The Show Up Fitness Podcast
Join Chris Hitchko, author of 'How to Become A Successful Personal Trainer' VOL 2 and CEO of Show Up Fitness as he guides personal trainers towards success.
90% of personal trainers quit within 12-months in the USA, 18-months in the UK, Show Up Fitness is helping change those statistics. The Show Up Fitness CPT is one of the fastest growing PT certifications in the world with partnerships with over 500-gyms including Life Time Fitness, Equinox, Genesis, EoS, and numerous other elite partnerships.
This podcast focuses on refining trade, business, and people skills to help trainers excel in the fitness industry. Discover effective client programming, revenue generation, medical professional networking, and elite assessment strategies.
Learn how to become a successful Show Up Fitness CPT at www.showupfitness.com. Send your questions to Chris on Instagram @showupfitness or via email at info@showupfitness.com."
The Show Up Fitness Podcast
Top 10 GOAT exercises
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Ever wonder what exercises truly deserve "greatest of all time" status? This episode dives deep into the exercise variations that deliver maximum results with the best return on investment for both trainers and clients.
Starting with a fascinating breakdown of fundamental movement patterns, we examine how terminology and categorization affect programming decisions. While most fitness professionals agree on basic patterns like push, pull, hinge, squat, and unilateral movements, the specific exercise selections within these categories spark passionate debate.
We meticulously analyze Doc Russin's top 10 exercises, agreeing with stellar choices like the trap bar deadlift, Romanian deadlift, and reverse lunge, while offering thoughtful alternatives for others. The trap bar deadlift emerges as a standout choice for teaching hinging mechanics without the extensive coaching time conventional deadlifts require. For unilateral work, reverse lunges prove incredibly versatile – simply adjust torso angle to shift emphasis between hip and knee dominance based on client needs.
The most compelling section explores overlooked exercises that deserve more attention: bar dips instead of pushups for superior upper body development, pike pushups progressing to handstand work for shoulder strength, landmine presses for shoulder-friendly pressing, and the lost arts of rotational training and sprinting. These movements challenge fitness professionals to expand beyond comfort zones and conventional programming.
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Just take yourself out of your comfort zone, but don't fall and face plant on the treadmill and say, oh, show up. Them has told me to start spreading those motherfuckers. Nope, don't want that. Don't want any lawsuits coming out. We got enough people that don't like us because we have the best certification out there, fastest growing Good news we just fully partnered with Equinox. We are now on their list. Our show up in a CPT is accepted at the best gyms in the world Lifetime 177 of their gyms, equinox 109.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. With our in-person and online personal training certification, if you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy y'all. Welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to talk about the greatest of all time exercises with the greatest ROI return on investment. I think this is a great conversation to have. I got it from Dr Russ and he sends out his weekly mailer, which trainers should have, building that email list so you can drive your book of business and those streams of revenue Things I talk about in my book. Volume two is out. I had to throw that in there because I interviewed Doc Russin in my book and we talk about a lot of similar things and it's okay to have disagreements. So I'm going to review his list of 10. Then I'm going to talk about the ones I agree with and the ones that I would add in there. Now, there's no magical list. This is all for fun, just like when you talk about the goat conversation when it comes to quarterbacks and basketball players, really where it came from Michael Jordan's the goat, tom Brady's the goat but then you're going to have people saying I disagree because of this or that, and that's the fun in conversation.
Speaker 1:Now, when it comes to programming, we need to look at the core movement patterns. Doc Russin has your push, your pull, your hinge, your squat, your lunge and a carry. We have some similar variations, but we also have different terms that are umbrella sized differently. So we agree with the squat, the hinge, but I talk about a unilateral. I don't like the word lunge because trainers that come in the industry 89% getting that textbook cert and so when you say lunge, they're not able to critically think and interpret that as okay. Well, if a client can do a loaded step up and they want to progress, we would do a reverse lunge first and then we can do walking lunges. Unfortunately, we see the lunge and we just think walking lunges for 13 weeks. We can't be doing that with someone who's overweight, doesn't have that competency.
Speaker 1:The single leg test that I will do is can you step forward and then come back without having that leg moving touch to the side? You should be able to go back and forth for a solid 10 repetitions One forward, one back, two forward, two back. Can you do that for 20 reps? If you can, you can lunge away. Have fun. You can get into Bulgarians, but we just start throwing random exercises out there. So I'm not a big fan of the term lunge.
Speaker 1:When it comes to a movement pattern, we use unilateral, with the regression being a step up, lunging first reverse and then getting into the more complex ones, such as your Bulgarians, or a rear foot, elevated, split, squat, pistols and so forth. He talks about carries and that's fine. I think it's a good pattern to implement, but I think it should be under the umbrella of transitional, where your support is moving. Again, people see carry I have to do a farmer's carry and I think it falls under this umbrella encompassed with grip strength, rotation, sprinting's carry and I think it falls under this umbrella encompassed with grip strength, rotation, sprinting, jumping, and I'll talk about that shortly. And then we have our push, which we separate into horizontal and vertical, and then we have our pull horizontal, vertical. Some people will say press, which I agree with, because then you can associate more like a land mine press versus an overhead press. We just encompass it all in the vertical and or horizontal pressing.
Speaker 1:I've seen people throw in patterns such as a reach. I've seen people discuss crawling and patterns on the ground versus patterns standing up. So that's the fun in having this conversation. I'm wearing a black shirt right now. You could be looking at our flooring and say that's the fun in having this conversation. I'm wearing a black shirt right now. You could be looking at our flooring and say that's black, but it's a different shade of black, but it's still black. So we're just splitting hairs over this. But for the most part, when it comes to programming. I'm going to take a movement pattern based on the client's goals and then find the lowest hanging fruit so we can overload it, build confidence and get our clients the best results ever.
Speaker 1:So, starting off with number one from Doc Russin he talks about the goblet squat and he's not doing this in a one to 10, this is the best and this is the worst. This is just his 10 lists, so they're all equal and number two being a loaded pushup followed by a hip thrust push-up, followed by a hip thrust reverse lunge. Farmer's carry dumbbell row. Romanian deadlift, neutral grip pull-up, bulgarian split squat and a trap bar deadlift Amazing list, doc. I think this is great. We've done podcasts together. Give him a follow. He's done so much great for the industry. Focuses on that hands-on learning with his PPSC. I wish that more therapists were strength-based like Doc and I got to give him a ton of kudos because when he did one of his first beta tests on his now current very successful PPSC and now he has his functional kettlebells those hands-on learning courses are a game changer.
Speaker 1:Get to one Doc and his team and I interviewed Clifton a bunch of hunks and hunkettes. So when Doc did the beta test at our gym in Los Angeles Doc Waterbury showed up and that's when our bromance began. So I got to give him a ton of credit because now, dr Waterbury, he's on our board. We consult with him regularly. I've known about Dr Waterbury for so long. He is a legend in the industry. You would put him up there on Mount Rushmore for strength coaches, physical therapists. He works with the best when it comes to movement and in general neurology. Doc is a badass, and so I would never have met Doc Waterbury if it wasn't for Doc Russin. So thank you for that connection.
Speaker 1:Now to talk about similarities with the exercises for GOAT and the ones that I would choose instead of. So I agree with the trap bar deadlift. I think that's a great variant from a traditional. Nothing wrong with traditional, but we fall in love with the squat bench and deadlift. And then, as a trainer who's younger, typically this is what you see. You grew up in that world and so then you make every client do it there in their forties, fifties and 60s and maybe we can regress it back to a better exercise choice. So I agree with Doc Trap bar deadlift is an amazing exercise. If you're Mark Ripito starting strength, he's going to tear you a new one because he hates the trap bar and two-h to run.
Speaker 1:Just because you choose a trap bar doesn't mean you can't teach the conventional. It's just the lowest hanging fruit to allow for the session to progress fluidly in that hour. Do you want to take 50 minutes teaching your client how to squeeze their lats by engaging with internal rotation adduction, squeezing the lemon in their armpit? If you want to cool, I got nothing against it. I like the trap bar, rip it and grip it.
Speaker 1:Number two RDL. Whether it's with a kettlebell, a landmine dumbbells, it's a great exercise to really feel it and to teach that mind-muscle connection with the hammies, the erectors and the glutes. Number three I agree with reverse lunge. I love this exercise. I agree with reverse lunge. I love this exercise, whether if it's bilateral or contralateral. You can get a lot of glute activation by doing this, especially when your torso is leaning over more and your shin angle is more upright. That's the difference between having an upright torso and a vertical shin. That's going to be more 50-50. And if your shin migrates forward more, this is going to be more quad dominant. You can make a reverse lunge more quad dominant if you want to. It just depends on your client. If they have hip issues, make it more quad dominant. If they have knee issues, make it more hip dominant. So you can change the positioning of the individual to make it appropriate.
Speaker 1:I think dumbbell rows are great. I like the split stance with the forearm on the leg in front of you and then pulling back versus like a bent over row, which puts a lot of stress on the low back. Or you'll see people doing a row with their hand out in front of them, which is great for their core. But for beginners I want to really protect that low back and then I'll complement it with accessories planking, anti-rotations and so forth so in the future we can progress to those more advanced exercises. I like the pull-up. I think it's a great one. He chose the neutral grip, which is great. I would agree with it. Now we're going to get into some variance where we may not agree completely, not saying that he's right, I'm wrong, or I'm right and he's wrong. These are conversations that you can have. Take a shot, have fun, laugh and think differently, but also be open to other suggestions.
Speaker 1:I like the goblet squat. I teach it to my beginners and when I was a new trainer, I was trying to teach the back squat and I would just go to the leg press machine because it was so much easier. 20 plus years ago they didn't teach the goblet squat. Nsca would just teach the back squat low bar, high bar positioning so that wasn't in my exercise vocabulary. It wasn't until I was reading a men's health that I saw some jack shirtless dude doing a goblet squat. I'm like, oh, I'm going to try this and it worked significantly better than any other variant and a lot of times with my beginners I choose like a I call it an elevator squat where when you come down you push your arms out in front of you and then you bring it back in, because it just gets a lot more erector activation and it keeps the client more upright Still getting their big toe, little toe and heel on the ground.
Speaker 1:I'm not too worried about knee valgus or varus. It's the extremes when you lose that foot position that I'm concerned about. So let's make sure that our knee is tracking for the most part through our toes, kind of like a field goal. Now, when you get into the more advanced techniques with squatting, deadlifting, benching and so forth yeah, you got to get into the stuff that's going to separate that 1% and get you that first place. So I like doing a safety bar squat over a goblet because you can load it up significantly more. You look at a challenge that he has being able to goblet squat half your body weight for 20 reps. That's an awesome challenge. It's more of a cardio test but most people the failing area is going to be their upper body. So if we're really testing our low body, let's do a safety bar squat, load it up and optimize that force production.
Speaker 1:The second one we're going to disagree with are carries. I'm not a big fan of carries. They're fine, but I'd much rather do some transitional pattern like a jump. I'm a big jumper. Strength coach I jumped in high school. I was a top three triple jumpers in the North state of California. 46.10 was my PR. That was my idol. Jonathan Edwards still today holds the world record 60 feet and a quarter of an inch from Great Britain. So I'm a big jumper and as we age we don't jump as much.
Speaker 1:You know people bitch and say, oh, you're going to hurt yourself. Well, any of these exercises you could hurt yourself. Teach the competency. So I say clear a penny first. Can you load your arms back Because we're not jumping like Tinkerbell and then just teach the mechanics of coming forward and landing softly and then you progress. But jumping on something that isn't crazy rough edges or metal where you're going to fall and hurt yourself or jack up your shins we're not doing CrossFit Pyrox is the new CrossFit whatever.
Speaker 1:If our client is 60, 70 years old, have them jump on something that's a little softer, not like a trampoline or something where they're going to hurt themselves because you're taking away that amortization aspect of the plyometric response. That's what I want to teach, because as we age, sarcopenia kicks in loss of muscle mass due to age, dynopenia kicks in, loss of power due to age. So I want to reestablish that with my clientele. Obviously you're working with athletes. It's a different type of plyometric with the stress shortening cycle you're going to be training. But for my clients I'm just teaching proper jumping mechanics. Keep it to under 10 reps. We're not doing this for 30 seconds a minute. No, Optimize force production, recruiting those type two muscle fibers. Get into the next C. Do the accessory. By the time you come back, it's been about two or three minutes. Do the accessory by the time you come back, it's been about two or three minutes so you can get that optimization of those type two high threshold motor units. So number seven I'm doing jumping over a carry.
Speaker 1:Eight bar dips over the loaded pushups. Pushups are a great exercise. Throw a band on there some weights awesome to do, I get it. A band on there some weights awesome to do I get it. But I feel like bar dips are like the missing exercise that we don't do. Why? I'm not talking about a bench dip. That just destroys your shoulders. For us, dudes, if you want that square block chest, we need to be bar dipping. Load it up, get down to three to five reps. It's a great exercise to be doing. Ladies, we're doing these bench dips. Can you even do a bar dip? No, start with the eccentric, just like you would with a push-up or a pull-up. Bar dips are game changers for deltoid, for triceps, upper body emphasis and the core, one of the best exercises that we're not doing regularly. Now the nine, 10, and I did a couple extra are going to be a little more taboo for us. I just want to see if I can get your panties in a jock shop into a bundle.
Speaker 1:Number nine pike pushups and or ready, ready, ready, handstand pushups. Why not be awesome? How many people in the gym do you see doing handstand pushups? Yeah, you can make an argument saying, well, instead of doing the pull-ups, why don't you do muscle-ups? But I'm talking about just functionality, if you want to use that word. We can push, we can pull, we can squat, we can do things unilaterally, we can jump. Why not push your body weight overhead? Notice how I started with the pike, which is just your ass up in the air and you're essentially doing a pushup. Who doesn't want sexy ass shoulder boulders? I've never met anyone. Oh, that's disgusting. I don't like those shoulders. They're too sexy. No, it's a badass. Look when you got the anterior, lateral and posterior development.
Speaker 1:Start with pikes. Obviously you do your shoulder screen to eliminate any pain that you may have or if you have discomfort. Can you get your hands above your head? Can you touch your hand to the opposite scapula and lift that elbow above the clavicle? Can you put your hand on the low part of your back and remove it, take it off? Can you pass the break test? If you can and you're not a beginner and you've been doing this for a decent amount of time and you can hit your strength standards 10 plus pushups, 40 plus for guys. Yeah, start doing some pike pushups, work into the handstand, go through the mechanics. So I'm choosing the pike slash handstand over the hip thrust and let me throw an asterisk on there, because if you cannot do a pushup, I'm not telling you to start doing pikes and handstands. This is for people who've been training regularly. I'm going to challenge you instead of doing a pushup, let's progress it into a pike and then work on those handstands. Why not have some fun?
Speaker 1:The shoulders are awesome joints that are fully capable if they have the stability and you've done the proper prerequisites to build on top of that with overload and progressions. Number 10 is the landmine press over Bulgarians and this isn't saying that Bulgarians are bad or the hip thrust are bad. I just saw a lot of lower body emphasis, so I wanted to try to even it out. Throw in a transitional and then the landmine press is, in my opinion, the best shoulder exercise that we probably could be doing. It's the most shoulder friendly. You can do so many cool things on the landmine machine as well. Throw in some anti-rotations, which leads me to number 11 and 12, a little cherry on top.
Speaker 1:I don't see us doing loaded rotations much. I think med ball throws something we should be incorporating. For distance you got to have the foundation laterally, anteriorly, so get the planking down and then progress into rotations and start doing some loaded payoffs and start getting some torque through there, because the throwing motion as we age we don't do it Kind of like sprinting. Sprinting for the lower body we don't do, throwing for the upper body we don't do. So we go to a barbecue over the weekend. What happens? We throw a football, we blow out our shoulder. No shit, you just threw a pound weight as hard as you could in the transverse plane Not optimal for something we've never done before. Why don't we program that? Why don't we implement some of that throwing that is going to keep the shoulders healthy?
Speaker 1:I love med ball rotations. You just got to be careful of your neighbors because it's going to piss people off. You don't want people banging on the floor saying shut the hell up down there. You just woke me up. It's 5 am. Yeah, it's the shit we have to deal with in Santa Monica, which leads us into number 12, sprinting Kind of mentioned that earlier.
Speaker 1:I think this is a lost art. Talk to family members and friends, when was the last time you went out there and did a sprint? I'm not telling you to do it. Uncle Greg, 50 pounds overweight, goes out there, does a sprint, blows out his hamstring, tears his Achilles Not what. I'm talking about People who are training regularly, just like someone who's never been to the gym before.
Speaker 1:You don't start out with a one rep max, do you? You start with 10 plus reps. Strengthen ligaments and tendons, neuromuscular communication. You get that movement competency. And then we overload, we get stronger, we get down to eight reps, six reps. After a couple months we get down to three reps. Hell, if you want to do a 1RM with your client, you can, because they have the foundation, just like with sprinting.
Speaker 1:Have we ran in the last six months? No, let's go out there and do some sprints. Yeah, it's not going to work very well. Start with the run. What's our mile time at? Running and sprinting is completely different. Different energy systems, I get it, but at least go through the mechanics of getting your gait cycle for repetition and, if we haven't done any sprints or running in a long period of time, start with some running and implement some good pogos. There was a great video the other day on YouTube with Dr Uberman going through some sprinting mechanics in Malibu with a top sprint coach. Do some of those pogos and drills that he's doing for beginners.
Speaker 1:There's so many treadmills out there today. With the cool tread on there that allows you to go faster. You can start there. Just take yourself out of your comfort zone, but don't fall and face plant on the treadmill and say, oh, show up. They just told me to start spreading those motherfuckers. Nope, don't want that. Don't want any lawsuits coming after us. We got enough people that don't like us because we have the best certification out there, fastest growing.
Speaker 1:Good news we just fully partnered with Equinox. We are now on their list. Our show up in a CPT is accepted at the best gyms in the world Lifetime 177 of their gyms, equinox 109. That's what we're doing. We are creating the best, most qualified trainers. And if you're already certified, you need to get the soft tissue because that's going to level you up, help you develop streams of revenue. Nutrition certification that's going to help you become competent with developing relationships with registered dietitians. The soft tissue with physical therapists.
Speaker 1:So there's my list of 12. Hopefully you like it. But the biggest thing that I want you to take away. Come up with your own list. Maybe you are the best at teaching the back squat. That's to you Katie, state record holder, here in a couple of weeks as she has her big meet. Make sure to follow her. Give her some support. She's going to be setting some big PRs. She's amazing at teaching the back squat and the deadlift and the bench Awesome. Put those on your three. What are your other nine?
Speaker 1:Let's have a conversation about it. We can have a drink Doesn't need to be alcohol, it can be a chai tea, latte, whatever the hell these kids are drinking today. But we have a conversation and we listen to the other side and we don't listen, waiting to erupt in some boisterous shenanigans. I'm like they're wrong and you're right. You listen, you think, you take a breath and you go. You know what? That's a good point. I like that.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go try that and see how my body responds and then I'm going to do it more and more and if I feel like it's appropriate, then I'm going to start showing my clients, because I'm not a fucking YouTube trainer. You see an extra? Oh, a Turkish. Get up, here we go. I'm going to teach my client today. No, numb nuts, we're not doing that. We are competent, qualified trainers that should have more competent conversations to get us to think. I really like what Chris said over here. I'm going to try it. I'm going to try this trainer engagement. Now I'm going to talk to this coach over here, this quote unquote functional coach, this CrossFitter you know what I'm going to try? High rocks. I'm going to go run a marathon.
Speaker 1:We're constantly trying new things because life is short. You don't want to be on your deathbed looking back. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Soak it up now. Do things that make you uncomfortable. Set PRs, strengthen the mind. How many books are we reading?
Speaker 1:I got to give a huge shout out to John because I like this list. I'm sure a lot of people up in arms in the comment section saying, oh, I don't like it, get over it. Get the guts to go out there and post something like that and have a conversation with people. That's what the industry needs more of, not armchair quarterbacks sitting there in grandma's basement not doing shit. If you want to level up your training career, drive those streams of revenue, grab the book. Volume 2 is on Amazon. Leave that five-star review, get to a seminar. We're going to be in Austin the 4th and 5th of April, san Francisco the 12th and 13th and Sacramento April 25th and 26th. Our partnerships with the best gyms are showcasing why we are the best because we're helping you level up your thinking and the quality of your training so you can help your clients. That's why we got into this. Thank you all for letting me hop on this soapbox. Have a great day and remember big biceps are better than small ones, and keep showing up.