My motivation for writing this article is the continual damage to bodies and wasting of time and energy I witness on a daily basis. For the last thirty years I have worked in physical preparation to save people from damaging their bodies and wasting their time with inappropriate training methods and exercises. Perhaps naively I had expected the world to get smarter. Reluctantly I am concluding the world is getting dumber.

I am seeing a growth of literally dumb exercises. The only thing I am left to ponder is who is the dumbest – the people who promote these exercises or the people who do them? Because of my long service in this industry, I have an awareness of the origin and influences of many of these dumb movements. I have my theories as to why these exercises were promoted in the first instance in the manner they are. My theories are not always complimentary.