that sprinters have conventionally used light resistance to bring up performance, EC has pitchers using medicine balls in some pretty creative ways. Cool to see and plenty of food for thought.

It’s also worth mentioning that Boston is an awesome city. My girlfriend Steph and I took the time to spend an extra day there and geek out over local history. The people were great, the sites were great, the food was great and it required a conscious effort for about a week following for me to not speak with a Boston accent.