Sometimes inversion thinking can be a great way to understand a situation better. By thinking about how not to do something it can help us understand a little better on how to actually do it. When we think about things in this manner we might see some things that we are doing that we didn’t realize we were actually doing. I want to apply this thinking to fitness and talk about how to not make progress. If I wanted to NOT make progress here are 10 ways that I would do it.
1. Don’t show up consistently
You don’t need to schedule your workouts. You can fit them in whenever it works in your calendar. You know that it is a priority so you will make it work. Your attendance history is definitely wrong as well. The coaches must have missed a lot of your workouts this year.
2. Don’t track your food
You eat pretty much the same thing every day. Why should you keep putting in the same meals in the app every day? Well, it’s the same breakfast and lunch on Monday through Thursday. It’s obviously different on Friday because you go out to lunch at work. And the weekends are always different because variety is the spice of life. Also, calories before bed don’t count so no need to put them in your app. Also, the chips at the Mexican restaurant-no one tracks those. And it takes so much time to log your food. You spend 3 hours a day on your phone so you definitely don’t have time to spend 2 minutes after each meal logging your food.
3. Change the program
You can definitely take the program that your coach wrote and make it better. You don’t need the context for why we are doing things on this day or in this order. The Liver King said you need to be doing deadlifts every day so you better add those on top of your workout. It doesn’t matter how many people this program has helped-you are a unique person with unique needs. Those people finishing before you every day must definitely be doing something else on the side. Or they are cutting reps. Or they are on steroids. No way they did it that fast.
4. Skip the mobility
The lacrosse ball is a waste of time. The first 5 minutes of class is for socializing. Coach has been training at Coyote for 10 years now without a major injury-he must be lucky. It’s definitely not because of the soft tissue work. Your shoulder definitely hurts because you slept on it wrong. Getting old is for the birds and with it comes knee pain. It’s unavoidable. Your coach has probably never had any pain. Better not tell him about it. He can’t help you.
5. Stay up late
You don’t need 8 hours of sleep. You are one of those special people who can get by on 4 or 5. It’s definitely normal to fall asleep at your desk every day too.
6. Listen to many different Instagram accounts and apply them all to your training
If you listen to 10 different people with 1 million followers each then you are getting the knowledge of one person with 10 million followers. It’s science. They’re probably all taking every supplement they promote and doing the exact program they are selling to you too. And they definitely aren’t taking PEDs to make their physique better because it will help them get more followers and make way more money. People don’t do things just for the money. They do it for the love of the game.
7. Try to do it by yourself
You are special. No one knows you the way you do. You can figure it out by yourself. Your body works differently than the 8 billion other people on the planet.
8. Avoid accountability
You can hold yourself accountable. You don’t need a coach or a friend checking in with you. No one is harder on yourself than you. When you see coach walking in Kroger just turn around and push your cart in the opposite direction as quickly as you can.
9. Complain
This workout is hard and coach needs to know. That fourth round was a bit much. We just worked out our legs yesterday-why are we doing them again today? It’s not like we use them every day in real life. Mondays are the day that you like to walk on your legs and Tuesdays are the day that you walk on your hands so your legs can recover.
10. Focus on what other people are doing in their workout
The guy next to you is squatting right above parallell. You had better focus all of your mental energy on his reps and not focus at all on giving your best effort in the workout. Everyone in class needs to see that you are squatting one inch lower than him. That is definitely going to help you make the most progress over time.
So if those are 10 ways to not make progress, we can flip them to 10 ways TO make progress. To make progress we should:
1. Show up to the same class every day and every week
2. Track your food
3. Follow the program as written until you are the fittest person doing it
4. Focus on the mobility portion of class
5. Go to bed at the same time every night and get 8 hours of sleep
6. Pick one person you trust for a coach
7. Get help
8. Get accountability
9. Never complain or make excuses
10. Focus on giving your own best effort each day
I hope that you read this article with tongue in cheek. The examples given are obviously exaggerated and meant to be funny but I do believe that humor is a great way to help us understand things better. I firmly believe that if we can understand the things we are doing that are keeping us from making progress then we can flip them and give ourselves a much better chance of reaching our goals.