There’s literally hundreds of exercise methods, and every one of em’ has its own “spin”. Which one is right for you depends on your ability to answer the question, “What’s your outcome?”.
I believe in implementing various training methods to achieve specific results but anything put into practice is done with a single strategy in mind. Check it out in this video I made for you. (6 minute view)
I have nothing against “fitness experts.” In fact I regularly seek out, read, listen to, and pick the brains of people (not in a Walking Dead sort of way) that I consider to be experts in various areas of exercise because in quiet moments of self-reflection I realize that I don’t know it all. Hard to believe I know. I like hearing different points of view, especially the diametrically opposing ones. As Stephen Covey put it in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “seek to understand.” If I’m able to understand their point of view then I’ll either glean new insight and apply it to what I do, ooooooooor I’ll bang my head against a wall thirty-two times as a preventative measure to ensure the information doesn’t settle into my brain.
It’s really simple. Every workout program ever designed has these four principles present; intensity (as in effort, not a percentage of 1RM), volume (some number of sets), load (any resistance being used or % of 1RM) and frequency (scheduled occurrence). The way some experts talk about these principles individually you would think that one holds the key to success and the others should sit back and remain silent. And it comes from both sides of the aisle, as well as the front and back of the room.
Experts dedicate an inordinate amount of time to the study and practice of what they do which is what makes them experts in a particular area. But it can also blind them from everything else going on around them.
The HIT experts bang on the volume guys for wimping out on their sets as soon as discomfort sets in lieu of performing more sets. The Volume Guys laugh at the HITters for spending more time talking about training than they do actually training. Both point to studies done by people on their side of the aisle to substantiate their position. Each misses the valid aspects of what the other does. All agree that Crossfit is completely nuts. And anyone professionally involved in fitness who is over the age of 70 can prove that none of this new shit is actually new, they were doing it in the 50’s.
How the principles listed above are arranged—the measure of each ingredient—is determined by three other components; S.A.I.D. (specific adaptations to imposed demands), diminishing returns, and the mother of them all, the sole determinant of why or why not a program is suitable, individualism. For any fitness expert to make blanket statements about theirs being a superior approach is naive and arrogant. It assumes that intensity, volume, load, and frequency exist in a vacuum and are uninfluenced by S.A.I.D., diminishing returns, and individualism, as well as other external factors. They fail to recognize that the only superior approach is the one that’s most appropriate at that particular time for that particular individual because of his/her particular circumstance.
Most fitness experts mean well. I sincerely believe that. But well-meaning doesn’t excuse you from pimping out certain exercise principles to push YOUR preferred way of training. We all have a “home base.” But it doesn’t mean you cannot and should not explore things outside of that circle if it could mean better results for you or those you provide professional services to.
Though no one likes to think in broad terms that’s precisely what the best experts do. They understand all the principles and how they interrelate, and how they should be adjusted according to an individual’s current physical and mental state. In society we have to abide by many laws not just the ones we prefer. Exercise is no different.
I’m not talking about transferring airlines from one trip to the next, I’m talking about the angle—the plane of motion—you perform your exercises on. While everyone loves to talk about the need to “change things up” to avert plateaus the real benefit of multi-angle training is minimizing wear and tear on the joints and soft tissue from performing the same exercise in the same plane of motion on a weekly basis. How many rotator cuff surgeries could’ve been avoided if only those guys didn’t bench press every freakin’ week for 7 years straight?
Like it or not, exercise is a negative stress on your body. Anything that leads to you having near 100% of your strength and energy one minute and then 50% of that an hour later (I’m making up the percent drop in ability just to highlight the scenario) is a negative stress. If your body is given enough time to rebound from this stress and defend against it by getting stronger and more resilient, great, you’re making progress. If not then the stress compounds with all the other stressors in your life and your progress comes to an abrupt stop.
Training hard is a necessity for success; training stupid is not. I’m cool with people doing Crossfit, Olympic lifting, and Powerlifting if they’re competing in those sports. As a competitor you assume certain risk. A recent study published in the Journal of Strength and Condition Research indicated that “Injury rates with CrossFit training are similar to that reported in the literature for sports such as Olympic weight-lifting, power-lifting and gymnastics…” The takeaway is this; if you’re exercising for health, fitness, appearance, or function then you need to consider the vehicle you use to get you there.
Stopping getting in your own way! There is no way to balance your bullshit unsubstantiated negative thoughts and beliefs with your desire for positive results. When you’re in your head you’re dead.
Here’s a double dose of disaster. You have no control over your nutrition so you accumulate more body fat and put additional stress on your body. You try to make up for your poor nutrition by doing more exercise. “If I do sixty minutes of cardio a day on top of my weight training I can eat whatever I want.” Not quite. If you’re a quick learner you remember point #2 and realize that piling on the exercise only creates additional stress. If your body can’t recover from this and other stress it will not function optimally. If it’s not functioning optimally that means your metabolism is not functioning optimally. The only thing your extra exercise will be burning is muscle tissue which further fucks up your situation.
For the exercise zealot your commitment is commendable. However when progress begins to wane the answer is rarely to do more (see #2 and #7). Most notable in young impressionable male lifters who believe the behemoths in the muscle magazines are “natural” and that fourteen plus hours of training a week is normal.
At the opposite and less observed end of the spectrum are the minimalists performing less than thirty-minutes of exercise a week. While something may be better than nothing and this amount of exercise could be enough to help maintain the functionality of someone over the age of seventy, don’t expect to achieve fitness superstardom while under-stimulating your muscles. That said, the best approach is to always do the least amount of exercise necessary to achieve the best result or desired result.
You walk into the gym for the first time and you see everyone pumping out reps as though you get an Olympic medal for how fast you complete your set. So what do you do…? That’s what I thought. We all do this because we don’t know any better. The repercussions of such thoughtless exercise performance is best explained in Reppin’ Like a Moron.
It is painful that the circus act resembling trend of functional training using the Bosu or fit ball, has not yet seen a bitter death. There is nothing more “functional” than having well developed muscles that are strong through their natural range of motion. Traditional weight training in a stable environment accomplishes more to this end than attempting to balance on an object. Aside from the safety concerns the argument that such balancing acts involve more muscles is an exercise in displaced rationale (no pun). Sure, you might involve more total muscles but you are also shifting focus away from the one or two that the exercise is intended to target. Strengthening of these muscles is better accomplished in a stable environment where they can be overloaded. As far as the “functionality” aspect. Unless you’re part of Cirque du’ Solei none of your everyday movements or activities requires spectacular balance. (My sister was a gymnast and I was not, yet somehow I’ve been able to function in life just as effectively as her…hmmm).
The time you spend working out is not a measure of the quality of your workout. Take away your walks to the water cooler between sets, the conversation you’re having with your training partner or friend, the two warm-up sets for every exercise, or the time spent letting everyone on Facebook and Twitter know you’re at the gym, and how much time is spent on productive exercise or sets that actually have the potential to stimulate results. You can train six hours a week or sixty minutes and produce the same exact result if the “quality time” is the same.
When I say “better on paper” I don’t mean what the stats say about who should win the game between the Miami Dolphins and Cleveland Browns. Football fans knows that regardless of who should win according to the stats, it’ doesn’t always turn out that way. So why track them? Because it gives you a better overall view of what areas need improvement and they can help you formulate a better game plan. Having a running record of your exercise performance or nutrition helps to uncover clues about what’s working and what’s not. You can save yourself years of poor results simply by making sure you’re getting better on paper. You can measure your weight, your reps, your time under tension, your body weight, body composition, energy levels, etc.
The body is a pretty extraordinary machine. One of its most remarkable features is its ability to adapt to external demands. Everything from building muscle, to increasing strength, to having greater endurance, and a host of other fitness related outcomes is an adaptation to the demands we impose on ourselves through exercise. So good is this ability to adapt that after repeated exposures we look for the most efficient way to deal with these demands. And this consequently becomes the source of the fitness enthusiasts’ frustration regarding a lack of progress. What I mean is, at a certain point our bodies get accustomed to the demands of exercise, especially when it’s performed the same way week after week, and it doesn’t sense a need to add more muscle or increase strength, or whatever outcome you’re chasing. However before you think I’m on some Tony Horton P90x bullshit read my Holy Shift post.
You ever have one of those clingy girlfriends or boyfriends? They need to constantly be around you and damn you if you’re not doing something every 5 minutes to make them feel special. They latch onto you like I latch onto my shotgun and NRA membership card. We know that being clingy is unhealthy yet some people insist on clinging to a certain training variable, put it on a pedestal and claim it as King of all Variables. Volume is not any more important than intensity, than intensity is any more important than frequency, or frequency any more important than volume, and on and on. The key is to figure out when a little more or a little less of any or all of them is necessary.
At this point this one should not even need to be listed. But a quick observation of what the people pounding away in the cardio section look like compared to the ones (seriously training) in the weight training area tells me that some people still haven’t gotten the memo. The short of it—since it’s been written about a hundred bazillion times—is that cardio in excess (HIIT does not get lumped in here) is a muscle wasting metabolism killer. Properly performed weight training is a muscle building, ass sculpting, metabolism enhancing, osteoporosis preventing, anti-aging, energy producing, sex drive heightening juggernaut.
You are an individual…you have your own set of advantages…your own limitations…your own needs. No matter what you do, or how hard you try, you will never under any circumstances be that person over there. So why are you comparing yourself to them? Uncover your individual needs and satisfy them…not someone else’s.
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Generally speaking we’re all the same. Same physical structure, same bodily functions. But the similarities between you and I likely end there. My blood pressure was 120/70 every time it’s been taken in the past 3 years, I burn fat relatively easy but I’m lucky if I can squeeze out a 0.25 lb. increase in muscle mass from year to year, I work about 80-90 hrs a week and, I’m 36 years old. How do you compare?
Possibly the same in some areas, likely different in them all, and this is only a small sampling of physical characteristics we could compare. Our abilities and limitations vary across a broad spectrum, as do our requirements to improve, maintain, or decelerate the loss of muscle, strength and functional ability.
Inherent traits make us unique. Think of the people in high school who were categorized as “the brain”, “the jock”, or “the artist”. Each got his/her label because they naturally excelled in a particular area or skill. But as “natural” as they were in that one area they likely had to work hard to achieve average success in others—if they achieve success at all.
I don’t call attention to this to shoot down your dreams of physical Superstardom. Fact is most people never actualize their true potential and none of us really know what our limits are. The reason why I bring this up is because people and personal trainers put too much focus on the general—broad brush stroke—training practices when they should be focused on determining individual specific needs.
There is a need for general training routines since there is no way of knowing exactly what a persons individual needs are at the start. General routines set the foundation and can be used as a benchmark to compare future results and progress. A personal trainer for example might have a basic routine they start everyone on for a number of weeks or months and depending upon the trainees results and feedback, they begin to alter their workouts to better align with their individual needs.
The trouble is when people continuously jump from one workout method of the month to the next, and follow routines that were designed for someone other than themselves. Instead they should be analyzing their individual characteristics to determine the proper direction of their training. Approaching training (and nutrition) this way can literally save years of wasted effort.
Though we all don’t have the superior physical abilities to be a champion physique athlete or model nearly everyone has the potential to achieve a relatively strong, lean, and muscular physique if their training, nutrition, and lifestyle are congruent with these objective and satisfies their individual needs. So where do you currently reside on the fitness Bell Curve above? Where does each of your major muscle groups reside on the curve? What does it say about your receptiveness and tolerance to exercise? How can you adjust your training to address these individual characteristics and maximize results?
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Sometimes you just need a swift kick in the ass. You need a change; a shift in your approach to training to break the monotony. I’m not talking about the “muscle confusion” nonsense of the P90X and Insanity variety, I’m talking about tweaks to a more rational approach to exercise prescription. Besides, you can’t “confuse” a muscle. A muscle either contracts or relaxes; it recruits fast twitch muscle fibers when working at a high intensity and slow twitch fibers when working a low intensity. There is nothing confusing about it, it’s rooted in our physiology, so stop with the bullshit about how you need to mix yoga, with your piss poor weight training style, and sprinkle in plyometrics to maximize results. More on this in a moment.
I recently came to the conclusion that my training was getting stale so I did something I had not done in over ten years; I turned the design of my training over to another personal trainer. But not just any trainer. It had to be someone that shared a similar philosophy as myself and is just as cerebral about designing training programs as I am. It’s like a Christian going to a Jew with a question about faith, or vice versa. Although they differ in their practice of religion they share the same fundamental values so it validates the counsel they get from each other.
My friend Mark Houghton, BNBF/DFAC Masters Pro Bodybuilder was the lucky guy who got the job. I knew he would come with a different perspective and shift my approach while sticking with the fundamental principles we know to be true. In a few short months my training has been reinvigorated and I’m seeing some development and strength gains that had been lacking. And guess what!? My muscles are not confused!
I am still training using mostly high intensity training principles but the major shift has been in my overall training demands. This is where the muscle confusion crowd has confused everyone…and themselves.
Our bodies develop in accordance with the demands placed on them. The reason why you built muscle so quickly and easily when you first began training is because your muscles had a new and unusual set of demands placed upon them. In order to combat these new demands (stress) it had to adapt. However over time as your training became—or has become—a more regular occurrence you’ve become more accustomed to the demands. The more accustomed you get to training the less your body needs to develop more muscle or get stronger.
That’s what happened to me as I fell into the routine of “being routine” with my training. I spend so much time being creative and subjective for the clients I serve that when it came to me, I put myself on autopilot. By assigning a new Captain to read the instrument panel and steer this plane my progress has been reignited. And it’s all been through a simple shift in approach.
It’s unfortunate that the large majority of people interested in achieving greater fitness results that read this will regard the information as not being applicable to them and ignore this one simple suggestion that could have a dramatic effect on their physical development and overall health. Or worse, they know the information directly relates to their needs but they won’t follow it anyway. Not to go off on a tangent but we as humans have this strange way of ignoring things that seem too simple. Maybe we just want things to be difficult so if we don’t follow through we don’t feel distressed by it. Who knows? But for those that will follow through and appreciate that the little things add up here’s the suggestion. Get thirty more minutes of sleep each night. (Insert sound of crickets)
Not that cricket
This recommendation is so simple that some of you are questioning whether or not it’s worth reading any further. But if you do I promise another gleaming piece of insight that has a bit more of a complicated (but not too difficult to understand) twist, will come out of it. In fact before I lose you, let me just give you the “complicated” piece right now. The reason why an extra thirty minutes of sleep each night can impact your fitness results is grounded in the science of stress physiology.
Our ability to physically develop and grow stronger hinges on how fully we recover from the stress of exercise as well as any other external and internal stressors. Yes Virginia, exercise IS a stress. If you’re smart about how you structure your exercise you are doing only that which will have the greatest impact on your muscular development, strength, and functionality, as well as your metabolism. In a nutshell, weight training is the center of your exercise universe. You are also focused on doing the least amount of exercise necessary to get the desired result because you recognize the importance of having plenty of recovery time.
Assuming that your workouts are effective enough in signaling the body to get stronger and develop then the only thing you need to do is allow the process to unfold by resting. Going to bed just thirty minutes earlier adds up to three and a half extra hours of recovery time each week. That’s one hundred eighty-two hours in a year! Given the amount of stress our bodies are under do you think this could make a difference? Test it and tell me.
Everyone knows that repping out like a wide-eyed Crossfit zombie doing their body jerking pull ups (aka, kipping pull up) is the shortest path to soft tissue destruction currently available at $250 a month. Honestly, I can easily find a few “made” guys from Long Island who would be more than willing to inflict just as much permanent joint damage at one-tenth the cost. I get it though. It’s a sport, right? And it makes you feel special to “compete” with others who enjoy accelerating the physical age of their body. It’s not much different from playing most sports. Except, when you call it exercise.
The purpose of exercise is to strengthen the body, which is why the idiot in the corner of the gym who’s doing the seated version of body jerking pull-ups that he calls lat pulldowns, is missing the point also. Same too for the chest bouncing bench presser and the other weight swingers.
The reason why this type of piss poor technique lands lifters on the operating slab is rooted in physics. Remember that guy Newton? He had some insightful stuff to say that’s applicable here.
The faster you lift a weight or the heavier the weight you’re attempting to lift, the more force your muscles must produce. More force production is great, except…when it happens abruptly. The more abruptly muscular force increase—as in the case of jerking, yanking, or popping a weight up—so too does the strain it places on the soft tissues and tendons. Not for nothing but tearing or muscle or tendon is no badge of honor Meatball.
Lifting the weight is not the only time when potential for injury is high. When the weight is lowered—or dropped back into the start position as my favorite Facebook Bodybuilding Superstars like to demonstrate—it increases in kinetic energy. Attempting to slow or stop an object that is increasing its kinetic energy results in those dastardly high forces that can cause tissue damage. This is why it’s so important to actually lower the weight under control and not simply “let go” during the negative.
Although it won’t impress any of my Facebook Bodybuilding Superstar friends, especially because it’s not a 400 lb. squat or 500 lb deadlift, here’s a quick clip of how I like to do it.
If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight or improve your fitness let me save you the heartache and tell you right now, you’re going to fail. How do I know? Statistics. Only 8% of people achieve their new year’s resolution and few of those that achieve it maintain it. Now if you happen to be a part of the 8% chances are it’s because your resolution is more than a resolution, it’s an absolute must.
For the majority of people a resolution is a “should”. They should lose weight, they should stop smoking, they should exercise, they should eat healthier, they should eat less. You never get shit done when it’s a “should” because there is no urgency. But when it’s a must, you act!
However have there ever been times when you knew you must do something and you still didn’t follow through? Of course you have. We’ve all had those moments. Some of us have them multiple times a day.
The reason why this happens is because we don’t have a compelling enough reason to take action. If the resulting pain (negative consequence) from inaction is not painful enough to get us moving or, the pleasure (perceived gratification) we get from the end result is not great enough, then we tend not to act or act with enough effort.
Forget making a resolution, create a vision. Your ultimate vision. To do this you just need to ask yourself some questions: If you could achieve all your fitness goals what would be the outcome? How would you look? How would you feel? What would you think about yourself? How would others see you? What could you do? What type of energy and health would you have?
Without vision, setting goals, taking action, and achieving them is nearly impossible. But vision alone is still not enough. In fact there are a lot of people who have vision but still don’t evolve. They’re called “dreamers.” And dreamers typically live in their parent’s basement while telling others all that they are going to achieve. They have the vision but they’re missing the second critical ingredient, purpose.
Purpose is what drives us. It’s the engine that moves us toward our vision while hitting all the milestones along the way that we call goals. With enough purpose anything can be accomplished. Have you ever achieved something that initially seemed out of reach but because your reason for achieving it was so compelling you found a way? How many parents—in the face of hardship—have “found a way” to make sure their children have all that they need? That level of purpose, of meaning, is what you need to find in order to realize your vision.
The questions you need to be asking yourself are: Why am I doing this? What will it mean to achieve my vision? How will it make me feel? How will it affect my relationship; with my spouse/significant other, my children, my friends…myself? How will my life be different? What will happen if I don’t change? What will my health and quality of look like if I don’t do something now?
Once you have established your vision and purpose now it’s time to start setting some goals—some outcomes with a deadline. Work backwards from your vision. What are all the things you’ll need to achieve to realize your vision? If it at first it seems overwhelming don’t worry. The next thing you’re going to do is to take those big outcomes and break them up into little 90 day outcomes (or quarterly goals). Viewing things from these ninety day increments should make your ultimate goals appear more easily attainable. If you need to take it a step further and break up your 90 day outcomes into weekly results.
You don’t need (nor want) a resolution, you just need a vision and your purpose for achieving it and you’ll be set up for success.
When I started my personal training business it was the classic case of “The Technician” going into business for himself (see Michael Gerber’s, The E-Myth). My skill and ability had been proven time and time again, and clearly I have such a glowing personality that anyone would want to train with me (insert sarcasm). But the first lesson I learned coming out of the starting gate was that it was up to me to put asses in the leg press. Contrary to what I had been told, people don’t just show up because you have a certificate on the wall that says “Personal Trainer” and your own private studio—who knew.
As a business owner you wear nine different hats and carrying out about a hundred different tasks in the beginning—can I get an Amen from my business owner congregation out there. Systems become crucial to the health and longevity of the business. Especially the systems you put in place to secure new clients.
For the past 6 years I’ve been using one very simple process to sell between $180-220K of personal training services each year and I know other studio owners using this process that are bringing in much more than this. Here’s how it works.
What makes this process so effective is the amount of detail and time put into each correspondence with the prospective client. Everything is completely scripted and automated to ensure the quality of experience for each new lead is the same every time. If you’d like a copy of our INFUSIONSOFT follow up sequence to use for your own fitness business you can get it here.
Who are you? Are you a personal trainer? A nutritionist? A fitness instructor? The owner of a fitness business? A speaker? Consultant? Writer? Educator?
You might be one of these thing or all of these things but in a market that has become saturated with health and fitness professionals of all sorts it’s more important than ever to distinguish yourself from everyone else. Don’t X-out just yet this is not another “Find your USP” article I promise.
I’m not going to preach from a pedestal because I can’t. I’m right there with you; living in relative obscurity—in the big scheme of things. A guy just going about his business training and educating people on fitness (and hopefully entertaining them too) through multiple mediums and on multiple levels. But training and educating is not enough. At least not enough to get me out of bed at the ass crack of dawn in a positive mental state.
What gets me juiced (not in a needle in the butt kind of way) is seeing myself as a leader in a fitness movement. One that has the potential to impact millions of lives. When I think about the fact that only 26% of the population weight trains I’m like, “Shit!…There’s a lot of people out there who need some help finding their way!” and I’m just the overzealous, enthusiastic, encouraging, No BS, weight training aficionado to lead them down the path of kick-ass, result producing, time-effective workouts.
Most of us would agree that, that type of outlook and approach would dramatically affect how we operate day to day. Being a personal trainer, nutritionist, fitness professional, etc. is great, but being a Fitness Leader has a reverberating impact. The only difference between a fitness professional and Fitness Leader is that leaders do what they do with a bigger vision and purpose in mind. (No greater example of a leader with tremendous vision and purpose exists than the recently deceased Nelson Mandela.)
Don’t just be, don’t just do…lead.