In reference to a recent Atomic Dog term, I thought I would share these two instances that I have witnessed within the last couple of weeks.
Last week, I walked into the gym only to find an individual in the power rack doing squats. There’s one little caveat to this however, he was standing on top of a swiss ball with dumbells on his shoulders. In other words, a normal dumbell squat, but on top of a relatively large swiss ball that was located in the middle of the power rack.
Several days ago, not thinking I would ever again see anything to top this, I witnessed another sight. A trainer took a moveable bench, set it sideways between two other benches, and had a client do a combination unweighted leg curl and external rotation, however, with the added advantage of being about 5 feet in the air.
Are we seeing a trend with some type of elevation training?
[quote]speedy5323 wrote:
In reference to a recent Atomic Dog term, I thought I would share these two instances that I have witnessed within the last couple of weeks.
Last week, I walked into the gym only to find an individual in the power rack doing squats. There’s one little caveat to this however, he was standing on top of a swiss ball with dumbells on his shoulders. In other words, a normal dumbell squat, but on top of a relatively large swiss ball that was located in the middle of the power rack.
Several days ago, not thinking I would ever again see anything to top this, I witnessed another sight. A trainer took a moveable bench, set it sideways between two other benches, and had a client do a combination unweighted leg curl and external rotation, however, with the added advantage of being about 5 feet in the air.
Are we seeing a trend with some type of elevation training?[/quote]
I believe you saw what is referred to as “altitude training”.
The PT’s were clearly trying to use the experience of the Kenyan distance runners who train at 5,000 ft. above sea level, thus strengthening their lungs for competetions down here with the rest of us.
I believe this very well might surpass core training as the next big thing.
Wait, he was on a ball? Not a boshu ball, the half ball thing, but a swiss ball? And he was balancing on it and squatting? That’s what I call balance, silly looking or not.
[quote]BIGRAGOO wrote:
Wait, he was on a ball? Not a boshu ball, the half ball thing, but a swiss ball? And he was balancing on it and squatting? That’s what I call balance, silly looking or not. [/quote]
Not a boshu ball, a full size swiss ball, squating with dumbells on the shoulders and arms in a position as if he was doing a front squat. I’m not knocking his balance at all, I just still cannot believe that I saw it. It looked like an optical allusion. Imagine if he misjudged things and failed on the last rep. I guess it is added motivation knowing that failure will probably result in a nasty injury.
[quote]speedy5323 wrote:
Not a boshu ball, a full size swiss ball, squating with dumbells on the shoulders and arms in a position as if he was doing a front squat. I’m not knocking his balance at all, I just still cannot believe that I saw it. It looked like an optical allusion. Imagine if he misjudged things and failed on the last rep. I guess it is added motivation knowing that failure will probably result in a nasty injury. [/quote]
Damn, that’s a talent. I’d bust my ass just trying to stand on it, much less squat on it.
Squatting on a ball actually isn’t that tough, honestly. First step is learning how to kneel on it then standing, then the squat comes easy. I used to do them years ago when I was deep down the functional training rabbit hole, only took about a month of intermittent tries at the end of my workout to get it down. Gave it up when I realized that it wasn’t doing much of anything productive. I think that’s why I coined that Misguided MacGyver thing, quite a little bit of chagrin for my own wasted time there. I’m very sensitive to these sightings now.
Recently I saw one of the trainers at my gym having her client do one-legged, one arm tricep rope pushdowns on the flat side of a bosu ball. What I find funny is that when I see that trainer do her own workouts she never goes near a bosu ball.
