Preach What You Practice

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By Sal | January 31, 2009

Everyone knows you have to practice what you preach, but preaching what you practice doesn't get that much attention.  A few weeks ago I featured a video of me doing some complex training, so this week I want to show you one of my clients doing the same.





If you're doing the right thing and including a wide array of exercises in your own workouts you should make sure your clients keep up with you, and do everything that you do - even the most difficult things.  Complex training is a high-intensity method of training that clients of all fitness and ability levels can benefit from.

Simply put, complex training strings together a series of compound movements into a multi-repetition set, or training complex.  You can use a wide array of exercises to build a complex - strength exercises, explosive exercises, calisthenics - and your more creative you are the more effective and fun your complexes will be.

Earlier this month I posted a warm-up and a basic training complex that I did in my backyard.  This workout was done in the cozy confines of my facility with one of my best and most accomplished clients, Court.  She's a Ford Model who has appeared in most of the top magazines and has been training with me for almost 3 years.  I'm lucky.

Anyway, Court works very hard when she trains with me and when she's on her own, and loves to be pushed in the gym.  This is one of her first tries at doing complex training so she struggled a bit.  However, it's important to recognize that even your most able clients will struggle with something new, especially if it has a high degree of difficulty.

Perfection isn't the goal, but working for it is.  So in this video clip you will see that Court is struggling during the complex, but still is able to complete the workout without any really horrendous breaks in form.  Fitness videos never really let you see people struggle to complete the demonstrated lifts and give the impression that people are going to do things perfectly.  After 20 years I can tell you that most people are going to struggle with the difficult exercises.

Here's Court performing a complex that consists of dead lift, hang clean, front squat, push press, back squat (2 reps) and split jerk, three times.

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