Inefficient Exercises, Why It’s So Important!
This has to do with what it means when you may hear the term “inefficient exercise”. Simply put this means making the exercise as challenging as possible, within your own personal abilities. For example, a squat thrust where the person keeps perfect squat form until they get low enough for their hands to touch the floor, then kicking back to a full pushup hold, is much more “inefficient” than just bending over and kicking your feet halfway back. Another way to think about it is, the more perfect the form, and the more deliberate the movement, the less inefficient it will be.
Why is being inefficient important? Here is an easy reason to grasp, if a machine is inefficient what does it use more of? Fuel, what is fuel? Calories, if you want to burn more calories/fat/get a better training effect when you train, the more inefficient the better. Muscles being used burns calories, so its an easy subject to grasp that the more muscles we affect during an exercise, the more fuel we need→the more calories we burn.
However your body is very different from a machine, for one very huge reason, your body adapts. Have you ever wondered why we you are introduced to a new exercise you wake up the next morning with soreness in a bunch of places you wouldn’t have expected? Or you are just sorer than you would have expected in general? Its because whenever your body is introduced to something its not used to it doesn’t know which muscles to fully use and which ones can be put on standby. As you do that movement more however your body learns to be as “efficient” as possible, which is why we (coaches and clients) then respond by adding resistance. Adding more resistance makes a movement more inefficient. Your body wants to be efficient, it wants to use as little energy as possible to accomplish its goal. That however does you a disservice. Other than injury prevention, that is why good form and focus are so important. The more inefficient, the better. Keep that in mind.
-Coach Adam