Really hard workouts, effective workouts, and understanding your goals.

The goal of most of my blogs is to help people get the most out of their workouts, and understand nutrition better. Two of my past blogs are about designing a safe, sensible workout. In those blog I discuss addressing the movement patterns, instead of thinking about “exercises”. This should be the meat and potatoes of all programs tailored specifically to the individual’s goals. In another blog I talk about how group fitness classes are a great add in to 1 on 1 personal training. Albeit, group fitness is far from personalized. So there can be a bit of a struggle for some to keep up.

I’ve also spoke with various gym members that are fans of HIIT(high intensity interval training) classes (and group fitness classes). My takeaway, that a lot of people feel like they need to do a workout that is “really hard” to do. And a big concept behind their thinking is shortened rest periods, constant movement, and when the workout is complete there should be sweat everywhere. And if thats your flavor, by all means keep on. After all, all exercise is good as long as your moving well, feeling happy and continuously showing up.

Here’s where us personal trainers have to step in and talk about gauging the efficiency of your workout by how “hard” it was. And take this from a personal trainer thats run 7 marathons. Yes running a marathon is hard, but far from necessary.

The beginners of the world see these intense workouts: burpees for 2 minutes into mountain climbers into jump lunges into rows , into scissor kicks. Rest for 30 seconds and do it all over again, repeat 7 times(ok chill folks).

Lets talk about effective workouts for a second. First and foremost, the ligaments and tendons of our bones need to be strong. Ligaments connect bone to bones(joints), tendons connect muscles to our bones. We strengthen our ligaments and tendons with a low/ moderate levels of resistance and higher rep range. Once our ligaments and tendons are strong we can focus on progressive overload (adding on more weight). As we add on more resistance we need focus on our rest in between sets. Our body’s cleanest source of energy(ATP), when we’re lifting inside our most intense range can take up to 5 minutes to recover.

So if we’re doing a workout like the sample I mentioned above(burpees into mountain climbers, into rows; see above), chances are the resistance isn’t very much. Otherwise, we’d never be able to complete such a routine. And thats not to stay that such workouts are bad. If your goal is intense cardio , or total innihilation by all means keep on.

But lets not gauge what the intense cardio worker outters do and evaluate ourselves. Instead lets focus on how your body (in particular) moves. Because you’re not like everyone else. Yes we sweat when we workout. Sweat is how our bodies cool off. But it’s not a good indicator of the efficiency of the workout we just had? And yes a workout could have been “hard” to do(so is running a marathon). But just because a workout is hard to do doesn’t mean it’s efficient and effective to your goals.

I have clients with goals of leaning out but can only train 2 times per week. For these clients we’ll train similar to high intensity style with acknowledging their start level( strengthening said ligaments and tendons,, and definitely moire rest periods).I also have clients that want get lean but maintain strength. For those clients, it’s a combination of the previous mentioned clients, but also having a day where we load up weight into that truly heavy range and focus a bit more rest period, inside the range where our body’s cleanest energy system can fully recover.

A safe effective exercise program is designed based on anatomy and physiology tailored to the individual . So don’t do what you see them do. Do YOU!