To say that I spend a lot of time in the gyms is an understatement. I practically live in them. Over the years of going to the same gyms I happen to see the same people over and over again. It might be surprising but it is very common to see people not make any progress in the gym. In fact, you can actually see a large number of people actually regress in the gym. That’s right, over the years they actually get in worse and worse shape.
This should never happen. I always question to myself, “what are these people thinking?” Obviously what they are doing is not working. One day they are not going to wake up all of a sudden and start seeing results. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Remember this: If you regularly go to the gym (3x/week or more) then you should be seeing improvement from workout to workout. Yes you should be keeping a detailed workout log and you should be seeing improvements every session. If gaining strength is your goal you should be lifting more weight or more reps. If weight loss is your goal you should be seeing a consistent change in your body. When it comes to weight loss the scale does not tell the whole story if you are using weights because it doesn’t account for muscle gain. The absolute best way to gauge weight loss is by how your clothes fit. Start with a super tight pair of pants then try them on every week. They should be getting looser, even if the scale does not move. Taking skinfolds with calipers works well too, but the only problem with that is that most people who do them are not accurate with them. A mm off of a site and it will throw off the whole reading. Its estimated you need to do over 2000 of these tests to get accurate at them. Which very few people have done.
Ok so why do people fail to make progress in the gym?
- Their diet sucks. If you are trying to lose weight or if you are trying to gain muscle then you must follow a specific diet. The best program in the world will not work if your diet is off.
- Bad exercise program. If you follow a bad program it don’t matter how you eat or how hard you train you will not see results or they will be minimal.
- Don’t work hard enough. If you do not work hard enough then you will not see results. I see this a lot. You see people talking pretty much the whole time they are there, never even breaking a sweat.
So how do we fix this? Its actually very simple:
- Follow a proper diet for your goals.
- Follow the proper exercise program for your goals
- Train your butt off. How hard you work in the gym will be directly proportional to the results you will see as long as the first 2 factors are taking care of.
All I can stress is do not be one of those people who is doing any of these things wrong. If you are you are basically wasting your time.
