The Death of Circuit Training
On Saturday morning at my local YMCA, I watched two guys do “vomit inducing conditioning workouts”. I call them “vomit-inducing” because I wanted to vomit from watching their form.
One guy was doing explosive reverse curls (meant to be hang cleans) while another did flippity flop DB snatches followed by one of the worst planks I’ve ever witnessed.
Injure your rotator cuffs and lower back much, boys?
And this is why we are going to see the Death of Hard-core Circuit Training in the next few years. Between the injuries and the vomiting, these home-made hard-core trainers are making a mockery of serious, professional personal trainers.
I mean, listen, I’ve watched two 15-year old boys make each other puke at the gym, but would you want THEM to be your trainer?
Of course not.
You want results. That’s all that matters. You don’t want to – or need to – vomit when you exercise. And you don’t want to be injured all the time either. Or am I just that out of touch with what the cool kids are doing these days?
I don’t know…maybe it’s just the grizzled ol’ veteran trainer in me that gets frustrated with the way things are in the fitness industry.
After all, I’ve been through…
“The Endless Amount of Cardio Phase”
“The Situps and Crunches Phase”
“The Dangerous Standing on the Stability Ball Phase”
and now
“The Do Circuit Training Until Your Puke With No Regard to Form Phase”.
But this too shall pass.
Of course, it won’t disappear overnight, but you and I will still be here when these “hard-core” trainers shiftily disappear and fly-by-night after their clients come in with sore backs, cricks in their necks, and ruined rotators.
You see, they don’t understand that it’s not about destroying clients.
Just the opposite.
It’s about TRANSFORMING clients. About making them better people. Challenging them to change their bodies and their lives. And yes, working through physical challenges is a part of that, but not at the expense of their overall health and safety.
After all, there’s no point in being able to do a “killer workout” if it puts you on the disabled list for 6 weeks or makes you vomit up that $4 protein shake and $5 chicken breast. Sounds a little counter- productive to me.
Listen, there will always be room for tough workouts, for trainers to take their clients to their limits, but only when done safely and under the guidelines of proven scientific research and years of experience.
In fact, I spent an hour this weekend going through an article on Metabolic Finishers that Certified Turbulence Trainer Mike Whitfield submitted for a new TT program for our members.
Now THAT is how you should do advanced, intense workouts.
Thank goodness for trainers like Mike, and I’ll be sharing some of these workouts with 91,500 TT readers very soon.
But those home-made hard-core trainers and their circuit death workouts “finished at all costs” are not going to last.
And that’s a good thing.
That will leave more room for our Turbulence Training 1 Million Mission of helping 1 Million Men and Women transform their bodies and their lives.
More room for you and I to make a difference and leave a legacy that remains long after we’re working out in the old trainers home down in Florida 🙂
So I’m calling a peak in the market. The bubble is bursting. The stock of hard-core circuit training is going down, and will be replaced – starting today – with better solutions, by trainers who care about results, not locker room boasting of how many people vomited in their class today.
It’s time to change the way the fitness industry thinks about exercise. It’s time to move away from sacrificing form and function and shift back to what matters – helping you transform and redesign your body so that you get the results you want.
Not the results that some hard-core, sadistic, home-made trainer wants.
Circuit training is dead. Long live smart training.
To your safety and success,
Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Certified Turbulence Trainer