Fitness Programming is a version of Engineering Change Management

One of my current clients is a project manager for an information technology services company: the kind of place that helps school districts and medium-sized corporations keep their computer systems running properly. We got to talking one day about the wisdom of modifying exercises to work around physical limitations. Specifically, he was using a wooden staff to help balance himself while doing leg work that could potentially get him off-balance.

Many go-getter fitness folks would tell you that if you’re using an assistance device of some kind, you’re short-changing yourself, because not only are you doing the movement in a less-than-ideal way, you’re probably supporting yourself more than you think and thus not moving the full weight or resistance you think you are.

Thing is, if you can’t do the exercise AT ALL in the manner prescribed, but a work-around helps you do it mostly as planned … do the non-ideal circumstances matter?

What I said to my client (knowing we were already of like minds) was: we’re engineers. We know that even if a system or program is not currently in its ideal state, it often does the work it needs to do pretty well.

Think of how often you get by with a computer or piece of software that isn’t perfect, and maybe needs an update or a repair, but you put that off because right now, good enough is good enough. You’re probably doing that right this minute, as you read this post.

My husband was a programmer for thirty years. For more than the last decade of that, he specialized in “software configuration management”. What that meant was: some program might be made up of thousands of lines of code, written by dozens of programmers. Someone like him had the task of making sure all the moving parts fit together, and that changes to one widget didn’t affect other widgets to the point of rendering them un-usable. On top of that, not all revisions were going to be complete at the same time, so repairs and improvements had to be scheduled ahead of time, and integrated in all their complexity as they became ready for prime time.

Some repairs couldn’t be applied until some other repair had been taken care of. But you wouldn’t necessarily wait to get started on writing as much of the new thing as you could.

Furthermore: the software was always being improved. Bugs were being fixed—some of them already known to the programmers, some identified by real-world users—or: code that worked decently fast was being rewritten to run even faster, and improvements or new tools were being added.

This meant that several versions of these complex software systems were being written at the same time. All of those bits and pieces had to be fit together even as individual bits changed.

You might have to plan your widget to depend on another widget that didn’t yet exist in a stable form.

This is why you get updates, and patches, and new versions.

Someone had to keep track of when the fix for Bug 74 was going to be incorporated, and which versions of the complete software would then include that repair going forward. For big enough projects, that kind of tracking is an entire specialized field. My husband was paid quite handsomely for being good at it.

Designing and implementing a given exercise, and an entire exercise program, works much the same way.

You can do an exercise ‘wrong’, or ‘less ideally than perfection’, for now, intending to continue fixing it. You can be working on version 1.1 of your routine, with 1.2, 1.3, 1.3.1, 1.3.2, 1.4, 2.0, and 2.1 all in planning. As long as you’re making progress and not injuring yourself, you’re doing something right.

Many fitness folks can’t tolerate this way of doing things. To them, if you’re not doing it 100% RIGHT, right from the start, then everything is wrong.

As long as that works for them, great. “Do it right the first time” is a lovely principle, and many people can work that way.

But many people—especially these days, with so much information so readily available about fitness, and so much misinformation to boot—think that if they’re not sure precisely how to do it right, they shouldn’t start at all.

I’ve had personal friends get deep into the minutiae about when to eat, which supplements to purchase, what exercises were ideal, what time of day to work out, and a score of other details, all before setting foot in a gym or so much as picking up a dumbbell.

Indeed, the planning phase sometimes got so intense that they never ended up doing their first day. Ever.

People who can’t get started until they have an ideal plan worked out are shortchanging themselves.

(And yes: I know that for some people, the need to plan ahead is a huge necessity for various important psychological reasons; my lovely programmer husband is often one of those folks. What I’m bespeaking is the need to keep an eye on plans AND EXECUTION, even when that feels difficult.)

One reason fitness gurus often advise new clients “just get started” is this: we know that even with the best plans in place, you’ll still have things to learn. WE are still learning, ourselves (as we should be!)

You will keep making changes and improvements, some of them based on figuring out what actually works FOR YOU. Sometimes you don’t even know what to change until you try something out and it doesn’t go as planned. Which means that trying something without prior guarantees of success is sometimes an inescapable element of things.

I have some nagging issues with a bunion on one foot (the big toe doesn’t point straight forward as it ought, and the ‘knuckle’ bone is literally a bit deformed) and damage in the other knee, that combine to make certain one-leg exercises a little precarious for me. At the same time, single-leg exercises are a marvelous way to strengthen any muscles that might atrophy because of those skeletal drawbacks. As long as I do the exercises with best-possible form, it’s better to do them than not. 

I’ve spent a long time trying to do those exercises without stabilizing myself, just using my body. And sometimes, I’ve injured myself when I lost my balance.

Lately I’ve been using external supports. “Cheating”? Sure. Better than injury? ABSOLUTELY. And now I’m making faster progress as a result.

Engineering. Change management. Maybe at some future point, I’ll be able to do those exercises purely under my own power again. For now, I use my supports as little as I can. But I use them.

Get started, and engineer your way to an ideal workout as you go along.

© 2022 Grampa Fitness

Disclaimer: Ideas expressed in this blog post should not be construed as official advice on how to safely perform fitness activities. Always consult with your doctor and other medical professionals as necessary, before engaging in exercise.