Is addiction to 'Gainz' damaging your body?

The fitness community is working with people to help deliver life changing transformations for the better all over the country. Weight loss, reversal of chronic disease and improved mood are just some of the positive changes. Getting inactive people off the sofa and eating better is critical to reversing the obesity epidemic and while there is no disagreement as to the truth of this, how this message is often delivered is fundamentally broken.  We now have greater access to gyms at lower cost and in recent years there has been an enormous rise in the numbers of people going to the gym and working out but there is also a huge negative side to this that isn’t often spoken about. What I am talking about is how there are far too many people pushing themselves to extremes too often and it’s leading to chronic injuries and fatigue.  

Take a quick look at any social media channels, the dialogue and phrasing is filled with excess and needless extreme....

“Just smashed my workout”

“Did a killer workout, won’t be able to walk for days”

“It’s all about the gainz! No excuses #gymfreak”

Do we really need to sell fitness as bigger, stronger, faster and with the idea that you have to be constantly pushing for significant progress all the time?  Is that sustainable over your lifetime?

Instead I like to stress the importance of a maximum amount of training volume/load that our clients can optimally recover from and that doing more is not only unnecessary but damaging. There’s an addiction to the idea that more is always better rather than asking the question as to what’s the minimal effective dose that will provide the results I’m looking for or a client is looking for without breaking the body down and causing chronic fatigue. The goal of training should be to feel good and get fit and strong, achieved not by overdoing it but with the most effective dose.

So how does this play out over a typical week?

We would like clients to perform some form of mobility focused work i.e. stretching, core work and soft tissue massage for about 15mins, this should form the base of your training. We then  layer over some strength training 2-3 days per week which should takes about 30mins in each session. The final component is to do an activity that’s going to get the heart rate up for 10-20mins, we call that conditioning or general physical preparedness (GPP). What we then need to consider is the intensity of the latter two parts (strength and conditioning) and this is where most people go wrong.

Firstly, we most often see clients trying to layer strength and conditioning over a poor mobility base. Without a half decent mobility base ALL activities are now both risky and unnecessary. People want to jump into the cool or higher intensity stuff because that’s what they see the ‘fit’ people doing without lowering their exposure to injury first. Do you need more HIIT sessions, a boot-camp and sweat filled spinning classes when you’ve the mobility of a plank of wood? We get our clients to do strength work and movements that increase their lung capacity but it’s through the use of lower risk movements as opposed to giving someone a green light to go for it with a barbell they can barely hold.

Secondly, lower your expectations on both the strength and conditioning areas. We recommend that you should be aiming for ONE yes ONE session in a week where you push yourself to 90%+ of your capacity. Then shoot for two sessions at a medium intensity and any and all additional sessions you may or may not get done in a week should be punch the clock workouts i.e. show up, take things handy, stay well away from too hard at maybe a 6 or 7 out of 10 intensity and use it as an opportunity to work more on your mobility.

There’s a point we’ve observed where strong is strong enough and fit is fit enough for many but we rarely ever see someone that’s mobile enough. Work spent in that area is going to help you not only look fit but more importantly FEEL fit. You can’t possibly expect to feel fit if you’re stiff, constantly carrying injuries and always looking for a supplement or exercise toy that’s going to cure your tightness when the answer is to lower intensity and actually learn to stretch properly.

Thirdly, God forbid you’d stay out of the gym for a day to spend time with friends, get out in nature or just stay at home to soak in a hot bath and do some light mobility work in front of the TV. They HAVE to get back into the gym because either their ego needs topping up, they’re trying to out train their poor nutrition or they’re not being kind enough to themselves to know taking a day off to reflect to simply relax is more vital.

“Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.”

― Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy

Plus, you don’t have to be making progress all the time. Give your body time to adjust to the new level before feeling like it’s always got to be more, more, more. Just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should. This goes for coming back from injuries, weight loss and progress in the gym.

If the years we have chalked up working with a wide range of clients has taught us anything it’s that we rarely need higher and harder workouts to make progress. A common-sense approach to principled training isn’t very common anymore because fitness and health is often promoted like the beauty industry – you’re not good enough, here’s what you’re lacking to make you slimmer, younger, more beautiful and have more energy, buy our NEW product now. The only unrealistic message you must pay attention to is the one that tells you that you’re not good enough - so that you can switch it off if you hear it!. 

So picture this ….maybe a full day, week or even a month of directed mobility is what your body needs, not more miles running or biking or pounding the weights.

“When you know and respect your own inner nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don’t belong.” The Tao of Poo, Benjamin Hoff

We can help structure your training to get you to where you want to be so contact us today if you’re interested in a long term view of fitness.