Just for the record, we are all like this. We see something new and shiny and we go have a look. It doesn’t matter what it is, it can be a kitchen appliance, a new hybrid car that will save us on fuel costs (and who doesn’t need that these days?) or of course, in our case, new fitness equipment or exercise routine.
Every month the new fitness magazine comes out with a new routine on how to get bigger arms in 4 weeks or get that bikini bum in 5 easy moves and we get suckered into trying them. Now again, it is better to tear out the pages of these magazines, armed with lots of hope and hopping from one machine to the other in our quest to get bigger arms, than sitting on the couch, watching reruns of friends and eating doughnuts. In that case, I will say, go for it mate and keep it up!
For the general gym goer that has been there for a bit, we sadly change proven programs for flashy new ones, if we stop seeing results, we will add a “new and improved” exercise to the current plan (never know why they say new and improved, because if it is improved, it cannot be new, oh well……)
So you program hop, after a month or so on the “new and improved” program with the shiny new toys and funky moves, you realize, hang on, the old program was really the way to go and now you are a month down the line with nothing to show for it. It is a very vicious circle and you can’t show anything for it. This will lead to only one thing, you getting extremely impatient with your results and progress and you are likely to ditch everything because nothing works. So dramatic! And then you go back to reruns and doughnuts.
The bottom line is that you don’t need a new program every 2 minutes. You just need a new mindset. Keep it simple stupid and you will see results. This is where the 80/20 rule starts applying again. It has been said that people do too damn many exercises (quote and then unquote of course) this has been proven many a times by the good old powerlifting fraternity. Some coaches believe in only 3 basic powerlifting moves, that’s it! Of course, these lifters saw amazing results at their various powerlifting meets. So anyway, we do too many exercises and then we make it worse by doing them wrong. We squat like monkeys because we squat like monkeys, not because of the program or the exercise before and after the squat (this is quoted, again, of course) Fix the squatting problem by squatting, not by doing other stuff to just overcomplicate things.
A simple example if I may. If you struggle to do push ups correctly, would you do them badly every now and again and complain about it, or would you practise them frequently until you get better? Any exercise is like honing your skills and you can call a push up a skill and not an exercise because if you think about it, that is exactly what it is. Look at golfers, they don’t start running because their golf swing sucks, they go to the driving range and it golf balls. The same principle applies to anything that you struggle with in the gym or sports field.
Practice your weak moves to become stronger and you will be a well-rounded athlete, yes, I just called you an athlete, be proud!
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