It’s almost that time of the year again. Feeling all enthusiastic and empowered to beat the crap out of your fitness goals in 2020. But suddenly you realize, that you did not check a single thing off your to-do list for 2019. It’s not even the middle of January and you already feel disappointed with the lack of progress regarding your health after reflecting upon the past year. The dial between your toes is bigger than you anticipated, your abdominal muscles are still covered by a thick layer of fat, you still can’t run a mile without getting out of breath, and there you are, left thinking you waisted another year of your life. Have you ever considered how many people fell into the same pitfall? According to research done at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, USA, only 8 percent of people actually stick to their goals and achieve them by the end of the year. What about the rest 92 percent? They break their resolutions before the year is out. And if you are still reading this, you can probably relate to that number. So how do you actually reach your fitness goals this year and how do you find oneself in that 8 percent group of people? I have spoken to Harry Ely (@elyfitnessnewcastle), a competitive athlete with a background of seven years competing on stage, who’s currently working as a personal trainer in the BodyZone Fitness gym in Newcastle, to deliver you the best advice on how to be more efficient in the gym and get the most out of your training.
Right, let’s assume you were consistent with your training. The entire year of 2019 you’ve been hitting the gym, but the progress you made is very insignificant and not anywhere near what you expected? Hate to admit, but consistency is not always the key. What to do when being consistent is no longer enough?
Just because you have been going to the gym every other day and eating chicken breast like your life depends on it doesn’t mean you are going to achieve that toned & sculpted look you have seen on the cover of your favorite fitness magazine (doesn’t mean you have to)… well, at least not anytime soon! Although you might be on the right track, you need to reconsider a few very important things, that may help you progress towards your fitness goals if you’re stuck on a plateau (maybe fell back into the old habits) or struggling to see results and stay motivated.
Make changes to your workouts.
It’s very likely that you don’t see any results because you keep doing the same thing over and over again. There are 3 mechanisms that make muscles grow: muscle tension, muscle damage, and metabolic stress. But the main trigger that causes these three mechanisms to occur is stress. And to shock your muscles you need to lift progressively heavier weights. Many of us are familiar with the term newbie gains when a person with no previous experience in weightlifting starts training and begins seeing the results in the form of increased strength and muscle size almost immediately. It occurs because the body receives a strong stimulus, which is so new that your body responds to it immediately. And when beginner gains end, you realize you hit a plateau. So it’s not just newbies who lack common muscle-building knowledge, but even experienced gym-goers are prone to face some progress-stunting mistakes. Harry Ely, who spend innumerable hours on the gym floor, had plenty of clients coming with the same issue. “Often with personal training, the problem that people have is that they do the same thing day in day out, the same routine and the body is very quick and adapting to anything it does, so if you are doing the same training routine for 6-7 weeks, you never change anything, there’s going to be no change in your body,” Harry explains. Either it’s just making alterations to the exercise, doing more repetitions, increasing the weights you lift, it’s what counts. “You’ve got to make little changes to keep your body guessing because once your body adapts to something, it won’t progress any further.”
Kitchen scale over bathroom scale.
Is it even a fitness article If I am not going to mention that abs are made in the kitchen? Probably not. Standard bathroom scales tell just one story - your weight - and using this variable to track your progress is to miss the full picture. After all, the dial on the scale can fluctuate for a number of reasons. A very common mistake people do when trying to achieve their dream physique is depending solely on training. Even the most intense workout program is vain if followed by a poor diet. You can be training hard and breaking a sweat in the gym every single day, but if you treat yourself with the Five Guys post-workout meal every so often, that might be a hint why you are not making much progress in the gym. While the entire counting every single carbohydrate idea might sound appealing to some people, let's be honest, nobody got time for that. Whether you are trying to lose weight, maintain or gain muscle, protein intake is what you should be more serious about. You can use an online calculator to find out your recommended daily protein intake. Nowadays, it’s a lot faster and easier to consume foods that are high in carbs and fat and following a high-protein diet can be a hard row to hoe. When it comes to adding supplements to your diet, protein shakes and bars might be a good option on the go if you’re living a busy lifestyle and hardly find time to sit down and have a proper meal. And for all of you struggling to shed those extra pounds of fat might be very tempting to try out fat burners as an alternative to cardio and caloric deficit. But from his 17 years of experience as a personal trainer Harry had to add that “Things like fat burners will help only a tiny percentage, so I always tell my clients to don’t rely on it, have a good healthy balanced diet, use a supplement as a supplement, not as a food replacement.”
Is it even a fitness article If I am not going to mention that abs are made in the kitchen? Probably not. Standard bathroom scales tell just one story - your weight - and using this variable to track your progress is to miss the full picture. After all, the dial on the scale can fluctuate for a number of reasons. A very common mistake people do when trying to achieve their dream physique is depending solely on training. Even the most intense workout program is vain if followed by a poor diet. You can be training hard and breaking a sweat in the gym every single day, but if you treat yourself with the Five Guys post-workout meal every so often, that might be a hint why you are not making much progress in the gym. While the entire counting every single carbohydrate idea might sound appealing to some people, let's be honest, nobody got time for that. Whether you are trying to lose weight, maintain or gain muscle, protein intake is what you should be more serious about. You can use an online calculator to find out your recommended daily protein intake. Nowadays, it’s a lot faster and easier to consume foods that are high in carbs and fat and following a high-protein diet can be a hard row to hoe. When it comes to adding supplements to your diet, protein shakes and bars might be a good option on the go if you’re living a busy lifestyle and hardly find time to sit down and have a proper meal. And for all of you struggling to shed those extra pounds of fat might be very tempting to try out fat burners as an alternative to cardio and caloric deficit. But from his 17 years of experience as a personal trainer Harry had to add that “Things like fat burners will help only a tiny percentage, so I always tell my clients to don’t rely on it, have a good healthy balanced diet, use a supplement as a supplement, not as a food replacement.”
Track your progress.
Just the advice above, I stated how you shouldn’t rely on scales to measure your progress, but there might be an exception. And while many still hold an opinion that smart scales are just a gimmick, it’s still a better way to measure progress than your standard weighing scales. Smart scales not only measure your body weight but also factors such as BMI, body fat, muscle mass, and bone density. Just because scales are called smart doesn’t necessarily mean that you should 100% trust the numbers displayed as they don’t operate (yet) with pinpoint accuracy. The data should be seen more as a guide than a fact. Also, many gyms now offer free or very inexpensive body composition tests. Another way to track your progress is to take photos. When you see yourself every day in the mirror, it’s hard to notice any change. But comparing pictures a month or two apart should certainly show improvements if the workout and diet regime is efficient. If I could give my past self a bit of advice I’d say to start your workout journal from day one you join the gym. Logging a workout journal is probably one of the most efficient ways to track your progress as it keeps you honest. It’s very straightforward, you open the journal and see how many times you went to the gym this week, what exercises and how many sets and reps you did, the amount of weight you lifted, it’s all there written on paper in black and white. If you can’t be bothered with carrying a notebook and a pen to the gym, simply download an app for your smartphone. Fitbod, Strong, Gym Log+, Fitlist - apps currently available to download on the app store for free.
Consider getting a PT.
Just the advice above, I stated how you shouldn’t rely on scales to measure your progress, but there might be an exception. And while many still hold an opinion that smart scales are just a gimmick, it’s still a better way to measure progress than your standard weighing scales. Smart scales not only measure your body weight but also factors such as BMI, body fat, muscle mass, and bone density. Just because scales are called smart doesn’t necessarily mean that you should 100% trust the numbers displayed as they don’t operate (yet) with pinpoint accuracy. The data should be seen more as a guide than a fact. Also, many gyms now offer free or very inexpensive body composition tests. Another way to track your progress is to take photos. When you see yourself every day in the mirror, it’s hard to notice any change. But comparing pictures a month or two apart should certainly show improvements if the workout and diet regime is efficient. If I could give my past self a bit of advice I’d say to start your workout journal from day one you join the gym. Logging a workout journal is probably one of the most efficient ways to track your progress as it keeps you honest. It’s very straightforward, you open the journal and see how many times you went to the gym this week, what exercises and how many sets and reps you did, the amount of weight you lifted, it’s all there written on paper in black and white. If you can’t be bothered with carrying a notebook and a pen to the gym, simply download an app for your smartphone. Fitbod, Strong, Gym Log+, Fitlist - apps currently available to download on the app store for free.
Consider getting a PT.
Many of us are already paying for the gym membership and already know our way around the gym. Is having a personal trainer necessary to achieve your goals? Definitely not. Can a PT help you achieve your fitness goals faster and help you stick to them? Absolutely yes. So why are we afraid of hiring a PT? There are many reasons, e.g., being out of shape, not knowing what to expect, being afraid of commitment, etc., but most commonly, it’s the price that scares us. “If you want a personal trainer in London, you are probably looking at 60-70 pound a session, where’s a personal training session here [at BodyZone] is 25 pounds. So 25 pounds for an hour - it is a bit of a luxury, but, again, it’s one of those things, it’s your health,” says Harry. “Money is money, you may spend 25 pounds on a personal training session or you could go on a night out drinking in the city centre”. But how do you pick a PT? Harry exposes the hardest problem in the fitness industry today that the industry is flooded with personal trainers because of how easy it is to become one. “I would want a personal trainer who’s got a lot of experience, so whether that would be a bodybuilding show, men’s physique show, modeling, or somebody who’s got a good sports background, what’s what I would look for in a personal trainer.”
Do your own research.
Do your own research.
“When I was a young guy there was no social media, there was no YouTube. So we had to ask the biggest guy in the gym for help,” says Harry. Nowadays you don’t have to do that. There’s plenty of printed books and even more resources available online to help you work towards your goals. My current favorite fitness blog is Physiqonomics by Aadam Ali (@physiqonomics). In the articles he tackles and explains the most common fitness and nutrition mistakes people are making that are directly sabotaging their progress in the gym. And did I mention that it’s completely free? Another great guy on the Internet to seek for advice and motivation is Bret Contretas (@bretcontretas1). He is very active on his Twitter and Instagram accounts where he posts daily dose of advice and inspiration and addresses some of the myths in the fitness industry. He has also just published the book “Glute Lab”. And as the name says, it does focus on building bigger and stronger glutes. And I know for sure that for many of you out there building glutes is on the top of the list of things to achieve this year! “Now there’s so much conflicting information on the internet and what I’ve come to realize is there’s no rule book to say, this is how you should train, and a lot of it is trial and error,” says Harry. No one has perfect knowledge, so at the end of the day, trial and error is the only form of learning we really have. "The number of athletes who I’ve trained with, we all want to have that great body and look good, but it’s amazing how many people train in different ways. We all want the end goal to be the same, but we all train differently.”
As you may have realized by now, you don’t need any superpowers or an endless supply of cash to (re) commit to your goals this year. Changing your habits and getting into a new fitness regimen is always the hardest part. But once you are on the right track - it’s a lot easier to follow. But once the excitement of a new fitness routine has worn off - slip-ups might happen and it’s absolutely fine. A setback will not sabotage your goals if you manage to pick yourself up. Just follow these tips above to have your fittest year yet!
