I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about his recent workouts. He is currently training in order to pass the standards for the North Carolina State Troopers.

New applicants must pass rigorous physical and mental testing. Basically new applicants must perform pull ups, push ups and sit ups repetitions all in a time period of about a minute. The amount of repetitions determines your score along with the written exam and run time. The run distance is about 1.5 miles. Applicants must also be under 13% body fat (men).

I was really excited for him and began to ask him how the training was coming along. He began to describe how he worked legs one day, then back another day, then biceps another day and finished up the week with a couple of spin classes.

This statement really surprised me. He was performing a low repetition workout with isolated body part training with only two small cardiovascular sessions each week, however his test is based on high endurance repetitions with a strong emphasis on cardiovascular fitness.

He then proceeded to ask me what I would do. I told him that if I were him my workout would consist of time based push ups, pull ups and sit ups followed by a 1.5 mile run. He laughed and said that I was just doing the fitness test.

He really thought that in order to pass this fitness exam he must gain a large amount of muscle for strength and train like a bodybuilder in order to lose the body fat. I have found that this is a common problem.

When I worked as a personal trainer many women would refuse to perform weighted exercises because they didn’t want to bulk up.

Working as therapists, ATC’s, PTA’s or even personal trainers we must keep the principle of specificity in mind. If we are training someone coming back from a football injury then we must replicate actions that resemble tasks during a football game at some point during the patients treatment.

We must determine what system (aerobic or anaerobic) they will be stressing during an activity and exactly how we can manipulate that system to simulate the patients or athletes goals and tasks.

It seems like a very simple strategy and it is, however, many people miss the boat when it comes to formulating a workout or training. Educate your clients or patients to why a particular activity is being performed.

Above all do not forget to replicate the action in which the tissues being trained will have to perform. Keep your interventions simple and targeted specifically toward the patient or clients goals. Breakdown what system will be stressed and exactly how it will be stressed.

Once these stress areas are determined replicate them as much as possible working from simple tasks toward more complicated and more intense full body skills. Keep it simple and pursue a predetermined goal while educating the client or patient on why the activities are being performed.

Specificity is a common problem with very simple solutions.

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