Skip to main content

That one exercise you just hate? Training for diverse bodies.

I was fairly new to personal training, when a client spoke to me about mountain climbers. Trainers love a good mountain climber, it's a great, whole body, high intensity cardio exercise and at the time I was using them a lot in my own training, putting sets of mountain climbers in between my strength sets.

She explained to me that she just couldn't do them. It wasn't a fitness thing, they didn't work for her body, as she put it "my belly gets in the way".

We adapted. I discovered that if we did a TRX mountain climber, with her feet raised, she had the space under her body to bring her knees forward. It's a more challenging exercise in terms of core stability, but like I said, it wasn't her fitness that caused the issue, the exercise was just a poor fit for her.

That was probably the catalyst that made me think a lot harder about exercises and their suitability for the diverse body shapes of our human population.

Who invents exercises anyway?


Well... I'm going to hazard a guess that most conventional movements in fitness are created and curated by athletic men. For a long time the world of fitness has been dominated by those of a particular body type, and while others are taking a seat at the table, the established conventions are there.

So this means that a more voluptuous midriff, breasts, even elements like a greater range of motion (potential for deviation) are not taken account of in the basic form of the exercise. 

There are also proportions to take into account. A powerlifting coach will tell you that every individual needs to adapt their form to optimise their body's confirmation. How wide you place your feet to squat, how you angle your feet, where you grip the bar... you make adjustments to make your movements as efficient as possible - wasted energy means less weight lifted. Yet the movement cues for general population "fitness" are often given without flexibility, or a participant with long legs will be given the same squat variations as someone of shorter stature.

For entry-level fitness, it is often touted that bodyweight exercise is the place to start. But for heavier individuals, bodyweight exercises can be super challenging. A plank at 50kg is a very different level of challenge to a plank at 100kg+. No trainer would put 50kgs of sandbags on the back of a 50kg person in plank and call that an introductory exercise, but I've known lots of fitness instructors and trainers who will ask a heavier person to perform bodyweight exercises as a beginner option. Heavier people are often super strong, and excel at freeweights - so why make the assumption that they are "unfit" and give them exercises that are not suited to their bodies, when they could be feeling the immense accomplishment of exercising in a way that is better suited to them.

The "one size fits all" approach to movement in fitness favours those of natural athleticism. Those who genetically and culturally meet the idea of "fit", while failing to serve those who could probably use a bit of a leg up onto the fitness ladder.

Or to put it another way - it's not the lean, muscular men who need the most accessible exercises.

By default though, this is the body type that fitness instructors are trained to work with. To correct that, we need to actively work at diversifying our fitness library, and be prepared to modify and adapt with the needs of our clients. This also means listening carefully to a client's objections about an exercise, in order to respond appropriately.

Some people will need to work on their mobility, muscle balance and movement patterns before they are ready to do "standard" exercises. I complete a movement screen on every personal training client for this reason, and work through a corrective block before they start. It takes an investment of patience, but it's setting them up for success.

Some people will struggle with certain exercises or movement patterns, it's important that they are listened to, and, instead of shrugging it off as "oh you'll get there", we consider how to adapt for their needs.

Some people will have to commit points of performance violations because of the limitations of their unique bodies. For instance someone with a fixed ankle joint will be unable to squat correctly in the standard form, but allowing them to bring their affected foot forward of parallel gives a functional adaptation that allows them to execute a better variation of the exercise for them.

It's important that the exercise serves the individual, not the other way around.

What do I do if I can't do the exercise my instructor asks me to?


I am here to heartily encourage you to speak up. I am super grateful for the lesson my client taught me about mountain climbers - from then on, if a fuller figured individual told me mountain climbers weren't for them, they didn't have to spell it out, and I knew what to do and why (most of the time I'll recognise when the issue might arise and pre-empt it by programming an alternative - I've got about 4 versions I will try now). So she created a legacy much to the relief of many other people.

Ask your instructor for an alternative that works better for you, don't be shy, that's what they are there for. Fitness people are used to people saying stuff like "I hate burpees", "do I have to..." sometimes it's in jest, just part of the "evil trainer" banter. So let them know you'd actually like to do something better suited, and if you feel comfortable, why.

Most importantly, if you can't do a downward dog for risk of suffocating in your own cleavage, or feel like Bambi on ice when you squat, please understand that the problem does not lie with you, or your body. 

Image, coloured blocks of different shapes


Want some support?


I am taking applications for in-person and online personal training. You can apply with this form.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Step away from the scale. Why weigh ins and weight loss don't match.

I have a persistant bugbear when it comes to health coaching, and it's this issue of "weight". People are often talking about "losing weight", the number on the scale becomes a focus. "If only I could just get under 65kg" they say. Or worse I see advertised "buy this supplement and you can lose 20kg in a fortnight". I've found myself frequently sitting with a weight-focussed client and asking "if you were 2 dress sizes smaller, fit and toned, but you weighed the same as you do now, could you be happy with that?" You might be surprised how challenging a question that can be. For many people, particularly those who have struggled with weight loss, that number is the absolute key. They can wake up, feeling energised and full of life, slip into those jeans that used to live hopefully in the bottom of the drawer, check themselves in the mirror and love what they see... then they step on the scales, see the number is half a kilo

Managing Fibromyalgia flares

I've written before about living with EDS and Fibromyalgia ,  much of my personal fitness and health practices are geared around managing those conditions and keeping me as well as I can be. When managing a chronic health condition, particularly one that involves fatigue and potential flare ups, pacing, good nutrition, good sleep and generally taking care of yourself is always the first priority. Ideally we want to have as few flares as possible. But sometimes they still happen, and when they do, it's good to have a strategy in place. And I'm going to be talking in fairly general terms, because while EDS and Fibro are my personal experience, there is so little understanding of the mechanisms behind these conditions, that most strategies are going to be applicable to a number of conditions where crashes of exhaustion and pain are a feature. So what is a flare? A flare is a period where someone with chronic illness suffers increased symptoms for a short while. The

What's the deal with yoga and hypermobility?

I wanted to address a question today that keeps coming up on various hypermobility and EDS forums that I frequent. It comes up so often in fact that I feel like I have to write this all up in one place, to save me 1000s of key strokes of individual responses and distil some of my opinions and thought processes on the matter. It always goes like this. Someone asks a question like "I've just been diagnosed with hypermobility, I've been told I can't do yoga anymore..." The responses are always a mixture of "yes, my doctor/physio told me yoga was the worst thing I could do for my hypermobility" and "I do yoga and it's been the best thing for my hypermobility". So what gives? Well, I'm firmly in the "yoga is useful" camp, and I have to disclose that. I'm a yoga practitioner of around 20 years and a perinatal yoga teacher , as well as a personal trainer and bendy person. While I have the deepest respect for the medic

Is being polite sabotaging your weight loss?

I've been thinking a lot lately about the barriers that make it hard for people to stick to healthy habits, or even take them up in the first place. My personal training clients are a lovely bunch, and one thing I can certainly say is that none of them have come to me completely uninformed about healthy eating. Most people have done some homework before they get to the point of hiring me, and while I always go over the basics (never assume anything) I know that when I tell them stuff like this, it's not new information to them: Eat less to lose weight Eat protein with every meal Eat 5 portions of fruit and veg a day Consume high sugar and fat treats rarely and in moderate portions Drink water with every meal or snack Exercise regularly That's not rocket science, so why are so many people still struggling with it? Is it because "the rules" are more complicated? Are they missing the "weird trick" (spoiler alert, there are no weird tricks

My top apps for supporting a healthy lifestyle.

The hardest part of making healthy choices and lifestyle changes is making it a habit. It's easy to make a decision to "eat better", "exercise more" or whatever your current plan is. It's a lot harder to stick to it on the rough days, for long enough that it becomes a habit and part of your life that you can't imagine being without. I love a bit of tech. I am a super geeky science nerd and finding ways to use technology to support my health and fitness makes me very happy. So with this in mind I thought I'd give a quick run down of my favourite smartphone apps for developing and maintaining healthy habits. Habitica I'm starting with this one because it's mad and I love it. Habitica is basically a to-do list app, but it's specially for the gamers among us. If you are familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, and all the games that grew out of that system and fantasy world, you will recognise Habitica. The app allows you to create 3 t