STOP WORKING OUT AND START TRAINING

Written by: Nem
​Physical activity is important for our health and wellbeing. To get all the benefits exercise has to offer and avoid any negative effects, you need to start training and stop working out.

What is the difference between training and working out?

​Working out is a physical activity with no purpose or direction. You perform a series of random exercises with a random approach that ultimately leads to random results. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since any activity is better than no activity, you want to ensure you are using your time and resources effectively.

Just because you felt tired, sore or broke a sweat, it doesn't mean you had an effective training session. Almost any kind of exercise can do that and it's not the best method to assess the effectiveness of your progress.

Instead, you should be focusing on improving specific metrics that are relevant to your goals. That can be the weight lifted on a specific exercise, resting heart rate value, body weight, the time it takes you to run a mile, etc. 

Being clear and specific about your goals is one of the main characteristics of training. Aside from having specific and measurable goals, training includes:

• Having a plan on how you are going to achieve your goals. This includes what exercises need to be performed, how often, with what intensity/volume, etc.
  
• Performing every exercise and workout with precision and focus.
  
• Paying attention to recovery. Training hard is important, but this needs to be balanced with adequate recovery. This means being mindful of your sleep quality/quantity, having planned periods of reduced or no training (“deloads”) in place, managing stress, hydration and eating properly.  

Doing YouTube workout videos or following workouts of your favorite celebrities is not always a bad thing, but almost guaranteed it's not the most effective use of your time. This is because you are a unique individual with your own unique physiology, lifestyle, restrictions, preferences, etc. Something that works for someone else, might not work for you.

​EXERCISE NEEDS TO BE INDIVIDUALIZED

In order to get the most out of physical activity, exercise needs to be prescribed similar to how physicians prescribe medications. You need to perform the right type of exercise in the right amounts.

If you do less than what you should, you are not maximizing the benefits you could be getting from exercise. In case you do too much exercise, if you do too much, it can lead to injuries, disease (“overtraining syndrome”) and frustration from a lack of results.

 When designing exercise programs for our TO Kinesiology clients, we pay special attention to the following exercise characteristics:

• Type (e.g. strength training, running, swimming, cycling, etc)
• Intensity (e.g. weight lifted, running speed, etc.)
• Volume (e.g. total weight lifted every week, weekly running mileage, etc.)

​For example, if your goal is to improve posture, get rid of shoulder pain and build muscle, running would not be the best option. Instead, you should focus on full-body strength training that emphasizes pulling movements and addresses specific weaknesses in the kinetic chain.

If your goal is to build endurance and improve cardiovascular health, doing an endless amount of crunches and planks would not be the best use of your time. Instead, focus on walking, cycling, rowing or any other cardio activity that gets your heart rate up at a pace that you can stick to. 

If you've only got a certain amount of time per week to allocate to training, make sure you are doing something that is specifically designed to take you where you want to go. Stop wasting time on activities that just make you tired and not giving you the results you are after. 

​STAY CONSISTENT

No matter how good the program is, unless you are able to stick to it and stay consistent, you won't get the results you are after. Ideally, the training program needs to be enjoyable and manageable to stick to. 

To improve consistency and overall program enjoyment you can try doing any of the following:

• Break up big goals. Breaking up big goals into mini-goals that you can achieve every week or every month. 
• Reward yourself. Figure out rewards whenever you achieve a specific goal
• Have a plan. Make a plan for the whole week and determine exactly when and where you'll be working out. Be specific.
• Treat workouts as appointments. Schedule an appointment with yourself in your calendar just like you would if you were going to see a kinesiologist or a personal trainer
• Write down your goals. Write down your goals and figure out exactly why they are important to you. Read these goals to yourself at least once a month and/or keep this list somewhere visible.
• Track progress. Sometimes it’s very hard to be objective about our results and it might seem we haven’t made much progress. By having a log of your workouts and everything you’ve done up to that point, you’ll have an objective view of your progress. More likely than not, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the progress you’ve made and it will give you the motivation you need to keep training hard. In case there’s not much progress, you can use this workout data to see where you can improve. Research has shown that even just an act of tracking progress gives you higher chances of succeeding.

​NEED HELP FIGURING OUT THE BEST APPROACH FOR YOU?

If you need more help finding the right type and amount of exercise that's specific for you, we can help! Due to a current COVID-19 situation, we just reduced pricing for our Online Personal Training and Online Fitness Coaching services. 

Looking for free workouts and a Facebook community where we answer your questions and share other useful tips and strategies like this? Join TO Kinesiology Community. 

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