Most people are lost when it comes to effective exercise. If you pay attention to everyone else at your local gym and mimic what they’re doing, you’ll surely end up with zero results just like the vast majority of people at your local health club.
Here are a few examples of ways that I want you to be different:
1) Avoid machines. Most of the machines at your local health club are gimmicky and will give you a worse workout than you’d get if you just focus on compound exercises with free-weights. Also, most machines at your local health club have chairs attached to them, and chances are you already sit down enough during the day, so ideally you shouldn’t be sitting down while doing your resistance training workout.
2) Avoid most isolation exercises. Isolation exercises means only one joint is moving, and only one muscle group is working. Two great examples of isolation exercises are biceps curls and triceps pushdowns. You’ll get much more bang for your buck if you perform compound exercises that move multiple joints and work multiple muscle groups. Examples of compound exercises that work your arms more effectively are pushups and rows.
3) Cut down on the chatter and focus on having a good workout. There are 168 hours in the week, and for great results you only need to exercise for 3 of those hours. But great results will not be achieved if you’re more preoccupied with having social hour instead of an effective workout. When you’re exercising, try to remind yourself about the relatively small amount of time you do spend working out each week, and focus on using that time to have a great workout, and leave the socializing for another time.
4) Choose the Concept2 rowing machine instead of the elliptical trainer. Have you ever noticed that the Concept2 rowing machine at your local health club is almost always available while there are crowds of people peddling away on the elliptical machines? Stay away from the elliptical machine, and instead get on the rowing machine for 10 to 15 minutes an effective and time-efficient high-intensity interval training workout.
Remember that most people do not see any results from the time they spend in the gym, so if you do the same thing most people do, you’ll get the same results most people get (i.e. zero results). So don’t be afraid to be different, as being different is likely the only way you’re going to get results.
