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The Indisputable Principles of Exercise and How the Experts Screw Them Up

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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.

Arguing Over Exercise Principles

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.

Where the Fitness Experts Blow It

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.

Exercise Principle Pimps

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.

15 Ways to Avoid Exercise Disaster

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1. Routinely change the plane

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?

2. See it as a stress

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.

3. Weigh the risk

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.

4. Get out of your head

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.

5. Don’t try to outwork a lousy diet

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.

6. Don’t assume more is better

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.

7. Don’t assume less is (always) more

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.

8. Leave the warp speed to Star Trek

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.

9. Get off the ball  

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).

10. Trading time for work

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.

11. Better on paper

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.

12. Same thing, too often

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.

13. Crowning a variable as King

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.

14. Choosing cardio over weights

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.

15. Comparison with others

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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You Can’t Achieve Your Physical Best Without Understanding This…

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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.

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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.

Bell curve

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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Holy Shift! (…in approach to training)

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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.

Mark H

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.

Small Change = Significant Result on Fitness

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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.

Reppin’ Like a Moron

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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.

Resolutions Suck…Get the Shit Right this Time

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New Year’s Resolutions Suck

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.

Trade in your resolution for a Vision

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 Driven

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?

Outcome with a deadline

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. 

Easy Way to Sell Six Figures of Personal Training

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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.

  1. It all starts with a simple webform on my website to request additional information on the program and an offer for a FREE trial workout (I don’t like consultations because I believe in letting people try before they buy.  Putting them through a workout also helps qualify them as someone who will be a good fit for you.).
  2. Using INFUSIONSOFT I developed an automated email sequence spread over the course of eighteen days.  The initial email gives all the pertinent details of the program, highlighting how it will benefit them, what makes our approach different, what we stand for, and the type of people we are committed to helping (we have no desire to be everything to everyone, we know who our ideal client is and we are speaking to them only).   If you want a copy of the email sequence we send just click here.  Feel free to adapt it to your audience/ideal client and see if it doesn’t result in more people eager to test your services.
  3. The email sequences provide incentives for them to contact us to schedule their trial workout.  If several days pass from when they first contacted us we get a notification to call them and set up the appointment.
  4. If we don’t get them on the phone and they don’t call back they continue to receive email reminders about scheduling their trial workout and they receive some additional incentives.
  5. Once they are scheduled to come in we focus on delivering as much value as we possibly can.
  6. When they come in—just like I’m doing here—we give them all the details of what we do and how we do it.  We want them to know everything they can possibly comprehend about our approach and how it will work for them.
  7. We have about an 80% conversion rate when we get people through the trial workout.  I’d give you the details of our trial workout but it’s pretty much pointless unless you train how we do.  The takeaway is simply this; make it the most informative and productive time they have ever spent in a gym and don’t be afraid that they’re not going to sign up and do what you taught them on their own.
  8. Follow up!  Taking their payment and scheduling the next workout is only the start.  We move them to a “Welcome” sequence in INFUSIONSOFT that will run for the next 90 days, providing them with more encouragement, free gifts, tips, etc.

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.

Leading the Fitness Movement

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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.  

The Busy Fitness Freak

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Recently I had a conversation with someone at a nutrition convention at which I was speaking.  It was lunchtime and we were discussing the new nutrition program released by the company that had hosted the event.  This young woman had lost over one-hundred pounds on the program and looked fantastic (kudos to her).  She eventually started to ask about me and my wife’s natural bodybuilding and figure competition prep, specifically how we trained.  She had no desire to compete she said but wanted clues as to how to push her fat loss further along and achieve a more “toned” look.

To her amazement it was not as complicated or as time consuming as she thought.  Everyone assumes that to achieve competition form or your “ideal physique” you need to spend hours in the gym.   You don’t.  Neither I nor my wife did any more than 100 minutes of training each week during our entire 2012 competition season and both of us achieved our all-time best condition.

Just a Busy Bodybuiler

You see, I’m a busy bodybuilder…a very busy “Fitness Freak”.  Just to give some perspective, I own and operate a personal training studio where I carry out 40-50 sessions a week (purposely reduced from 60-70/week), I’m the president of a personal training education and certification company, a co-founder of a natural bodybuilding organization and a show promoter, a coach for other competitors, I write and do speaking engagements, take care of all the marketing for each of my businesses, do fundraising, and networking.  And these are only my business related pursuits, I have not even touched on my personal and recreational activities.

This list is not meant to brag, I know that there are plenty of other people who do what I do and more.  I use it to demonstrate that even with everything that consumes my day I can still body build at a high level.  The key is to determine exactly how much time must be spent training to develop your physique.  For me it is 90-100 minutes a week of weight training (I do not do any aerobic exercise).  The other major component of course is diet.  If you have your diet structured properly and give yourself enough time to lose body-fat slowly there is no reason to perform excessive amounts of aerobic exercise to burn calories.

I understand that for some, working out is their life, their passion, and they enjoy spending hours in the gym.  But for those who would like to pursue their ideal physique or compete in bodybuilding/figure in the midst of a busy lifestyle where spare hours are few, you can.  The first step is to move past the misconception of how much time is needed.  Real science dismisses much of the pseudoscience revolving around muscle development and fat-loss.

Just the Facts

Fact:  There is not a specific amount of time that a person needs train for in order to stimulate muscle growth.

Fact: There is not a specific number of reps or sets that need to be performed to stimulate muscle growth.

Fact:  Muscle development only occurs under conditions where intensity of effort and/or training demands are high.

If you understand these three facts then you can succeed as a Busy Fitness Freak.  As I mentioned I rarely train more than 100 minutes a week and I do not do any aerobic exercise, even during competition prep.  My workouts—as well as the workouts of clients I work with—are typically 30 minutes long and normally performed only 2-4 times a week.  The reason why is because of the three facts stated above, especially the last one.

The key to developing a time efficient training program is to keep intensity high by performing each set to (or close to) momentary muscular failure and continually finding ways to increase training demands.  Without a high degree of effort or a disruption in what the muscles are accustomed to there is no reason for them to become stronger or more resilient.  Let me ask, for what reason would muscles develop if they are not challenged?

Most serious trainees place heavy emphasis on weight progression, constantly trying to heave greater poundage’s from one workout to the next.  This has always been a focal point of every successful training program but it’s not the only thing that should be focused on.  In fact, we know through research that intensity of effort plays as big if not a bigger role than load since it is only when intensity is at or near one-hundred percent that we involve the greatest number of Fast-Twitch (FT) muscle fibers (Henneman’s size principle).

We have learned through the study of neurology that the more we perform certain movements (exercises) in the same manner the more we adapt to those movements and the more proficient we become at performing them.  In the IART’s publication Fitness Science Annual 2008, Brian Johnston explains the negative implications of neuromuscular adaptation for the intermediate and advanced bodybuilder, in the quest to develop more muscle:

In strength training and bodybuilding, a greater focus has been placed on neurological adaptation, or the skill factor and its effect. It has been suggested that neurological/skill factors are a consideration only during the beginning stages of exercise, with less impact or influence on advanced trainees…However, this is not the entire story.  Although the extent of neural factors may diminish, the nature of its role alters and becomes more finely tuned. To explain, the more muscle and strength a person develops, the more reluctant the body is to add more muscle and strength; and the more a person repeats the same exercises in the same way, the more skilled they become at those movements

Keeping the above in mind, as well as the importance of intensity, it should be apparent that a productive training regimen consists of varied, high-intensity exercise.  The, high-intensity + variation formula, is a dependable stimulus for muscle development but by no means is it the only factor.  We need to also consider recovery time and tolerance to exercise stress.  It’s the application and balance of intensity, volume, variation and frequency, relative to individual needs that determines a person’s ability to develop a strong muscular physique while living a busy lifestyle. …And earning the title of Busy Fitness Freak.