BodyHacks

If you’re a regular gym-goer, you probably remember what it was like when you first started out: You seemed to hit a new PR (personal record) every training session. Progress was fast, you felt unstoppable, life was good.

But then something changed.

The gains slowed, routine set in and life returned to normal – plus your daily workouts of course. And whenever you asked someone why your progress had slowed they told you it was normal.

Now obviously if you’re a world class athlete, expecting to set a new PR every time you hit the gym is ridiculous. You’re in the world of incremental gains, where weeks of training might yield a 1% strength increase.

But you and I aren’t world class athletes. For those of us that are working out as a part of our lifestyle – whether we’re trying to lose weight, build muscle, improve athletic performance or something else – we need a different explanation for why our progress slows or stops.

The Adaptability Mechanism

You and I are remarkably adaptable creatures. Humans are capable of thriving anywhere from the deep freeze of the arctic to the sweltering deserts of the Sahara. It is our ability to adapt to an incredible range of environmental conditions that makes our species successful, but it also creates challenges when we do something like pursue happiness or go to the gym.

In his book Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariley tells us about what happens in our brains when we purchase a new item – a car, toaster, shirt, counter tops, anything. We get an initial spike of pleasure, but over the course of a week or two, the new item becomes familiar and ceases to bring us any joy.

In other words, familiarity seems to breed not contempt, but indifference.

Our bodies have a similar adaptability mechanism regarding physical exertion.

At the start it doesn’t really matter what you do. You can have bad form, do too many or too few exercises, put them in an illogical order, it doesn’t much matter. All this new experience still spurs increases in muscle mass, strength, nutrient processing, respiratory capacity etc.

Of course, because you’re experiencing gains, your mind says “hey, this routine is awesome” even if it’s really not that great. Even if it’s not a routine that will let you continue making progress long term. Later, this confirmation bias will make it difficult to stop doing your routine, even after a month-long plateau, because your mind is hooked on the initial success you had.

After a couple weeks of squats, pushups, plank or whatever your favorite exercise is, your body is feeling kind of “meh”. Your routine might make you tired, but your muscles have felt it all before. Do you really think they’re noticing the difference between pushup #99 and #100? Not any more they’re not.

More Self Sabotage or
“It’s Not Me, It’s You”

If adaptability was the only issue, we probably would be alright. After all, there are hundreds of different routines we could try. Hundreds of different exercise we could subject our bodies to. But unfortunately this is rarely a matter of swapping exercises. The problem is our whole fitness philosophy.

We live in a society that values “more” – more productivity, more stuff, working harder & longer, more – more – MORE.

This attitude has translated itself to the fitness world, where the goal seems to be “do as much as possible” instead of “do what’s necessary“.

Allow me to illustrate the problem with this with a question: When does muscle growth occur?

When you’re resting.

This concept isn’t limited to people trying to increase muscle strength or mass. When you don’t give your body enough time to rest, you’re creating chronic stress. This raises cortisol levels (hello belly fat!), can cause muscle imbalances or injuries from overuse, and is how runners end up with shin splints and stress fractures.

If you’re trying to lose weight by entering into a state of chronic stress via overtraining, caloric restriction (starvation) or both, you’re setting yourself up for disaster.

I know – I’ve had shin splints, knee problems, wrist tendonitis, carpal tunnel, vocal strain…all at once because of subjecting my body to chronic levels of physical activity. It’s not a smart or sustainable plan.

Upping the Intensity

Today I prefer a minimalist approach to exercise: Doing the least necessary to make the gains I desire. This includes a training program for the marathon that doesn’t have me ever running farther than 1 mile. Sounds crazy? Sure. But it leaves my body without any stiffness, pain, or injury associated with chronic stressors and I still get 80-90% of the performance benefits (if not more).

What minimalist fitness is all about is using acute stressors to stimulate growth. I have a whole post about using acute vs chronic stressors but in essence it means swapping low-intensity & high-rep or steady state exercises for high-intensity, low rep, low duration exercises.

For instance:

30 minutes on the treadmill becomes ten 100m sprints, or under 3 minutes total training time.

50 pushups, 50 burpees, 50 squats, 50 chin-ups… become 2 sets of 5 reps on bench press and deadlift, or ten 1-hand pushups plus kettlebell swings.

The science backs this approach up, with high-intensity interval running often out-performing steady-state, mid intensity cardio for any metric you can measure.

The same is true for strength training. The high intensity approach also has the added benefit of burning calories for up to 48h after you’ve stopped training. Sweet.

We are often duped by our bodies. A long training session often feels great and leaves us exhausted – so we think that we’re maximizing our progress. Sadly, this is often not the case at all. Just because something feels good doesn’t mean that it’s good for you! You know the truth of this regarding the food you eat, but it’s just as true for the exercise you do.

The French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery famously said, ”perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” This is true of your workout routine. We always have the temptation to add more exercises, more reps. But as I hope I’ve shown you, doing less is often more. At the very least, consider taking a day or two off each week if you don’t plan on changing your routine.

I’ll leave you with this as a parting thought:

Discipline isn’t just having the willpower to keep going, it’s also knowing when to stop.

{ 0 comments }