We Have the Answer No One Else Has

When people are surveyed and asked “What’s the number one reason you don’t exercise?”, do you know what the most common answer is?

Time.

As in, lack of it.

Unfortunately, anyone who says or thinks that a lack of time is the reason they don’t exercise is wrong.

Dead wrong.

And that’s sad, because it isn’t a lack of time that’s causing them to throw in the towel.  Every successful TR member has some combination of job(s), commute(s), kid(s), pet(s), homes, spouses, and social lives.  Some members have ALL of them.  They’re busy as hell and yet they manage to train consistently.

So time isn’t the issue.  People who claim lack of time for not being healthy and fit have this issue:

They’re misapplying information.  Because in the 17 years I’ve been a trainer, and in the 8 years I’ve owned a training business I’ve learned this: anyone who says that time is an issue has one of two problems (and neither of them is a lack of time).

Problem # 1: It’s not that they don’t have time, it’s that they’re shitty at managing their time.  This isn’t the topic of this blog (#2 is), nor am I a life coach, so I’ll keep it brief.  But trust me:  I’ve seen A LOT of people fail for no other reason than they confused “urgent” things with “important” things and couldn’t separate the two or prioritize their schedule around the important things.

Problem #2:  It’s not a time issue, it’s a shitty programming issue.

Now THIS IS my area of expertise.  Many people spend (waste) time on exercises and workouts that take a long time to do and/or don’t drive them toward their goals anyway.  If you’re strapped for time – and if you’re anything like my clients, you are – you simply can’t afford to waste time with workouts that take a long time to complete, or that you need to do 6 times per week, or that don’t drive you toward your goals.  Any one of those things is a death sentence to your health and fitness.  

And again, sadly, most people fail for exactly that reason – they say they don’t have time, then they choose a program that takes up a lot of time.  (Shakes head, rolls eyes, turns palms up, sighs…)

For example, if you’re strapped for time, training like a body builder is a bad idea.  Questions of efficacy aside, training like a body builder takes A LOT of time.  Training your biceps means you have to train your triceps.  Training your chest means you have to train your back.  Training your hamstrings needs you need to train your quads.  Training your calves means you need to train your anterior tibialis.

You see where I’m going with this?  There are 700 and something muscles in the body – that’s going to take a LOT of time…

Traditional cardio, like jogging or biking (again, efficacy issues aside) takes a LOT of time.  The people I know who enjoy jogging, biking, etc. shock the hell out of me when they tell me how many hours per week they spend on their workouts.  I congratulate them because I don’t know too many people who have that much time.  (And even fewer who would jog even if they did…:)

Those are just two examples – I could go on and on, but the take home message: You don’t have that much time to waste.

What we do at the TR is this:  We write programs that factor in that our clients have 2-5 hours per week at best to workout.  So we block off times within the programs to address and improve flexibility, coordination, core strength, total body strength and cardiorespiratory health.  Notice when I discussed body building training and traditional cardio, I didn’t even bring up that it doesn’t address the other numerous aspects of fitness that’ll need to be addressed – such as flexibility and core strength – that’ll just take and add on more time to the already too long workouts and programs?  

That’s hardly a good plan for complete health and fitness.

You’re thinking how can you improve your flexibility, coordination, core strength, total body strength and cardiorespiratory condition in that short of a time?  Think it can’t be done?  Well, you’re partly right - it can’t be done – by a non-fitness professional.

Luckily for you, we are professionals and we’ve been doing this for a long time.  Addressing all those needs in only a few hours per week is what we do and it’s why we get busy adults to look, feel and perform their best again.

If you need help zeroing in and nailing down a time friendly program, you know where to find us.

10 Things I'd Do:

Pretty much on a daily basis people ask me what they should do to get in shape, lose weight, feel better etc.  Basically, people ask me what I would do if I were them.  How would I go about feeling, looking, and performing my best again?

And as I’ve said countless times before, the answer is “It depends”.

It depends on your goals, your circumstances (like lifestyle and schedule), the results of your physical assessment with us, and a few other factors.

But there are 10 things that I would do that would apply to just about anybody’s situation.

So if I weren’t ecstatic with how I looked, felt and performed, here’s what I would do to right the ship and get back to being the best version of myself.  In no particular order…

1. I would establish what I REALLY want.  People always come into the TR and say “I want to be fitter”, “I want to be more toned”, “I want to be stronger”.  Those are way too vague.  I would decide “I want to have more energy when I play with my kids”, or “I want to look better in my clothes”, etc.
2. I would set small a goal and build off of it.  I’ve never seen anyone set a HUGE goal like “Lose 20 pounds in 6 weeks!”, or “I want to be 10% body fat”, make it and stick to it.  Not once.  I would set a small, realistic goal – then when I achieved it, I would reevaluate before setting another.
3. I would choose one food to remove from my diet.  Going cold turkey on everything that’s bad for you is very difficult.  But I would accept that something has to give – I would choose one food item I know is unhealthy and remove it for a week.  If I didn’t miss it, great.  If I was dying without it, I’d try a different one.  But I would accept something has to give with all the crap we ingest.
4. I’d add protein and fiber to my diet.  Protein controls hunger hormones and keeps the metabolism up.  Fiber slows the rate of digestion.  These two things have an enormous impact on body fat and overall health, and almost everyone I meet initially isn’t getting enough of either.
5. I’d schedule my workouts and stick to them.  “I’m getting to the gym this week” does not work.  I’d put my workouts on my schedule and stick to them.  Nothing short of an emergency would keep me away.  (And here’s a tip – it’s almost NEVER and emergency).
6. I would do only high value workouts – only things that would have a big impact on my success.  There isn’t enough time to waste on things that aren’t driving you toward your goal.  (Yes, even if they are fun, or make you feel good.)  That’s fine for other reasons, but it won’t get me what I want.  For example, if I want to lose weight, yoga isn’t going to help. If I want to decrease joint pain, jogging won’t help.
7. I would consider the source.  99% of people who give fitness advice have never trained anyone but themselves.  (And no, working out and having people follow along is not training someone.)
8. I would ask for objective help.  It’s difficult to see the forest through the trees.  This is a cliché for a good reason.  I’m fortunate enough to have good trainers with me at the TR – I always ask for feedback on what they see/observe when I’m working out.
9. I would evaluate my situation and formulate a plan.  Many roadblocks and obstacles can be avoided if they’re spotted ahead of time.  For example, if I had 4 hours per week to workout, planning workouts that took 6 hours would be a bad idea.  If I had a bad knee, putting joggin on my program would be a bad idea.
10. I would accept responsibility.  People who blame lack of time or money for not being healthy are lying to themselves and don’t really want to be fit and healthy in the first place.  That’s fine, it doesn’t make them bad people – but if I’m going to look, feel and perform my best again I’m not going to be a victim.  I’m going to control my choices.

Again, there are aspects that are specific to you based on your goals and your circumstances.  But with very few exceptions, I would do the above if I were starting out again and wanted to look, feel, and perform my best.

Jon

The Facts About Flexibility

One of the more ironic aspects of my job is my relationship with social media.

On one hand, it’s a crucial tool that helps me connect with many people about fitness, exercise and health.

On the other hand it is the single biggest source of absurdity in the realm of fitness, exercise and health imaginable.  Seriously, some of the advice I see on social media about exercise is so nonsensical it’s almost surreal.

And although the foolhardy have no specialization – they are equal opportunity attackers of common sense - today I want to talk to you about flexibility.  It just may be my bad luck, but it seems like lately I’ve been bombarded with tips on stretching and advice on how to stay flexible.

And I’m here to tell you 99.9% of it is absolute bullshit.

Two of the more problematic issues with flexibility are that a) it’s a FAR more complex process than most people realize, and b) there are almost countless variables that go into someone’s level of effective flexibility.

So it’s impossible for me to cover such a broad topic in a blog post, but I can help with the facts to get you going in the right direction.

Facts.  No BS. No sales pitch. No outdated, dogmatic, social media garbage.

Keep these things in mind as you attempt to improve your flexibility as part of your overall fitness program:

The Facts about Flexibility:

·        Stretching Does NOT Prevent Injury

Biggest.  Myth.  Ever.  There is no evidence anywhere to suggest stretching prevents injury.  If it did, there would be no injuries because we would all just stretch and be 100% healthy.  Professional athletes would never be injured.  (Seriously – what am I missing…?) I could write a book alone on how silly this notion is…

·         Stretching May Create Injuries

There are areas of the body – the knee and lower back for example – that have very limited movement capacities.  Making them more mobile increases the chance of injury there.  Knee and low back maladies are on an almost epidemic level, due in part to excessive “looseness” there.

·         Looser, Relaxed Muscles are Not Better.

When it comes to muscle tension, “loose” isn’t better.  Muscles are always at varying lengths of tension to keep joints in their place.  But they need to have the very specific, and always changing correct amounts of tension to allow adequate movement without excessive movement that would create an injury.  Looser muscles often lead to joint hyper-extensions and dislocations.

·         Muscle Length is Controlled by the Central Nervous System

Controlling the tension described above is a very complicated process that is always occurring subconsciously in our central nervous systems.  It is a complex process and also a very dynamic one – the only way to improve it is to be in motion so the brain becomes more adept at controlling and maintaining the appropriate levels of tension described above.  (Because that’s how we use flexibility in life – we move.)  Stretching a muscle and holding it for an extended period does NOTHING to improve that process.

Am I saying “don’t stretch”? No. 

I am saying it’s probably not doing for you what you think it is, so be careful.

And apply the FACTS, not what the Instagram model doing yoga says to do.

About the author:

Jon holds a Masters’ Degree in Exercise Science and the topic of his research thesis was “The Correlation Between Static Stretching and Injury Prevention”.  He’s overseen thousands of training sessions and despite intense workouts, the next time a client pulls a hamstring, groin muscle, etc. will be the first.