My Favorite Piece of Equipment.
What’s your favorite piece of fitness equipment? Over the years I’ve been asked that question many times and over the years my answer has changed many times. Give me a bar and a couple plates and we’ve got the best, foundational movements available with deadlifts, squats, presses, and pulls. Give me a medicine ball and a wall and we are set for an explosive and challenging hour. Give me a TRX and I’m good to go for a demanding full-body workout that incorporates strength, endurance, balance, stability, and flexibility.These are all great tools; tools that I definitely use every week with all of my athletes and clients.
Today I’d like to update my answer – My favorite “piece” of equipment is my own body.
I’m definitely one who loves to utilize the latest and greatest equipment out there today. I love attending tradeshows to see what the new hot pieces are. I think it’s important to continue to challenge and improve our bodies in new ways. I think it is more important to make sure we are healthy and efficient moving in an unloaded environment first. We all have enough weight on our bodies to stimulate our muscles and our mind to work harder and get stronger.
One important, yet simple, question to consider when training a client or creating a program for someone is, “Why are they doing this exercise”? You should be able to support every exercise you have someone do and explain why that particular exercise is helping that individual getter better and achieve his/her goal.
Doug Balzarini CSCS
Performance Specialist/Operations Director for Todd Durkin Enterprise
Doug,
Great post! To your point, almost all of my current training is bodyweight only (strength calisthenics, tai chi, walking, hill sprints, etc.) and I’ve never felt better!
While I may pick up the weights again in the future, I’m finding that as I get older I can’t get away with thrashing my body at 110% like the old days – now it is more important to first get my body correctly balanced and all parts working harmoniously before adding heavy external forces.
And I agree that stimulating the mind is very important as well, and bodyweight exercise allows me to focus on developing the critical body awareness that helps enable long-term, sustainable performance gains and prevent injuries.
Stu
Collaboration like this is exactly what PerformancEDU was started for. Thanks for the kind words Stu, but at the end of the day, I am just here to guide and educate, while you were there to put in the hard work and effort. Thank you for being open to education STU! Keep bringing the hotness.