STOP WORKING OUT!!

STOP WORKING OUT!!

That’s right, I said it. YOU need to STOP working out. 

What the heck is a workout anyway?? 

Break it down, work out….I can see working out your frustrations, fears, and hang-ups,  we work out our finances to get them in order, work out plans with friends to hang out, but to your body…Stop it, stop “working it out”.  

Work-out does not belong in the conversation when it comes to your health and fitness. 

The term “Workout” is actually a fairly new term and it’s almost exclusive to America. Very few other countries even use the term to describe exercise. Maybe that’s hint number one that the concept is nonsense?

When I think of the term Workout—The first thing that comes to my mind is “wear-out”...And that is exactly what we have been led to believe is necessary to “get fit”....NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING can be further from the truth. 

The modern fitness industry (by modern I mean starting with the influence of Arnold and Jane Fonda)  with all the sexy marketing and the now ever-present “influencers” on social media alongside the rise of Crossfit and “Uncle Rhabdo the Clown”  has most of the world convinced that unless you are “working out” ie , literally destroying yourself in the gym, chasing the burn and fatigue…you might as well just stay sitting on the couch, and hanging your fitness goals up in the closet alongside that treadmill you once swore was the answer to all your fitness questions. 

It is all Marketing, it always has been and it always will be. The idea of working out, chasing some thrill, some feeling from exercise is just a way for the big corporations to line their pockets, and the influencers…people with zero professional credentials, just empty heads attached to a nice looking set of often surgically or pharmaceutically enhanced guns or buns are an even bigger problem as they directly market to their followers using manipulation and sex appeal to prey on and take advantage of the ignorance of an audience just hoping and praying for a solution to their issues. It’s truly the blind leading the blind. I assure you, the answer to your fitness problem is not going to come to you via XHOTBODY22@insta or any other dolt that pops up under #fitness. 

I want you to change the way you look at fitness and achieving the results you really want…Instead of “exercise” another bad term, think TRAINING. Instead of working out…Think Practice. 

If you can shift these two paradigms in your mind, you are already way ahead of the curve. 

Exercise is random, and random exercise gets random lack luster results. If you just want to exercise and get the endorphin rush, that is great, I am all for it, just know that you’re essentially throwing s#!t at the wall, hoping that something sticks, doesn’t injure you, and actually moves the needle on the path to becoming a better you. 

If you actually have a goal, that will require training. You have to have repeatable, measurable, and progressive efforts. You must apply principles known to sports science for the past century plus. You need to be at least familiar with these principles in order to make a plan for yourself or to know that a plan written by someone else is even valid. Principles like Progressive overload, periodization, appropriate application of load, volume, and intensity, and how to manipulate those variables over time to avoid plateaus. You don’t need a Ph.D. to understand these things and apply them, most GOOD training programs you can find online will have these principles baked in, just follow the plan and FINISH THE PROGRAM. Look for programs that A.) Starts with a sensible volume and gradually builds up in sets/reps/weight etc B)Look for programs that utilize primarily compound full-body lifts ( think deadlift, squat, Kettlebell swings) and C.) Look for programs from Credentialed experts… their are plenty of free ones online if you look hard enough, unlike that horrendous program being sold to you by that meathead in your Facebook feed. The other great thing, is if you are following a program from an actual coach and need help, likely they are just an email or phone call away and always happy to assist. That is what real coaches do. We’re problem solvers ;-) 

Now, as for working out ….I would totally back “Karen” in her campaign to “CANCEL” that phrase right now. Working out needs to go and we are replacing it with Practice. 

When you think practice, you think skill, and that is exactly what good Training is, what it requires, and what it provides.

An analogy I like to use is this…when you first learned to type, on an actual keyboard, not your iPhone, you didn’t simply start mashing random keys until you got sweaty and your fingers got sore, yet that is exactly what we do when we “work out”...

The right way to learn to type is by learning first where on the keyboard your fingers should be, then you spend a few weeks typing like a pigeon still looking at the keyboard but the new neural connections and pathways are being cemented until eventually, you are cruising through a 1000 word blog post without ever looking down.

It is the exact same in Training. The movements and exercises you perform are skills, we are creating new pathways, and new connections. You are practicing the skill of strength and movement competency. The better you become at a particular exercise, the more benefits it will yield to you, hence the importance of learning to focus on doing fewer things better rather than poorly doing the million different things your squirrel brain sees on Instagram.

Regarding Skill and practice, the same can be said of the ability to put the fork down, to drink adequate amounts of water, and get to bed and sleep 8-9 hours.… These things are complimentary, they truly impact your fitness and help you crush goals and they are skills, and like learning to play the piano or type on a keyboard, they require PRACTICE.

When you begin to embrace the idea of Practice, you can see and experience the idea that Training can give you more than it takes away, it can build you up, rather than beat you down on your path to improvement. Can you see the irony now, “I want to improve myself…by crushing myself”?? Oxymoronic, no doubt. This is the power of Training and Practice.. And since your fitness is kinda critical to having a quality existence on this planet, you may want to plan to PRACTICE for a lifetime instead of wearing, oops, I mean working out for a short time.  

If you want a program utilizing all of the time tested and proven principles above from an actual Coach, I will soon be releasing my FREE Kettlebell and OS Starter Program. 

Email me at edgeofstrengthocala@gmail.com for more details and I will send it to you as soon as it becomes available! 

***REMEMBER*** WHEN YOU WORK OUT, YOU WEAR OUT. TRAIN TO SUSTAIN.- Coach Q.