How the fitness industry helps you fail - you never do the same workout twice

Something that’s been bothering me for a while in fitness marketing is the “never do the same workout twice” marketing I’ve been seeing pop up in different mainstream brands (ahem, F45).

This annoys me because it’s teaching people the wrong way to think about training. It’s not encouraging building a solid foundation and more concerned with trying to be “fun”. As fun as lack of consistency may be, it’s the quickest way to ensure no progress, and I would argue that actual progress in training is the funnest part.

High level athletes and trainers follow programs, train consistently and add slight changes to their program every couple of weeks. When you dramatically change your workouts you lose progress.

Why?

Because building up a skill takes time, and training is a skill. If you played a different sport every day of the week you’d be good at no sports. If you mastered one sport you’d be able to apply that process to other things. It might not even have to be a sport, just the process of mastery in general.

Now mastery at crunches, park bench dips and that stupid looking glute stuff that wamens do in gyms (the one that looks like a dog taking a piss) will take you nowhere. Movements that matter do, and they include:

• Squats
• Deadlifts
• Military presses
• Any kettlebell lift
• Pull ups
• Push ups
• Running and sprinting
• Sled pulling and more

Then you repeat them.

Consistently.

Maybe like this:

• Monday - Back squats and deadlifts.
• Tuesday - Push ups, pull ups and kettlebell snatches.
• Thursday - Front squats and kettlebell swings.
• Friday - military presses, chin ups and medicine ball slams.

OR if you’re like me and each day is whole body workout day try this:

• Day 1 - Kettlebell lifts, squats and military press.
• Day 2 - Kettlebell lifts, front squats and chin ups.
• Day 3 - a run, squats and push ups.

REPEAT!

Movements that matter matter because whole movements work more than just one muscle. If you do a push up you’re going to get more stimulation of your triceps than doing park bench dips or tricep kickbacks. If you do heavy squats you’ll get more out of that then the dog pissing exercise with bands around your waist.

A fancy trainer might get you doing this (sound familiar):

Monday - 3x10 squats, crab walks, one leg balancing, dog pissing exercise.

I would give you this…

Monday - 8x5 squats (with weight for your capability), 3x5 deadlifts

The pros to my brutally simple workout are A: It’s simple and B: It’s more effective.

The cons? It’s not selling you on some fancy bulls*%# like some esoteric knowledge involving rubber bands, spring loaded beds (hello pilates reformer) and moving like an “animal”.

Yeah I know, not exactly cons hey, just me extending my self indulgent rant. If you add a little cardio, like a swim, row or run here and there, and stretch a little before and after training, then there are no cons.

Just dem sweet sweet gainz.