Fortunately for me, I do the vast majority of my training at JDFit. I have everything that I need and an environment that encourages hard work.
Last week, I was on vacation. And when you are used to a certain facility, changing environments even if it is temporarily, can be challenging.
When I have to train at resorts, hotels or commercial gyms it is easy to become pretentious. You can pick apart warm ups, exercise selection or even form. However, watching certain individuals got me thinking about something else…How hard are certain patrons actually working?
The individuals that I observed who were in shape all exuded the same quality…they were there for a reason. And that reason was to train. Whether they were using machines or free weights, not a lot of time was spent on their phones. They were challenging themselves with good exercises and appropriate loading.
In a nutshell, they were not wasting time. More specifically, they did an appreciable amount of work in a short amount of time.
Conversely, the individuals who spent a lot of time on their phones chose different exercises and did not pick out challenging weights. Not a single leg muscle was being trained other than to sit down on their phones to scroll social media.
I am not making fun of these individuals nor am I denying their humanity. I am merely illustrating that a lot of progress does not happen for most gym goers for this very simple reason.
Perception and reality are two different things. Training hard in your head may be more difficult than the product you put out. Again, it is not anyone’s fault. A lot of individuals have not been taught how to manage volume and intensity on their own. Nor have they been a part of a gym that facilitates challenging programs.
How do you know if you are working hard?
Do you have to be dry heaving in the bathroom or lose the ability to walk after each session to see progress? No…
All of our programs at the gym are designed to be run in 45 to 75 minutes. This includes 20+ total working sets plus a thorough warm-up. For novice lifters, volume is lowered and the weights will increase each week.
I would rather have an athlete or an adult workout for 30 minutes and be moving the entire time as opposed to taking 2 hours to get through a program designed for 60 minutes.
My best advice would be to audit your programs and see how much work you are actually doing. I have seen people make decent progress by just putting their phones down and cutting their rest periods in half. Sometimes it can be that simple…
You may find that you are doing too much work. In that case, backing off on the volume and taking deload weeks may be your ticket to success.
In the end, it takes a lot of hard work to succeed. Both inside and outside of the gym.
