When Corrective Drills Feel Like a Waste of Time: How to Know If They’re Actually Helping You

If you’ve ever thought, “Why am I doing this weird little drill when I could be lifting?” you’re not crazy.

That thought makes sense.

A lot of drills do not look impressive. They do not feel intense. They do not give you the same clear payoff as a squat, a row, a press, or a deadlift. Sometimes they feel awkward. Sometimes they feel too subtle. Sometimes they make you more aware of your body in a way that feels uncomfortable.

And sometimes, if I’m correcting you a lot, it can start to feel personal.

I get that.

So let me help you think about this in a healthier way.

First, feeling resistant does not mean you’re doing something wrong

It usually means one of a few things.

You can’t feel the payoff yet.

You’re being asked to slow down when part of you wants to push.

You’re used to effort feeling like sweat, strain, burn, or load.

You feel exposed when something is detailed and precise.

Or your brain is hearing correction as criticism.

That last one matters.

A lot of people have a quiet story running in the background that sounds something like this:

“If I need this much correction, I must be bad at this.”

That story is usually false.

Correction does not mean failure. Correction means I’m trying to help you get more out of the rep.

Harder is not always better

This is a big one.

A lot of people trust intensity more than they trust subtlety.

That’s understandable. Intensity is obvious. It feels productive. You can point to it.

Subtle work takes more trust.

But hard is not the same thing as helpful.

Sometimes the fastest way to make your strength work feel better is not more weight. It’s better position. Better pressure. Better breathing. Better awareness. Better control.

That’s where drills can earn their keep.

A good drill is not random busywork.

A good drill helps you do one or more of these things:

Find a position you have a hard time finding on your own.

Feel the muscle or area I actually want you using.

Stop borrowing movement from places that keep getting irritated.

Set up your body so your main lifts feel cleaner, stronger, and safer.

Teach your nervous system that it does not need to grip, guard, or panic its way through movement.

That matters more than it may look like from the outside.

What those drills are often doing

Take something like a 90/90 hip lift.

To a lot of people, that looks like lying on the floor and breathing like a confused beetle.

But what I may be looking for is this:

Can you feel your ribs come down a bit?

Can you stop arching through your back to fake stability?

Can you feel hamstrings and side abs help you stack better?

Can you breathe without your neck trying to do all the work?

That’s not nothing.

That can change how your squat feels. How your back feels. How your gait looks. How much you live on your low back and hip flexors.

Same with something like a side-lying adductor pullback.

It may look tiny. It may feel boring. But it may be teaching your body how to shift better, find an inner thigh that has been asleep, and stop twisting around a movement you don’t currently own.

And side-lying glute max work may be less about “feeling the burn” and more about teaching you how to push from a place that has been getting outsourced to your back, hips, or hamstrings.

So no, the drill is not the workout. But sometimes it is the thing that makes the workout worth doing.

Here are a few thoughts you may have that are worth catching

“I’m wasting my time.”

Maybe. But more often, you just don’t understand the purpose yet.

That is not the same thing.

“I came here to train.”

Good. So did I.

My goal is not to keep you on the floor forever. My goal is to use the minimum amount of prep needed so your actual training works better.

“I feel stupid doing this.”

That’s usually a shame response, not a truth.

New things often make people feel clumsy before they make them feel capable.

“I’m getting corrected too much.”

That may mean the drill is too hard, the cue is unclear, the position is not right for you yet, or I need to change how I’m coaching it.

It does not automatically mean you’re bad at it.

“If I need drills, my body must be messed up.”

No.

It usually means your body has been solving movement in a way that got you through life, stress, sport, injury, work, sitting, or old habits.

Bodies compensate. That is normal.

“I don’t feel much, so it must not be doing anything.”

Not always.

Some useful things feel dramatic. Some useful things feel like nothing at first.

That said, you should not stay confused forever. Over time, there should be carryover.

This is the standard I think coaches should be held to

Drills should support training. They should not replace training forever.

You should not need a forty-minute warm-up just to earn a normal workout.

You should not feel trapped in an endless loop of breathing, bands, pillows, and tiny movements with no payoff.

A good coach should be able to answer questions like:

What is this drill helping?

What should I feel?

How will we know it’s working?

What does this make easier afterward?

When do I graduate from this version?

That matters.

Because trust gets built when the client can connect the small thing to the big thing.

What I’d rather you do instead of silently resenting the drill

Say the thing.

Not rudely. Just honestly.

You could say:

“I’m having a hard time seeing how this helps me. What is this supposed to improve?”

Or:

“I’m trying to stay open, but I’m not feeling much here. What should I be noticing?”

Or:

“This one is making me feel more frustrated than focused. Is there a simpler version?”

Or:

“Can you connect this to the lift or pain point we’re trying to improve?”

That is helpful.

That is coachable.

That is way healthier than smiling, nodding, and mentally checking out.

A few things you may not have been considering

Sometimes people don’t hate the drill. They hate what the drill brings up.

Stillness can feel vulnerable.

Breathing can make you notice stress you’ve been outrunning.

Precision can expose how much you’ve been using momentum.

Corrections can poke at perfectionism.

A basic drill can feel insulting to the part of you that wants to be seen as advanced.

And sometimes a person has had past experiences where rehab felt pointless, so now anything that looks like rehab gets lumped into the same mental file.

That’s real.

It doesn’t make you difficult. It makes you human.

What I want you to remember

You are not weak because you need a drill.

You are not failing because something simple is hard to feel.

You are not behind because your body needs a better setup before it needs more load.

And you are not wasting your workout when you spend a few minutes making the rest of it work better.

The goal is not to make you dependent on drills.

The goal is to use them well enough, and long enough, that your body starts carrying the lesson into your walking, your lifting, your recovery, and your everyday life.

That’s when the drill did its job.

And that’s when you know it was never really “just a drill.”

- Devon Shurden Work with me online or at Anytime Fitness, 1102 Yale St., Houston, TX 77008 www.FitLifeChoices.com - Stronger. Calmer. More at home in your body.