I read a comment on a post the other day that got me to thinking.
I don’t remember verbatim what the fella wrote, but it was to the effect that all these bootcamp and group-fitness kind of classes that are all the rage these days are really good at getting people sweaty, hot, out of breath, and tired, but they’re doing little or nothing to create positive long-term adaptations in muscle and fat tissue.
That’s a perceptive observation, right there.
You wouldn’t know this to talk to the average person, even the average active person, but…
The purpose of exercise is NOT to get sweaty, hot, out of breath, and tired.
The purpose of physical training is to create specific stress that stimulates your body to adapt in specific ways.
Chew on that nugget for a minute if you need to.
Any sweat, sucking wind, or fatigue that happens as a result of training to create specific stress is a side-effect.
But a ho’ lot of fitness-folk — trainers, coaches, and worker-outers all inclusive — treat these side-effects as the main event.
Whenever I hear someone complain about working out hard and not seeing any progress, I smile inside and shake my head. This isn’t so often as I try to avoid talking to people whenever possible, and that goes triple for talking about training and nutrition. But it happens often enough in earshot.
Good money says that they really are doing “hard work” of the hot, sweaty, out of breath kind, but what they aren’t doing is work that creates the specific adaptations they want, otherwise known as “more muscle mass” and “less fat tissue on their bee-hind”.
That’s all it ever comes down to. You have more muscle and less fat. If you aren’t training for those goals, and supporting them with the rest of your lifestyle, then progress will continue to escape your grasp.
Your group fitness class can be a part of that, sure. There’s a time and a place for cardio fitness and metabolic energy-systems training. One of the mistakes I made as a younger buck was ignoring the metabolic dimension in favor of Pure Bulk and Strength. I got big and strong alright, but it wasn’t what I expected.
Point is, you aren’t there for the sake of burning up energy and getting tired. That’s a side effect of training, not its goal.
If you want to run Ironman races, knock yourself out. In endurance sports, burning energy is the means and the end.
But most people are not doing that and they don’t want that. They want a decently-lean body with decent shapeliness. Even though running for distance is the worst way to get there, they fall for the myth that Running Is Fitness.
I can get a body in bad-ass shape with as little as two or three 30-40 minute strength workouts, a handful of cardio sessions, and a few easy diet steps.
It ain’t complicated. Trouble is most folks don’t know this, and even if you tell them, they smile, nod, and run another 10 miles while eating 20 grams of vegan protein for the day.
What can you do. Most folks do not want what they say they want. What they want is to continue in their undisturbed bliss of daily routine while gods and angels deliver the results they wish for.
I’ve had to add in some serious filters to screen out these people. Otherwise they’ll crawl into my DMs and inbox asking for training and then flake out within 14 days once they realize this involves changing their daily lives. Flakes who show low-class behavior like this are perma-banned from my universe, as I warn every new and prospective client NOT to do this, but it still wastes precious time and energy.
On that note…
Right now I’ve got 2 or 3 spaces for 1:1 coaching opening up at the end of March.
I work with clients over 40 to stop beating yourself up (in the gym and out), cut out all the extra junk in your eating and exercise that keeps you stalled, and fix you up good so you can get that flab off, feel better, and look better.
If you’re interested in working with me for a tune-up, and you’re actually committed to doing it, send me a message and I’ll send over the details.
Matt Perryman