Athletes are always seeking results. They’re looking for a leading edge that might make the difference between a razor-thin victory and fading into obscurity with the question, “What was the name of the guy who came in second?”
To achieve those results, countless tips and tactics have been offered—and continue to be.
But not all of these suggestions are rooted in fact. Some are steeped in superstition, while others are driven by market dynamics (aka, the desire to make a buck).
In an effort to shed some light on this, let’s carefully navigate the fitness minefield and uncover the exercises to avoid as a fighter. Keep in mind, these are merely my opinions and observations.
1. The Plank
Holding the body in a fixed position seems to take the athletic world by storm from time to time.
Whether it’s the plank, the wall sit, the Hercules chair, or the horse stance, we’re supposed to believe that by staying stock-still, we’re preparing ourselves for an activity that requires movement.
When I hear advocates of the plank, I’m reminded of the character George Michael from Arrested Development, who in one episode was proud of his achievement of being able to hang from a bar. (More on bar hanging in a moment.)
Yes, I see the utility of holding a plank as a training step for those who can’t yet do a push-up. Yes, holding a plank for an extended period is difficult. Yes, I’ve heard the argument that it can build mental toughness by “muscling through” an extended plank session. But here’s the thing…
You know what else builds your body like a push-up? A push-up. You know what else is difficult? Functional movement under load that mimics your physical pursuit. And you know what else fosters mental toughness? Hardcore functional movement and participating in your martial art.
My guess is that the plank mentality has become so prominent for three reasons:
It’s egalitarian—anyone can hit a plank for at least a bit.
No gear is required.
It’s an easy way to fill time in a group class.
As martial arts teachers and practitioners, why would we allow such a basic, static position to take up so much of our training time? The plank isn’t even a sensible form of active recovery—it’s just something we’ve adopted for no good reason.
There are, however, two static exercises that pass the functional smell test: the dead hang (a must-do for rock climbers and aspiring ninjas) and the neck bridge (essential for those involved in wrestling sports that still use a pin).
2. Cardio Sessions for Fixed Times
I still occasionally hear the phrase, “You know, for cardio I need to do this activity for this long.”
My initial reaction is to ask, “What sort of event or activity are you preparing for?” This is because the human body responds to specificity.
If you doubt that, just think about whether a professional soccer player, who requires extensive running, trains the same way as an NFL defensive lineman. Or whether a defensive lineman should skip sprints, power sled work, and ballistic lifting in favor of better 5k times.
If you honestly think these types of training are equivalent, then put your money where your mouth is and bet on teams that ignore specificity. Oh, wait—you can’t. Because pro sports are a business, and they won’t allow such a useless training plan to hurt their marketability.
I suspect that much of the “cardio for this long” trend is simply a way to make class schedules work. Aerobics classes, Spinning, and the like often use this training methodology because it’s easier to fit into a gym’s schedule. If you’re a cardio trainer getting paid by the hour, you won’t put food on the table if your client gasses out after eight minutes of hardcore sprint work.
To those who time their workouts and are vocal evangelists for “Our ancestors ate and trained like this,” I ask: Do you honestly think that Caveman Thag Reynolds and his hunting buddy, Crag Sullivan, were ever persistence-hunting a gazelle when they checked their sundials and said, “Better knock it off for the day—I don’t want to overtrain”?
3. Spot Reduction
We’ve all heard (or uttered) variations of the following:
“What do I need to do to get rid of this gut? A bunch of sit-ups?”
“What exercise gets rid of love handles?”
“My butt is a little heavy—will lunges help?”
It’s an easy mistake to make because it seems like a cause-and-effect relationship: “Hmm, my gut is getting bigger. I need to focus my activity on my gut to make it smaller.”
But when we think this way, we ignore the flip side of the spot-reduction fallacy: Can anyone point to a specific activity, lack of activity, or single food that caused a person to pile fat onto the gut, hips, or butt? No. It doesn’t work that way.
If an overall lack of activity is the cause of these fat deposits, why isn’t the fat distributed evenly? The answer is a combination of genetics and hormonal profiles, but let’s avoid getting too deep into the science. In general, men tend to deposit fat around the middle, while women tend to deposit fat around the hips and thighs.
The key takeaway is that these fat deposits didn’t happen because of a lack of targeted activity. They resulted from an overall pattern of behavior.
In a nutshell, spot-reducing and targeted-toning simply do not exist in the real world of human physiology. To reduce the size of trouble areas, you must stop trying to target specific spots and focus on overall exercise. The more your body works, the faster it will reverse course on those trouble spots.
If you want to lose the love handles, skip the twisting sit-ups and opt for multi-joint, big-movement exercises that burn calories and fat overall. Don’t assume that just because you’ve performed crunches until your stomach is sore, you’ve burned fat from that specific area. Chances are you’ve simply fatigued a muscle.
You’ll do more to burn fat in those trouble areas by opting for a series of sprints, barbell thrusters, and jump-rope sessions than you will by doing endless sit-ups.
One more thing: If you believe that exercising a single body part will reduce its size, why don’t you see right-handed professional tennis players with itty-bitty right arms? The human body simply does not work that way.
To achieve true fat loss and transformation, you need an overall fitness approach that eventually targets problem areas and helps you become a better martial artist.