T Nation

Broomstick Training

Bodybuilding
#1

I don’t know if this is the case all over the world or just in Australia, but every time I go to the gym, this is what I see:

Trainers with their clients day after day spending very valuable exercise time chronically addicted to the broomstick.

Horse-Stance stuff, one-legged activities, one handed, single legged, blindfolded bosu cable twists, nothing is complete without that god damn pole of pine attached to their backs.

I’m guessing that close to 99.9% of the clients trained in this gym are there because they want to look good. I don’t know about you, but if I hired a trainer with that goal in mind and I spent 6 weeks getting intimate with his oak rod, I’d be more than a little peeved.

Now I know that using the broomstick for postural awareness can be a valuable tool in getting a person’s body right, but really, do 70% of the poor bastards being trained REALLY require the wood?

Is it just a ploy to make them sound valuable? Is it to compensate for their inability to actually attain body composition results? Is it a fad, like the exercise of the month you see them all put their clients through after it’s obvious they’ve been to a group seminar?

Or perhaps it’s a combination of them all?

#2

[quote]RagingBull wrote:
Is it just a ploy to make them sound valuable? Is it to compensate for their inability to actually attain body composition results? Is it a fad, like the exercise of the month you see them all put their clients through after it’s obvious they’ve been to a group seminar?

Or perhaps it’s a combination of them all?
[/quote]

It is simply because trainers think they have to give the client something unique that they couldn’t have come up with on their own.

Some clients are so stupid that if you based a program around lifting heavy they would feel that they could have done that themselves. If you chuck in a weird BOSU or broomstick exercise, all of a sudden, they think they have just been given the greatest piece of knowledge ever.

In commercial gyms, I rarely see a trainer simply giving clients a simple compound exercise without some bullshit add on to make it ‘more effective’.

To summarize, my view is that trainers think they have to provide something fancier than a meat and potatoes workout.

#3

Meat and potatoes is about all we do! I use a 6’ plastic closet rod to do dislocates. And we do those to loosen up the shoulders for/from heavy presses.

Different for the sake of being different sucks.

#4

[quote]derek wrote:
Meat and potatoes is about all we do!

[/quote]

Your profile says you’re a strength coach which in my book puts you a long way off a Commercial Gym PT.

It’s like watching the biggest loser on TV. Those trainers simply do many of the exercises for show.

I know a guy who was on the show and said that they actually did some exercises only whilst the cameras were there. When they were gone, they mostly did basic exercises. Although, basic in his book involves swiss balls and BOSU’s.

#5

[quote]Man O’ War wrote:
derek wrote:
Meat and potatoes is about all we do!

Your profile says you’re a strength coach which in my book puts you a long way off a Commercial Gym PT.

Different for the sake of being different sucks.

It’s like watching the biggest loser on TV. Those trainers simply do many of the exercises for show.

I know a guy who was on the show and said that they actually did some exercises only whilst the cameras were there. When they were gone, they mostly did basic exercises. Although, basic in his book involves swiss balls and BOSU’s.
[/quote]

What kind of exercises were they doing for the cameras?

#6

[quote]RagingBull wrote:
What kind of exercises were they doing for the cameras?
[/quote]

The weird ones that come out on the show. I can’t actually think of their names or describe them.

#7

[quote]Man O’ War wrote:
derek wrote:
Meat and potatoes is about all we do!

Your profile says you’re a strength coach which in my book puts you a long way off a Commercial Gym PT.

Different for the sake of being different sucks.

[/quote]

I own my own “gym”. My only machine is an old vertical leg press and it’s covered with dust. Barbells, dumbbells and power racks. Medicine balls, farmers walk, kegs, stones, sandbags and flipping tires to shake things up.

#8

Bull, you obviously can’t fully comprehend the reasoning behind the method so don’t embarrass yourself by starting a post about it.

#9

[quote]CHEKonIT wrote:
Bull, you obviously can’t fully comprehend the reasoning behind the method so don’t embarrass yourself by starting a post about it.[/quote]

You can troll better than this.

#10

[quote]CHEKonIT wrote:
Bull, you obviously can’t fully comprehend the reasoning behind the method so don’t embarrass yourself by starting a post about it.[/quote]

One day, or a starting warm up on a broomstick is all thats needed.

He specifically said it was on a continuous basis. No trainer should be spending more time with a broomstick than a bar with a client after a week.

#11

I’m just a poor little commercial gym personal trainer, but I use the broom handle with people who can’t keep their spine straight in some exerises. It gives them a que for ther heads…something to touch to get used to the position.

Also for horse stances with my back injury clients. Seems to have helped them some.

Once someone has the postural awareness you can lose the stick.