Are these training mistakes holding you back?
You’ve been consistent and put in the effort, so why aren’t you seeing the progress to reflect it?
There are numerous pitfalls that can conspire against you and leave you spinning your wheels. Here are a few I see regularly that you may not have considered previously.
The intensity is too high
There’s a general notion in fitness that harder = better.
From a logical viewpoint it sort of makes sense; from our first school sports day we’ve been taught the harder we push = the better we’ll do. But making a change to your body composition isn't a race and doesn’t have a definitive start and finish. I’m not suggesting you go easy all the time, but would you advise someone about to run a marathon - ‘just go as hard as you can’?
The systems that regulate whether or not you lose body fat don’t care if you put in 110% to keep up with shredded Suzy, they care what you do 24 hours a day - 7 days a week and not just for 1 hour in the evening.
Studies show some people compensate for their exercise by moving less throughout the rest of the day - which actually negates the energy burning benefits of doing exercise in the first place.
This issue is compounded because a lot of workouts are literally designed to be as hard as possible.
Do you find yourself walking out of the gym, ruined? Be aware it’s virtually impossible to expend more energy in a 1 hour workout than it is across the other 15 (ish) hours of your waking day - so take a moment to assess whether your workout is complementing, or compromising total daily energy expenditure potential.
Try keeping an eye on your step count, is it consistent or does it drop off on the days you workout?
Exercise technique
This one might seem odd to include here, but hear me out.
Every time you perform a rep of an exercise, you’re placing a stimulus on a muscle group with the intent of forcing an adaption - the end goal being that you improve at that exercise and get stronger.
Movements like the squat (to name one example) are hugely beneficial, yet complex to perform correctly. Multiple joints and muscles need to move in coordination through a range dictated by your individual anatomy and flexibility.
If your technique isn’t up to scratch, it could mean you're shortchanging yourself, on every single repetition.
Ok sure, but don’t you have to just practice an exercise to get better at it?
Let’s pretend you thought the correct way to play piano was to form a fist and smack the keys. You practice meticulously but much to your frustration and no matter how many times you smack the keys, you still can't make it sound good.
Exercise technique is much the same - it’s improved by breaking down and working on the limiting factors holding you back, before bringing the movement back together again.
There’s huge long term value in practising the technique of an exercise, before you load up the intensity. Try videoing yourself then assess what you think you do well, and what you could do better. Or, ask someone with the required knowledge of what safe and proficient technique should look like.
No progression
Progress towards your goal requires you get a little bit better consistently over time, which is difficult to quantify without any means of recording.
If you don’t have any idea what exercises you’ve done or how long you’ve exercised for - how can you measure progress? How does it compare to previous weeks? Have you done more, the same, or less? In just turning up and doing as you feel, you could be leaving progress to chance.
What’s the problem with doing what you feel like if it feels hard every time?
‘Hard’ is a pretty unreliable metric if progress is the desired outcome - what if your week was stressful, or your sleep was off? Hard may feel different depending on the day you’ve been having. It’s also a subjective measure and studies show we don’t actually need to push to failure if we want to see results.
Pushing yourself into the the ‘oh sh*t this is hard’ zone all the time also presents other issues:
Trying harder and harder becomes pretty unsustainable for progress, very quickly.
Working hard and continuing to find something hard can be demotivating. Recording progress might help you see you’ve actually come further than you thought.
So, what can you do to make sure you actually keep progressing?
1. Have a plan outlined. No-one can progress indefinitely, otherwise we’d all be Olympic athletes. Effective plans build gradually before taking a rest and repeating the process.
2. To start, keep a record of the basic stuff - how many sets did you do? How much weight did you use? How long did you work for?
3. Develop a long-term mindset. At first you might see big jumps in progress, but as you get stronger and fitter progressions will take longer to see and get harder to come by.
4. No progression occurs if you are not consistent.
Key Points
The energy expenditure potential outside your workout is far greater than in it. Try not to compensate for your workout by moving less throughout the day. Monitor your step count to keep on top of this.
Taking some time to work on your exercise technique will benefit you greatly in the long run. Video yourself or ask for some professional advice.
Our perception of what is hard is quite an inaccurate measure of progress over time because it’s subjective. Keeping a record of the basic data from your workouts can help you see how far you’ve come and where you can improve.
Whilst you may see great progress initially, no-one can progress indefinitely. A long-term mindset and consistency is crucial. Don’t forget to factor in lower intensity weeks to recover.
