Why Follow Blindly?

There was a story here in the news this morning about 3 women from out of town who followed their GPS in their rental car right into a lake.  http://bellevue.komonews.com/news/911/women-escape-sinking-car-after-crashing-mercer-slough/647201

Now, while this sounds insane, it is fairly consistent with what folks do in the fitness industry.  I know of countless trainer who follow this person's program or that person's program because it works, only to discover that it did not work so well for thier client or for them.  The same with some folks who contact me over the internet and want me to put together a program that they can follow.  I'm not really a big believer in this because if I haven't seen you move, or know anything about you, how do I know what's best for you?

Another example is the client who travels for work and tells you they did not exercise on their trip because the gym in the hotel did not have the machine, or the type of resistance that they have at home and they did not know what to do.  If you are a trainer, and this happens to you, you haven't done your job.  If you are a client, and this happens to you, get a new trainer. 

The whole idea of fitness is to create a healthy lifestyle.  This means that you eat helathy most (80-90%) of the time and that you can exercise on a daily basis.  To understand resistance training, you simply need to make your body move in the basic movements that we as humans do.  These movements are to bend, squat, push, pull, and rotate.  Does it matter what type of resistance it is?  Do your muscles really know thew difference between a dumbell and a rubber tube?  Muscles are pretty stupid, they only know that they have to work against a resistance.  As long as you know which direction to provide the resistance, you will get a great workout.

Try to remember to not follow progrmas blindly, know why you are doing something so you don't end up wet.