How to determine if an exercise is worth your time

So as I am drinking my morning coffee and reading a few articles I did'nt get around to last night I came across a very interesting article on T-Nation. The article helps you breakdown if a specific exercise is worth your time or not. Working at a commercial gym I see all types of "innovated" techniques being done and guess what? They are a waste of time!! Below is 6 ways to determine if a movement is worthy...
1) How hard is it?

The first question is simple. How difficult is the exercise or activity in question? In the fitness world (as with most things worth doing), it's usually the harder, the better. In other words, if it's easy to do, it's almost for sure not worth your time.

To change the body you must force it to adapt, force being the key word. If that element is missing, then the exercise will most likely do little to increase strength, size, or performance.

For example, for an untrained person, properly full squatting just an empty bar is often a difficult task. But leg extensions with a 100 pounds or more can be performed with relative ease and while reading the Sunday sports section. Which exercise do you think would be the most result producing in the long run?


2) How long will the exercise take to master?

Something that's worth doing might be easy to do at a basic level but will take a long time to master. You can learn to bench press in 10 minutes and be blasting off reps with 95 pounds in no time, but it will take you years, upwards of a decade even to surpass the 400-pound barrier, if you ever reach it at all. Contrast this with the typical gym chest press machine, which your average high school senior can "stack" within months. Which exercise do you think is more effective?

Martial arts are another example. To become a black belt requires years of practice and sparring, and many black belts still never stop learning. Not surprisingly, most martial arts are considered to be among the best forms of exercise you can pick up.

Truth is, if you can master an activity in a few months or less then it's probably not that beneficial.


3) Once I get good at that exercise, what else will I be good at?

If a trainee is good at the exercise you're evaluating, what else are they automatically good at? This refers to the Transfer of Skill, meaning the skills developed in one exercise will transfer over to another activity.

The squat is a good example of an exercise that has a high level of skill transfer. If you can squat 500 pounds, you can bet your fanny pack that you're good at the leg press, leg extension, and leg curl; fact is, you'll likely kick ass at the majority of leg exercises available even if you've never done them before.

However, just because you can leg press 900 pounds doesn't automatically mean that you can squat a lot, and if you don't ever perform squats, odds are that you'll have a tough time the next time you attempt them. Therefore, in this case the leg press does not have a very good transfer of skill over to the squat (or some might argue, to sports in general).

Gymnastics is another example. It takes the athletes years to be able to perform the complicated routines you see them pull off during the Olympics, but once they've reached that level of proficiency they're able to perform many other challenging physical activities as well.

So the next time you're considering adding that new inner-thigh machine to your repertoire, ask yourself, "Once I master this exercise, what else will I excel at?"


4) What results will the exercise give?

Analyze the exercise and ask yourself what kind of results you can expect from this exercise. It's logical to assume that a lateral raise might be able to increase the size of your middle delts, but it's unlikely that it will have much of an impact on your bench press, and it's sure not going to do a thing for your squat.

Contrast this with a shoulder press or even a dumbbell external rotation, both of which can be used to improve bench press scores along with increasing the size, strength, and health of the shoulders.

That trainer with the faux hawk at the globo gym may have some cool looking Bosu Ball exercises, but before you hop on the bandwagon, ask yourself what results do you think you'll derive from those exercises?


5) If you could just perform this one exercise, how would that benefit your fitness level?

Here's the scenario: your plane crashes on a desert island. You have no computer, no cell phone, and no Jessicas (Biel, Simpson, and Alba all took an earlier flight). In short, it's a truly shitty situation. Since procreating or mock-procreating is out of the question, if you're only able to perform one exercise and this was the one you choose, what would happen to you?

For example, if you could only squat or only deadlift, you'd still make good progress in your fitness program. But if you could only do bodyweight Power Plate Squats (standing on a vibrating machine and squatting) or only use a Body Blade (which, according to their website, "Tones the muscle and rounds it, but doesn't over develop it"), your fitness level may not make the progress you want it to, to put it mildly.

Obviously, this is a highly restrictive method of evaluation as no actual program would ever consist of just one exercise. Yet with so many options available for a limited number of spots in your routine, it pays to put your emphasis on items that can single-handedly deliver results. Combine this with some specific exercises for weak points and/or corrective work and you've got a kick-ass program.

Although, that Shake Weight may make all the alone time on that Jessica-less desert island a little more bearable...


6) How important is the exercise to you?

This final question is one only you can answer. What value does the specific exercise have to you? If it's an important exercise to you, whether some Testosterone contributor or anyone else thinks it's valuable, by all means do it.

One of my colleagues told me his goal was to be able to carry two heavy cement block objects the length of a field near his house, similar to a Farmer's Walk. I thought that was pretty cool. Others may want to bench 225 pounds for their age in years, or simply out-sprint their kid.

Chances are, if the exercise or activity is that valuable to you, it'll have some of the inherent traits that we're looking for. Jim Wendler put it best when he said when considering an exercise to simply ask, "Is it awesome?" If the answer is yes, chances are you should be doing it.

Hope this was beneficial and opened your eyes up. To read the entire article on T-nation Click here. Enjoy and ill be coming back to you with an article on the benefits of fat in your diet.