15 Ways to Avoid Exercise Disaster

1. Routinely change the plane

I’m not talking about transferring airlines from one trip to the next, I’m talking about the angle—the plane of motion—you perform your exercises on.  While everyone loves to talk about the need to “change things up” to avert plateaus the real benefit of multi-angle training is minimizing wear and tear on the joints and soft tissue from performing the same exercise in the same plane of motion on a weekly basis.  How many rotator cuff surgeries could’ve been avoided if only those guys didn’t bench press every freakin’ week for 7 years straight?

2. See it as a stress

Like it or not, exercise is a negative stress on your body.  Anything that leads to you having near 100% of your strength and energy one minute and then 50% of that an hour later (I’m making up the percent drop in ability just to highlight the scenario) is a negative stress.  If your body is given enough time to rebound from this stress and defend against it by getting stronger and more resilient, great, you’re making progress.  If not then the stress compounds with all the other stressors in your life and your progress comes to an abrupt stop.

3. Weigh the risk

Training hard is a necessity for success; training stupid is not.  I’m cool with people doing Crossfit, Olympic lifting, and Powerlifting if they’re competing in those sports.  As a competitor you assume certain risk.  A recent study published in the Journal of Strength and Condition Research indicated that “Injury rates with CrossFit training are similar to that reported in the literature for sports such as Olympic weight-lifting, power-lifting and gymnastics…”  The takeaway is this; if you’re exercising for health, fitness, appearance, or function then you need to consider the vehicle you use to get you there.

4. Get out of your head

Stopping getting in your own way!  There is no way to balance your bullshit unsubstantiated negative thoughts and beliefs with your desire for positive results.  When you’re in your head you’re dead.

5. Don’t try to outwork a lousy diet

Here’s a double dose of disaster.  You have no control over your nutrition so you accumulate more body fat and put additional stress on your body.  You try to make up for your poor nutrition by doing more exercise. “If I do sixty minutes of cardio a day on top of my weight training I can eat whatever I want.”  Not quite.  If you’re a quick learner you remember point #2 and realize that piling on the exercise only creates additional stress.  If your body can’t recover from this and other stress it will not function optimally.  If it’s not functioning optimally that means your metabolism is not functioning optimally.  The only thing your extra exercise will be burning is muscle tissue which further fucks up your situation.

6. Don’t assume more is better

For the exercise zealot your commitment is commendable.  However when progress begins to wane the answer is rarely to do more (see #2 and #7).  Most notable in young impressionable male lifters who believe the behemoths in the muscle magazines are “natural” and that fourteen plus hours of training a week is normal.

7. Don’t assume less is (always) more

At the opposite and less observed end of the spectrum are the minimalists performing less than thirty-minutes of exercise a week.  While something may be better than nothing and this amount of exercise could be enough to help maintain the functionality of someone over the age of seventy, don’t expect to achieve fitness superstardom while under-stimulating your muscles.   That said, the best approach is to always do the least amount of exercise necessary to achieve the best result or desired result.

8. Leave the warp speed to Star Trek

You walk into the gym for the first time and you see everyone pumping out reps as though you get an Olympic medal for how fast you complete your set.  So what do you do…?  That’s what I thought.  We all do this because we don’t know any better.  The repercussions of such thoughtless exercise performance is best explained in Reppin’ Like a Moron.

9. Get off the ball  

It is painful that the circus act resembling trend of functional training using the Bosu or fit ball, has not yet seen a bitter death.   There is nothing more “functional” than having well developed muscles that are strong through their natural range of motion.  Traditional weight training in a stable environment accomplishes more to this end than attempting to balance on an object.  Aside from the safety concerns the argument that such balancing acts involve more muscles is an exercise in displaced rationale (no pun).  Sure, you might involve more total muscles but you are also shifting focus away from the one or two that the exercise is intended to target.  Strengthening of these muscles is better accomplished in a stable environment where they can be overloaded.  As far as the “functionality” aspect.  Unless you’re part of Cirque du’ Solei none of your everyday movements or activities requires spectacular balance.  (My sister was a gymnast and I was not, yet somehow I’ve been able to function in life just as effectively as her…hmmm).

10. Trading time for work

The time you spend working out is not a measure of the quality of your workout.  Take away your walks to the water cooler between sets, the conversation you’re having with your training partner or friend, the two warm-up sets for every exercise, or the time spent letting everyone on Facebook and Twitter know you’re at the gym, and how much time is spent on productive exercise or sets that actually have the potential to stimulate results.  You can train six hours a week or sixty minutes and produce the same exact result if the “quality time” is the same.

11. Better on paper

When I say “better on paper” I don’t mean what the stats say about who should win the game between the Miami Dolphins and Cleveland Browns.  Football fans knows that regardless of who should win according to the stats, it’ doesn’t always turn out that way.  So why track them?  Because it gives you a better overall view of what areas need improvement and they can help you formulate a better game plan.  Having a running record of your exercise performance or nutrition helps to uncover clues about what’s working and what’s not.  You can save yourself years of poor results simply by making sure you’re getting better on paper.  You can measure your weight, your reps, your time under tension, your body weight, body composition, energy levels, etc.

12. Same thing, too often

The body is a pretty extraordinary machine.  One of its most remarkable features is its ability to adapt to external demands.  Everything from building muscle, to increasing strength, to having greater endurance, and a host of other fitness related outcomes is an adaptation to the demands we impose on ourselves through exercise.   So good is this ability to adapt that after repeated exposures we look for the most efficient way to deal with these demands.  And this consequently becomes the source of the fitness enthusiasts’ frustration regarding a lack of progress.  What I mean is, at a certain point our bodies get accustomed to the demands of exercise, especially when it’s performed the same way week after week, and it doesn’t sense a need to add more muscle or increase strength, or whatever outcome you’re chasing.  However before you think I’m on some Tony Horton P90x bullshit read my Holy Shift post.

13. Crowning a variable as King

You ever have one of those clingy girlfriends or boyfriends?  They need to constantly be around you and damn you if you’re not doing something every 5 minutes to make them feel special.  They latch onto you like I latch onto my shotgun and NRA membership card.  We know that being clingy is unhealthy yet some people insist on clinging to a certain training variable, put it on a pedestal and claim it as King of all Variables.  Volume is not any more important than intensity, than intensity is any more important than frequency, or frequency any more important than volume, and on and on.  The key is to figure out when a little more or a little less of any or all of them is necessary.

14. Choosing cardio over weights

At this point this one should not even need to be listed.  But a quick observation of what the people pounding away in the cardio section look like compared to the ones (seriously training) in the weight training area tells me that some people still haven’t gotten the memo.  The short of it—since it’s been written about a hundred bazillion times—is that cardio in excess (HIIT does not get lumped in here) is a muscle wasting metabolism killer.  Properly performed weight training is a muscle building, ass sculpting, metabolism enhancing, osteoporosis preventing, anti-aging, energy producing, sex drive heightening juggernaut.

15. Comparison with others

You are an individual…you have your own set of advantages…your own limitations…your own needs.  No matter what you do, or how hard you try, you will never under any circumstances be that person over there.  So why are you comparing yourself to them?  Uncover your individual needs and satisfy them…not someone else’s.

__________________________________________________________________

Thanks for reading this! If you got value from this or other articles, it would mean a lot to me for you to scroll down a bit farther and hit the recommend button.

Fitness Trends vs. Fitness Truth: P90X

P90X-Fitness-Guide

It’s all about muscle confusion right?  Just keep doing different sixty minute workouts six times a week and your fat-loss, muscle building, fitness prayers will be answered.  At least that what the developer of the P90X series, Tony Horton, would have you believe.  As discussed in the first Fitness Trends vs. Fitness Truth blog the major mistake made among trendsetting workout programs, and the ultimate reason for their demise is ignorance of the 7 Principles of Exercise (intensity, volume, frequency, overload, specificity, diminishing returns, and individualism) and how they interrelate.   You might be able to fool people but you can’t cheat science.

Don’t get me wrong, not everything taught in P90X is wrong per se though I disagree with their overall approach to exercise and Mr. Horton does have a tendency to make many false or misleading statements such as “Do low reps if you’re looking for mass and high reps if you’re looking for lean [muscle].”  The concept of performing exercise with high intensity is one positive component to the P90X program as is adding variety to your routine so you don’t become accustomed to your routine which under certain conditions will result in plateaus.  When put into practice however, P90X takes valid concepts and misapplies them.

I will not go so far as to say that the program doesn’t work, it does…under certain conditions and to varying degrees.  However, nearly every exercise program “works” to some extent or has “some” effect.  That does not necessarily make it ideal or the most effective approach to exercise, especially in light of its risk/reward ratio and long term effects.  Keep in mind that what is tolerable over the short term might not (and rarely is) sustainable over the long term.  This is a major hang up for many people.  Because a program yielded good results over a period they begin to believe that their results will continue in the same direction or can be sustained on said program.

For a thorough examination of the pros, cons, and misapplication of P90X let’s look at how the program stacks up against the 7 Principles of Exercise.

Fitness Truth vs. P90X

At the core of every exercise program is the Principle of Individualism.  This principle states that exercise must be prescribed in accordance with the needs, goals, abilities, limitations, and preferences of the individual.  Whenever a program is created before you know anything about the individual who is about to partake in it you are already in violation of this principle.  P90X violates this principle on many levels as you’ll see in our examination of the other six principles.  That said I’ll be the first to admit that most people who are new to exercise or that have not exercised for a number of years will see results relatively fast doing almost any type of training program.  This is a very big factor in the success for those featured as P90X success stories.

Let’s be honest most of the people who undertake the P90X program are those that are under or untrained and looking for a way to get some direction and avoid going to a gym.  For the advanced trainee who has years of solid weight training under his/her belt P90X is unlikely to move the results meter unless it so happens—by sheer luck—to fall in line with their specific needs.

Be Intense…But Not Too Intense

Intensity is the possible percentage of momentary muscular and volitional effort exerted. The measure of how hard a person is working at any given moment during exercise.  P90X encourage its participants to exercise with a high level of effort which is great but they clearly misunderstand the principle.  If a person is truly training with their highest level of effort then they would be limited in the amount of exercise they could perform but the quality and effectiveness of that exercise in stimulating gains in muscular strength and size would be high.

Throughout P90X the trainee is prompted to not push themselves to fatigue; to be able to complete every repetition of every set.  Why?  Because if they actually pushed some of their exercises to momentary muscular fatigue (failure) they would not make it through the entire workout—in effect they would not need to perform as much exercise as is suggested.   It is at this point it becomes obvious that this is an endurance program and not for anyone who wants to develop muscle or strength.  (Note: while exercise will burn calories and can have a positive effect on the metabolism the success of P90X in burning fat is a function of participants following a calorie restricting diet and NOT the exercise program itself).

Since intensity is a function of a person’s mental capability to push themselves and work through discomfort the degree of intensity experienced from these workouts can be sufficient for those who are newbies or that lack the ability to push themselves to the level suggested by P90X.  For the experienced lifter or those accustomed to hard training already the intensity of this workout will be a step back.

If Some Is Good, More Is Better

Volume is the amount of exercise performed in a workout.  It refers to the number of repetitions, time under tension, and the number of sets performed.  Exercise volume is determined largely by an individual’s muscle fiber type, rate-of-fatigue, tolerance to exercise stress, and objectives (improved endurance, muscle hypertrophy, increased strength, etc.).  It is not farfetched to say that the overwhelming majority—if not everybody—who does P90X does not know their muscle fiber type, rate of fatigue, or tolerance to exercise stress because if they did they wouldn’t need P90X.  The only thing they may be clear on is that they want to be in better shape when they finish than when they start.

Why performing the appropriate volume of exercise is important is best explained by looking at it in conjunction with training frequency.  Frequency is how often exercise occurs.  P90X has trainees exercising 6 days a week.  Is this frequency of exercise really necessary?  Hardly.  Can and will it become counterproductive over time?  Absolutely.

As with volume, frequency should be a byproduct of individual’s muscle make up and goals.  The only thing the high volume, high frequency approach promoted through this program accomplishes is the burning of calories on a daily basis.  For those not adhering to a proper diet in which calories are at or below maintenance levels this extra activity may help in burning body fat but is unnecessary if in a caloric deficit.   Over the long run this frequency and volume of exercise has the potential to negatively affect recovery and will result in Diminishing Returns.

On a side note: there is absolutely no need for individual abdominal/core routines like that in P90X which involve 300 movements and last 16 minutes.  This is not only redundant but ineffective in furthering Ab development.  Plenty has been written on this subject so we’ll forgo going into detail.  The only points needing to be understood are that the Abs are  engaged in most every exercise (especially squats, deadlifts, pulldowns, and pullovers) and that achievement of the sacred six-pack is more a function of low body-fat than muscle development.

This Can’t Work Forever?

The Principle of Diminishing Returns explains that exercise that exceeds the minimum necessary to produce a (potentially) optimum response is pointless as it relates to the best interests of the individual.  Because the volume and frequency of P90X is fixed the chances of the program resulting in a lack of progress after (or before) the ninety days are completed is very high.

When you fail to regulate training demands (i.e. intensity, volume, frequency) according to your needs what do you think happens?  You stop getting results.

When you fail to regulate training demands what else could happen?  You could regress.

It needs to be understood that exercising an hour each day, six days a week is not a recipe for success for everyone based on the principle of individualism and for most people will result in diminishing returns if adhered to for too long, as validated by the science of stress physiology —and serve as a waste of your valuable time.

Confusion over “Muscle Confusion”

ConfusionMuscle confusion is touted as the secret sauce of P90X.  The theory is as stated on the Beach Body website (the producers of P90X) is that “P90X uses targeted training phases so your body keeps adapting and growing. You’ll never “plateau”—which means your body will never get used to the routines, making improvements slow down or even stop.”

Sounds great…in theory.  Muscle confusion is nothing more than a gimmicky way of expressing the benefit of variation in an exercise.  It is true that variation can help break through plateaus and avoid boredom but one needs to be careful in how much and how often variation is applied.  This is best explained by examining the S.A.I.D. Principle.

The S.A.I.D. (specific adaptation to imposed demands) Principle states that the nature of the exercise program will place specific demands on the body that leads to a specific resultThis is why someone who wants to build muscle for the purpose of being stronger lifts weights instead of doing water aerobics.  It’s why someone who is training for a marathon runs does long distance runs each day instead of sprints.  What you do determines what you get.

So what do you get from P90X?  You get a lot of endurance training in the form of rep pumping high volume weight training, calisthenics which they attempt to pass off as “plyometrics”, and cardio kickboxing.  You get a workout that over time will help you get good at, or at least accustomed to, doing a lot of exercise.  You are likely to become more physically fit but only up until a certain point (which is true of any exercise program) and in a specific way (i.e. improved endurance).  There’s nothing inherently wrong with this but make no mistake, although you are lifting weights in some of these workouts you are not going build much muscle if that is what you are looking for.  If you are looking to improve your strength you are not going build much of that either unless you are completely new to lifting weights.   These workouts are all about endurance.  Even if you’re focus is on fat-loss these workouts as with any other will do little to burn body fat unless it puts you in a caloric deficit as already mentioned earlier.

The S.A.I.D. Principle not only relates to the nature of the workout program but the exercises themselves.  For the beginner and intermediate trainee it is important to perform the same exercises, and workouts, for a period of 4-8 weeks in order to make neuromuscular adaptations.  Simply stated you must become skilled at performing an exercise so that you can adequately stimulate the target muscles.  Until the skill is learned you will engage unrelated and outlying muscles minimizing stimulation to intended muscle group.  In getting it wrong P90X actually got it right in this instance.  Meaning their focus is on variation but it’s only in the type of workout being performed (i.e. weight training vs. calisthenics vs. cardio kickboxing vs. yoga).  When performing the weight training workouts as well as the others the trainee is repeating the same movements over and over again.  In this way they are getting the opportunity to learn the exercises and make the necessary neuromuscular adaptations…just hope it’s the right ones.

The most fundamental way to stimulate gains in muscular size and strength is through overloadOverload is the application of progressively greater demands through regular progression.  In a traditional weight training program overload is achieved through an increase in the amount of weight lifted, repetitions performed or time under tension.  P90X does encourage its trainees to up the ante and make the exercises heavier which is definitely one bright spot.  They also suggest at times adding more volume to this already high volume routine but ignore how this impacts the program on a whole and more importantly the person following it.

And Technique?

A major drawback of P90X is the poor weight lifting technique that a newbie could easily establish from the onset.  (Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people who have decades of weight training experience that also have exceptionally poor technique—much of which they developed in their first year of training.)  The demonstrated performance of weight training exercises in these videos are best described as “rep pumping”.  Meaning there is no real emphasis or focus on the muscles being trained, it’s all about pumping out reps in a certain amount of time.  It would be easy for someone to assume based on what they see in the video—not what they hear—that the most important factor is to pump out a certain number of reps instead of slowing things down and putting concentrated effort into the movement.

Over time this can result in injury as well as diminished effectiveness of the exercise.  To be fair, the same situation can arise from following any training program in which proper technique is not first learned.  The inability to properly perform ones exercises is the reason that so many trainees are quick to add extra exercise when results begin to stagnate.  If better at targeting the intended muscles and getting the most they could out of each exercise then additional exercise to make up for poor exercise would be necessary, reducing the likelihood of incurring an overuse injury.

P90XFor advanced trainees that have developed a high level of lifting proficiency and have reached the upper limits of how much weight they can lift, frequent changes to their training can help to disrupt homeostasis and present the body with a new set demands from which it must adapt.  This is where the “muscle confusion” concept comes into practice.  That being said the changes must still comply with the exercise principles and be in alignment with your goals.  Random changes or workouts for the purpose of confusion will in fact confuse the body but likely to have negative consequences or no impact at all.  Change needs to be deliberate, planned.  Check out the IART books APEX and Tactical Fitness to learn more about how to implement variation as a plateau busting tactic.

Final Thoughts

They say that the “X” in P90X stands for “extreme” but the only thing that’s extreme is the amount of activity performed and how often you have to do it.  There is a tremendous amount of mysticism built around this program which is sure to contribute to the already mass confusion surrounding exercise. When it is all said and done we will be left with legions of people who tout the greatness of P90X and preaching the importance of muscle confusion but don’t know what aspects of the program work, what doesn’t, what’s necessary, what’s not, what’s true, what’s false, and why.  What won’t change however is that the Principles of Exercise Science will always stand firm and trump the next trend.

Fitness Trends vs. Fitness Truth

The 21st century version of a Richard Simmons’ ‘Sweating to the Oldies’ workout in neon clothes and pop music

Choose a trend…any trend.  Choose Zumba, CrossFit, P90X, Insanity, Body Pump, or whatever else might surface in the next twelve to eighteen months.  Exaggerative claims of the superiority of each fitness trend compared to the tried and true are made in just the same way Jazzercise, Tae Bo, and Buns of Steel were said to be the greatest fitness discovery since the last fitness discovery.   Despite their varied take on exercise the one thing these trends have in common is that they are just trends.  Many will die off and some will survive by taking on new form fifteen years from now, but none will ever enjoy as much popularity or acclaim as when they first surfaced.   However, regardless of what trends come and go the fundamental principles of exercise never change.

The idiot brigade, violating the principles of exercise and looking like fools in the process.

The fundamental principles (intensity, volume, frequency, overload, specificity, individualism, and diminishing returns) are the judge and jury when it comes to deciding the fate of fitness trends.  Violate one or several of these principles and its life in prison without parole or the death penalty.   Although the average individual seeking to get in shape might not fully understand these seven principles or how they interrelate, they’re smart enough to recognize if what they are doing is yielding the result they want or not.  If it is not working or has stopped working then some aspect of the program is in violation of the principles.  It is at this time we see the rightful demise of the heralded fitness trend.

Here’s a brief overview of the 7 Principles of Exercise Science:

  1. Intensity The possible percentage of momentary muscular and volitional effort exerted. The measure of how hard a person is working at any given moment during exercise.
  2. Volume – The amount of exercise performed in a workout.  It refers to the number of repetitions, time under tension, and the number of sets performed.
  3. Frequency – How often exercise occurs; whether in general or for a specific muscle groups.
  4. Overload – The application of progressively greater demands through regular progression.  This increase can come in the form of how much weight is lifted, reps performed, TUT, or frequency.
  5. S.A.I.D. (specific adaptation to imposed demands) – The nature of the exercise program will place specific demands on the body that leads to a specific result.
  6. Diminishing Returns – Exercise that exceeds the minimum necessary to produce a (potentially) optimum response is pointless as it relates to the best interests of the individual.
  7. Individualism – Exercise must be prescribed in accordance with the needs, goals, abilities, limitations, and preferences of the individual.

Each of these principles are present in every exercise program.  The extent to which they are applied and balanced relative to the person’s goals and recovery ability will determine the program’s effectiveness.  To the educated fitness professional or trainee who understands this it is easy to spot the flaws in fitness trends like those mentioned and predict when, how and why they will fail in the long-term.  In upcoming blogs we’ll breakdown some of these trends individually to show the difference between trends and truth.