Over the past couple of years we have seen a huge boom in the fitness industry. I have worked in the big box gyms as a personal trainer at Gold’s Gym and Bally’s and served as manager and trainer of Crossfit Gyms. I have to say Crossfit has done a great thing in the industry by getting people off of treadmills, ellipticals, and weight machines. On the other hand the push for this hard core lift till you puke mentality has also shifted way too far now. It seems as if the biggest trend is people braggin about how hard they have “worked out” or “exercised”. They brag about wanting to throw up or that they couldn’t move for awhile after working out. This may not be a bad thing once in awhile, but the tendacy to abuse this type of training is wide spread. At first there is a big kick of adrenaline that is produced with these workouts, but over time it also leads to a crashed adrenal system, overuse injuries, and general lack of adherance to a training program.
People ask me all the time what makes Evolution Fitness so different compared to gyms like Crossfit or other trainers. The simple answer is this. We want people to move better first before we load them up with weight. My biggest pet peeve is seeing someone that has never done a deadlift before or squatted with a bar on thier back learn how to do an Olympic lift with a PVC pipe because it is part of a workout of the day.
Once we get people moving better we believe in building a very solid foundation in strength. Everyone can benefit from increases in strength. Strength isn’t about becoming a bodybuilder, it is about the body winning the battle against gravity. People want to talk about posture and they think that telling someone to stand strait and pull their shoulders back is going to do the trick. Here is the thing really poor posture is a sign of weakness and the only thing that fixes weakness is strength. Strength is a skill, strength is a practice, and strength is simple, but not easy. When we train at Evolution Fitness we believe in approaching each training session as a practice. Sure you may be tired at the end and yes you will work hard, but you will walk away better after each session.
At Evolution Fitness we don’t “workout” or “exercise” we Train. Our wall says Tucson’s School of Strength, Not Tucson’s School of Exercise. This may be semantics to some of you, but to us it IS the philosophy. Exercising is something people do to avoid something. brainless treadmill, elipticals and Zumba are exercise. People exercise to stop gaining weight or to avoid diabetes or having a heart attack. People “train” towards a goal. Training always implies working towards something. It could be the Olympics, a competition, to lose weight, or just to move better. When we say Train we mean working towards something greater than ourselves. This is the Evolution Difference. Any personal trainer can exercise you to death and make you sore and make you sweat. That doesn’t mean you will be better at anything. Heck go outside in Tucson in the middle of the summer and just sweat, you won’t be any stronger or conditioned. If you are thinking this sounds crazy ask our women that have lost more weight than they ever have using our system or the people that have lifted more weight than they ever thought possible injury free.
This short video by Pavel Tsatsouline sums up this drawn out blog in a very succinct manner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhM7GqkyF
