Why You Shouldn’t Overcomplicate Exercise

I’ve worked as a personal trainer for five years now and during my time in the industry both in a professional capacity and through training in my own time I’ve noticed a common trend amongst gym goers that consistently fail to get results. In my experience I find that people who want to build muscle and loose fat – that is 99% of males that enter the gym – make their task way more complicated than it should be by working themselves into a state of confusion about everything they listen to and read about muscle building and fat burning.

I can say with my hand on my heart that the reason most of these individuals are failing in their physique conquests is because they are talking, thinking and reading too much, and not doing nearly enough. Take two trainers, A and B, both are very enthusiastic:

Trainer A

A spends all his time reading all the literature on fitness that he can on muscle building, researching, talking to peers and personal trainers when he does go the gym, he takes everything he hears as gospel truth is unable to develop a consistent workout plan because he keep changing his mind about what ‘works’

Trainer B

B doesn’t pay much attention to any fitness publications in the media, instead of spending his time reading an in-depth study about whether or not you can emphasize the lower chest by doing decline bench presses, he gets in the gym, and works his ass off. He doesn’t worry about if what he’s doing was endorsed in the latest issue of muscle and fitness, or panic when he realizes he’s forgotten his protein shake.

Of these two types of trainer, B is poised to make quicker, more impressive gains. This is because trainer A’s body does not recognize that he spends hours research what ‘the best form of whey protein is’. B simply gets in the gym, moves some iron around, shocks his muscles, then goes home and eats some meat. While he could improve in some areas by swatting up on nutrition and work out plans, he is far more likely to make progress than A who over-thinks things.

Because of this restrictive mindset, trainer A will always find it hard to get out the blocks because he is so indecisive. I can tell you right now that success in the gym is not based on what you do (the types of exercises) but how often you do it. A consistent trainer doing 3×8 all the time will always trump the trainer that does powerlifting-type training for a week then switches to crossfit. The bottom line: Don’t worry, get in the gym, do your stuff, get out, swat up if you have time, love training.

Joe is an experienced personal trainer and is currently working as a freelance copywriter for a company that sells cheap washing machines . You can follow him on twitter @ joe__johnson__

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