Over the years I’ve spent quite a few hours in gyms, both good and bad. And during this time I’ve watched people do some things that belong on a Funniest Videos show.

I’m going to share with you the 4 most mind-boggling exercises I’ve ever seen trainers give their clients along with some lessons we can learn from each of these mistakes. 

Just to make myself clear, I am not recommending that you should ever perform the following exercises they are clear examples of what NOT to do.

And hey, since no one got hurt during these workouts, we can all have a good chuckle at how ridiculous these exercises are…

Bad Idea #4  Jump Training on Concrete

Anyone that has read a few fitness articles knows that you should always try and run on soft surfaces rather than concrete and asphalt. Over time, running on concrete increases the risk of injury to your muscles and joints, says Dr. Edward R. Laskowski of the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center.

So it’s mind-boggling that trainers would have clients do plyometrics (jump training) on concrete. Even more surprising are the trainers that have 40- year old women doing plyometrics on concrete when these women can barely do bodyweight squats properly.

Since this exercise might be a little difficult to picture or imagine, I’ll do my best to describe it. First, the client put on a pair of boxing gloves and then stood on the flat side of the BOSU ball.

For those that are confused already, a BOSU ball looks like the top of a muffin. It is a half-ball with a flat plastic surface on one side and an inflated ball surface on the other.

If you put the inflated ball surface against the ground and stand on the flat side, you’ll find that you have to concentrate and tense your lower body to stay upright without tilting or falling off.

Now despite having practically no scientific validation for its role in training, the BOSU ball is quite a popular tool in some gyms.

Okay, so with the client standing on the BOSU (wobbling around with no control, I might add), the trainer stood behind him and held up punching pads to the left and right of the client’s head.

To perform the exercise, the client faces forward while standing on the BOSU ball and then proceeds to give rapid backhand slaps to the punching pads (again, all while wobbling uncontrollably on the BOSU).

It’s been about 4 years since I witnessed this exercise, and I still can’t figure out the point. It wasn’t strength, power, or conditioning.

It was probably just variety for the sake of variety � One of the main reasons that most training programs are ineffective.

Lesson:
Just because another trainer in the gym is doing pushups or some other basic, yet effective exercise doesn’t mean that you can’t use them as well.

You don’t always have to be different.

Even though your client likes "variety", it doesn’t mean you have to come up with stupid exercises to mindlessly fill the 60-minute time slot that your client is paying $60-$120 for. Have some respect for your clients.

And if you still choose to use BOSU exercises in your program, at least do them with a high level of body control. There’s no point to doing any exercise if the client can’t control their body or if the client can’t do the same exercise with proper form while standing on solid ground.

Bad Idea #2 The Barefoot Butt Bounce

This one got the whole gym’s attention. And it was a tough decision not to put this as #1 on the list (just shows you how stupid the first place exercise is!).

The "BBB" (Barefoot Butt Bounce) exercise itself is quite simple and was performed shoeless (for unknown reasons) and required a large Stability Ball.

Each time this poor woman landed she came about 4-6 inches from missing the ball completely and landing smack on her tailbone from 3 feet in the air.

Could you imagine the 911 call had that happened?
 
Lesson:
Again, train people with respect.

This is particularly applicable to female clients. Just because they are women doesn’t mean that they can’t or shouldn’t train to get strong.

In fact, women need a properly developed strength training program just as much or even more than men, in order to help combat bone loss, muscle loss, fat gain, and losses in strength.

"But CB," you must be saying, "you use the DB split squat in your programs all the time. How could it be the worst exercise ever?"

Well, yes I do I use ordinary dumbbell split squats in my programs almost every month.

BUT…

What I don’t do is have people do split squats while they stand ON the dumbbell.

That’s right. I watched someone do split squats standing ON a dumbell.

In this exercise, the trainer had the client stand with their back foot elevated on the round part of a BOSU ball and their front foot stood on the top of an upended dumbbell.

So the client was performing a split squat completely off the ground and supported only by a wobbly dumbbell and rubber muffin top.

Genius.
 
Again, 4 years later and I still don’t see the point.

Lesson:
Do not ever stand on dumbbells. That is not what they are for.

There is no shame in designing a program for someone based on basic, effective exercises, common sense, and established scientific principles.

Sincerely wishing you real results with real training,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, M.Sc.
Author, Turbulence Training

PS - I don’t have any BOSU balls or muffin tops for you, but I do have a real program that helps real people get real results…

You can try Turbulence Training for only $4.95 for a 21-Day Trial run…if you don’t like it, you can cancel and you’ll get a refund,
and no additional charges will be made.