Personal Trainers

Over the past couple of weeks I have had a couple younger athletes that have question the way that we do certain exercises here, mainly squats.  They had questions because they were at a fitness center over the weekend, and were told by a personal trainer that they were performing the squat incorrectly.  The personal trainer instructed them to look to the ceiling when performing the exercise.  That is one of the hardest things to correct in our athlete when they have trained at school or with a personal trainer.

The reason this is bad is because looking to the ceiling will cause you to arch you back and shoot your knees forward, causing the exercise to be quad dominant and very bad on the low back (typical body building workouts).  70-80 % of athletes that come to us are already extremely quad dominant, which leads to back pain and knee injuries, so our focus in our weight room is to help get the hamstrings and core stronger by sitting back and keeping a neutral spine during the squat. 

We have read numerous research studies on the technique of this exercise and how it relates to athletic performance and injury prevention. We have also performed numerous research studies on this exercise and the most beneficial technique for injury reduction and athleticism is to perform the squat the way we implement it.  The personal trainer on the other hand is quoting the technique and form that they read about in their favorite muscle magazine for quad development (mirror muscles).

So I will answer the question by saying please trust us in the way that we are teaching an exercise because it is coming from scientific research designed to keep you healthy and improve your performance on the court or field. They are not designed to make you look like a body builder.  

The funny thing is that most of our athletes have a better understanding about what to do and what not to do in the weight room than any personal trainer out there that got their certification online. Just ask their college strength coaches.