Cruel to Be Kind - 25/10/2013
Working in a ‘big box’ or ‘commercial’ gym and spending practically all of my working hours around other people (members, clients and other personal trainers) really allows me to get a good overview on the way in which other people train and how others sessions are conducted.
One of the biggest observations I witness on a daily basis, is people not training hard enough.
Newsflash:
In order to get consistent, noticeable results, your training needs to be difficult... Very difficult... Every time!
It’s no good just ‘going to the gym’. It’s great that you do and it’s great that you’ve managed to incorporate that habit into your busy, daily routine. But, If you want to see any sort of noticeable results for all that time spent in the gym, you need to utilise your time effectively, with next to zero distractions, timed rest intervals and a good plan of exercise. Not just using random pieces of equipment because nobody else is. You need to make your plan of exercise the priority, not watching what other people are doing, chatting away or scrolling through Facebook.
So often I see and hear other trainers just mindlessly saying ‘that’s good’ ‘well done’ and offering constant, fake, positive feedback. When in reality, it wasn’t good, praise wasn’t due and training at that level of intensity is never going to actually generate any significant changes. Credit where credit is due! I will always congratulate clients on a good set of exercise or session, but I won’t lie to them, because if I did, I wouldn’t be doing my job correctly and I would just be telling them what they want to hear, which isn’t benefitting anyone. It isn’t ‘rent a friend’
To spout constant, unearned positive feedback is only ever going to lead people to believe that they are actually training hard enough, getting them too used to training at that comfortable level and consequently, never getting the results that they want. It needs to be uncomfortable, always!
If you’re not getting the results that you are after there can only ever be two factors!
You’re not eating well enough, or you’re not training hard enough, or a combination of both! There are other variable that come into play, but these two are by far the most important.
You are going to be in the gym for the same amount of time either way, so it makes no difference to other commitments. Get in, do what you need to do and get out!
Train mean, eat clean, get lean!