Tag Archives: Yorktown

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.

4 Ways to Overload

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Increase the weight, increase your reps (or time under tension) or increase both.  This has been the tried and true means to progressively overload ones muscles in the pursuit of greater strength and size since Cavemen were doing squats using a thick tree branch and boulders tied to the ends.  But as any advanced lifter will tell you, there comes a point where despite the 5, 10, 20+ lbs. increases in strength on a given exercise increases in lean muscle mass does not follow.

So what’s a lowly lifter who desperately wants to squeeze out every last bit of genetic potential to do?

Find new ways of creating overload!  New ways to disrupt homeostasis.  After all, the body is an extremely adaptive organism and if it can blunt muscle development for the reason that it increases metabolic demands then it will.

Here are four ways to break homeostasis’ strangle hold and create an overload environment to drive new muscle growth.

1. Increase Volume

I make this suggestion with hesitation.  The reason why is that most people overuse this variable to the point where their progress is stalled because of an inability to recover.  However for those that follow low to moderate volume training programs, doubling or even tripling the volume of one or many workouts can present new and usual demands.

2. Increase Frequency

As with volume I suggest this with a hint of hesitancy because so many are guilty of taking the “more is better” approach to exercise.  Over the long-run more is not better; this we know through the study of stress physiology (you can’t argue with real science Broscience guy).  However for a short-term increase in demands (1-4 weeks) there’s not a simpler way bombard the muscles than training them more frequently.

3. Change Rep/Exercise Performance

This is one method of increasing demands that doesn’t require you to shuffle around your schedule to account for more time or days in the gym, making it an extremely efficient way to up the demands.  The only limits are those of creativity and the willingness to check your ego at the door.  This is not about how much you can lift or the number of reps performed.  This is about disrupting neural patterns.

In ‘non-Exercise Science Nerd’ terms this means breaking the usual pattern of how your reps/exercises are performed.  This increases the metabolic demands of the exercise because the muscles must work harder to overcome a change in the skill.  Think of how much more difficult, exhausting and disrupting to the muscles it would be (in the short term) if a baseball pitcher who typically throws overhand was told to start throwing sidearm.

4. Do it all!

Let’s face it, if you’ve been training for over a decade and have “been there done that” then your body is very well in tune with nearly everything you throw at it.  Sure you still get tired, fatigued, your muscles get sore, but none of that is nothing new and certainly not enough to persuade the body to add more muscle.  At this stage sometimes the best the best thing you can do is to do it all.  Change things in a massive unexpected way.

Now comes the disclaimer.  This is not how to train all the time…that’s just stupid.  This is a planned part of an intelligently designed training program that allows for proper balance between exercise demands (stress) and recovery for long-term adherence.

The New Way to Wealth Creation (Hint: it begins with a “P”)

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The one piece of advice that has served every business that ever chose to implement it is the “10x’s Value Rule”.  To attract and retain clients or customers give them value that is ten times the cost of the service or product you are offering.   It’s simple, effective, and just good business practice.

The state of our economy has made the consumers more conscious than ever about what they spend money on and they are far pickier about who they do business with.  As a result businesses have needed to find ways to give more value or otherwise watch their business disintegrate.   Even though we never like to see businesses fail—especially small businesses—this situation has helped eradicate a lot of bad and “middle-of-the-road” businesses from the marketplace, leaving only those that bring real value to people’s lives.

However, if you haven’t been paying close attention lately you may have missed the paradigm shift.  Now that (mostly) everyone has become value driven, ten times value is what’s “expected” by the consumer.  Suddenly value has lost some of its WOW factor.  Which means something else has to take its place in order to draw the awareness of consumers and create a gap between the good and the great.  That something else is Purpose.

I’m not talking about a mission statement on the third page of the company’s operations manual or what they mention to a new employee upon hiring them.  I’m talking about something that’s bigger than the company or any one person in it.  A cause that employees, team members, clients, and customers alike can rally around.  Something that makes your team feel good about where they work and the work they do.  It makes the customer feel as though their money is not just supporting a business and its owner, but its supporting a culture and concept that lifts people up and makes a difference.  This is the new way to wealth creation.

Separating “Training” and the “Training Business”

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I have a lot of friends in the fitness industry. (Actually I just lost one the other day but hey, some people need to alienate as many people as possible in order to help their brand stand out…I get it.)  One thing I always find interesting is that sometimes my fellow fitness professionals have a hard time breaking away from their long held beliefs.  They might question a few of them from time to time but rarely will it result in them making a change in how they train themselves and others.

The reason: business.

Many—me included—have built successful personal training businesses that center around a message.  This message is at the core of what makes the business tick, why people keep coming back, why others seek you out, and why others run in the opposite direction.  Just look at Crossfit.

In order to have people follow you and adhere to your recommendations, you need to be “all-in” and follow your own advice.  A big part of the message at our studio is that it doesn’t take more than sixty to ninety minutes of exercise a week to achieve a high level of fitness.   Some of my friends take this message of efficiency to another level by promoting fifteen to twenty minutes of exercise weekly.

When someone turns to me and says, “You must train every day, right?” I’m quick to point out that I rarely train more than ninety to one-hundred minutes a week, even during the bodybuilding competition season.   I remain true to what I teach and to prove a point in the process.  The point being—based on the way I implement exercise I can train less than the majority of fitness enthusiasts and bodybuilders and still compete at the highest level.

But let’s back up for a moment.  Did you notice in my response to the question I’m often asked I said “rarely”?

I do this not to be deceptive but to leave doors open to other possibilities.  Sometimes you need to set the business model (and ego) aside in order to focus on the training; to experiment or explore an approach that is outside of the model.  Or the other option is to hold steadfast to what you do, look like you have all the answers because you work within a very narrow system, and come up with reasons why the other methods are complete shit.

If what you uncover through experimental training works but doesn’t quite fit your business model it doesn’t mean the model is wrong and you have to abandon it or eat crow.  You may consider revising it, adding on to it, or keeping it exactly as is because it works for the niche you cater to and is what they want.   The worse that can happen is that you learn something which helps you to better comprehend the nuances of the art of exercise science.

7 Lessons Learned from the Bodybuilding Stage

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IMG_4849

When I started my career as a personal trainer at the ripe young age of twenty-two (I really can’t believe I’ll be thirty-six this month.  Look ma’ I made it! J) one of the very first actions I took was to enter myself into a natural bodybuilding contest.  I had wanted to bodybuild ever since I watched Lou Ferrigno as the Incredible Hulk in the mid-eighties television series.  Then of course there were the professional wrestlers in the WWF like Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior who became another source of motivation before I started “investing” what little money I earned at thirteen years old on muscle magazines. But I digress.

My reasoning for entering the contest was two-fold.  First, I always wanted to look like a bodybuilder so it only made sense to do what bodybuilders do…compete.  Second, and the stronger of the two reasons, was to gain experience and knowledge.  I reasoned that if people were going to come to me with the expectation of achieving six-pack abs, defined muscles, or to simply get lean and muscular, then I better know and understand all that goes into the process.

After 14 years of competing it is impossible for me to place a value on the lessons I’ve learned from getting up on stage. What I have gained through those experiences cannot be learned in a book or in a classroom. The lessons can be categorized two ways; physique development and self-development.  While my initial interest was regarding physique development I quickly learned that self-development works in tandem with physique development—sometime preceding it, sometimes resulting from it, and sometimes working side by side with it.

Here are my top 7 lessons learned from the bodybuilding stage:

  1. Fat loss takes time but needs to be approached with a sense of urgency.  While losing weight slowly is necessary for maintaining a healthy metabolism and ensuring that the weight you shed is fat and not muscle, don’t use this as a reason to get complacent or justify poor decisions about eating or exercise. With few exceptions the metabolism is very slow to get started, often taking 4 or more weeks just to build enough momentum result in consistent weekly fat loss. And that’s if you’re doing everything right!
  2. Track everything.  As the old adage goes, you can’t know where  you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.  While keeping a food log and keeping track of your calories, carbs, protein and fats might seem like a royal pain in the ass, it is the only way to figure out exactly how much you can or can’t eat without disrupting your fat loss efforts.  Don’t try to guess…it doesn’t work.Journal
  3. Until you change your mind you cannot change your body.  The body has a funny way of following what your subconscious believes to be true which is why I can’t stress enough the importance of developing self-belief and having a positive self-image.  I have never had a competition season in which I didn’t improve upon my condition from the previous season.  I attribute this to first seeing myself better than I once was the previous season and then taking actions on achieving it.
  4. Have a strong “why”.  It’s easy to stay the course and do whatever is necessary to achieve your goal when you have a clear-cut reason for doing so.  Getting up in front of a bunch of strangers with less fabric covering you than what you would wear to the beach was, and continues to be, a very big reason “why” I’m so intent on not screwing up my diet or missing workouts.  Just wanting to “look better” or “get a little leaner” is not incentive, it’s a wish.  Attach it to something bigger that will keep you doing the not so fun stuff and now you have a why.
  5. This s#%t is hard!  Make no mistake about it, you have to work your butt off and be disciplined to make even minimal gains.  Showing up is not half the battle it’s about 1/10th of it.  You need to constantly outwork yourself in order to make forward progress. Accepting this reality will help minimize frustration when you’re not achieving results at the rate you think you should.
  6. You are always IN-season.  One of the most common traits amongst top competitors is that they focus just as hard on their diet and training in the off-season as they do 3 months before stepping on stage.  By living the lifestyle year round it makes getting into competition shape much easier and faster and makes the damage done by an occasional night out on the town or going out to eat almost World's 2012 (125)non-existent.
  7. Support systems are a necessity.  As stated in lesson #5 this stuff is hard, but it can made much easier, and your likelihood of success is greatly increased by having one or more people working towards similar goals alongside you.  Conversely nothing can thwart your efforts faster than resistance or ridicule from family members or friends.  Be sure that the people surrounding you understand how important your fitness goals are to you and to respect your decisions about the way you eat and how you spend your time.

Fitness Trends vs. Fitness Truth

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The 21st century version of a Richard Simmons’ ‘Sweating to the Oldies’ workout in neon clothes and pop music

Choose a trend…any trend.  Choose Zumba, CrossFit, P90X, Insanity, Body Pump, or whatever else might surface in the next twelve to eighteen months.  Exaggerative claims of the superiority of each fitness trend compared to the tried and true are made in just the same way Jazzercise, Tae Bo, and Buns of Steel were said to be the greatest fitness discovery since the last fitness discovery.   Despite their varied take on exercise the one thing these trends have in common is that they are just trends.  Many will die off and some will survive by taking on new form fifteen years from now, but none will ever enjoy as much popularity or acclaim as when they first surfaced.   However, regardless of what trends come and go the fundamental principles of exercise never change.

The idiot brigade, violating the principles of exercise and looking like fools in the process.

The fundamental principles (intensity, volume, frequency, overload, specificity, individualism, and diminishing returns) are the judge and jury when it comes to deciding the fate of fitness trends.  Violate one or several of these principles and its life in prison without parole or the death penalty.   Although the average individual seeking to get in shape might not fully understand these seven principles or how they interrelate, they’re smart enough to recognize if what they are doing is yielding the result they want or not.  If it is not working or has stopped working then some aspect of the program is in violation of the principles.  It is at this time we see the rightful demise of the heralded fitness trend.

Here’s a brief overview of the 7 Principles of Exercise Science:

  1. Intensity – The possible percentage of momentary muscular and volitional effort exerted. The measure of how hard a person is working at any given moment during exercise.
  2. Volume – The amount of exercise performed in a workout.  It refers to the number of repetitions, time under tension, and the number of sets performed.
  3. Frequency – How often exercise occurs; whether in general or for a specific muscle groups.
  4. Overload – The application of progressively greater demands through regular progression.  This increase can come in the form of how much weight is lifted, reps performed, TUT, or frequency.
  5. S.A.I.D. (specific adaptation to imposed demands) – The nature of the exercise program will place specific demands on the body that leads to a specific result.
  6. Diminishing Returns – Exercise that exceeds the minimum necessary to produce a (potentially) optimum response is pointless as it relates to the best interests of the individual.
  7. Individualism – Exercise must be prescribed in accordance with the needs, goals, abilities, limitations, and preferences of the individual.

Each of these principles are present in every exercise program.  The extent to which they are applied and balanced relative to the person’s goals and recovery ability will determine the program’s effectiveness.  To the educated fitness professional or trainee who understands this it is easy to spot the flaws in fitness trends like those mentioned and predict when, how and why they will fail in the long-term.  In upcoming blogs we’ll breakdown some of these trends individually to show the difference between trends and truth.