There are few things in life that you can achieve by just throwing money at the problem, and fitness is definitely not one of them. While money can help you to perform better by allowing you access to better facilities, help from a personal trainer, and allowing you to eat the best food and take the best supplements, it is still no guarantee of results.
To get the most out of the gym you need to be consistent in your approach, enthusiastic, you need to be following the correct program (though what constitutes a great program can differ from person to person), and you need to have clearly defined goals. Most people struggle on at least one of these factors.
Why you need to focus
Turning up to the gym 3-5 times per week will be enough for you to get good results at first, but the longer you are training (and the more ambitious your goal) the more you will need to put into your training. Many people (particularly men) get paralysed by the difficult decision they have to make on whether they want to build muscle or to lose weight.
If you want to build muscle then you will need to increase calories as well as increasing intensity in the gym, this will help with hypertrophy but can also lead to a small amount of body fat gain. With proper training and a well thought out nutrition plan, the fat accumulation can be minimal, but it will still occur.
If you are not focused on long term goals this can be off putting, and because of this a lot of people hesitate. Then they decide that they want to get as lean as possible, but this comes with its own issues. You will lose some muscle mass, again the more you concentrate on your nutrition and training the less this will happen, but it is unavoidable. Other issues that will affect you are a lowered metabolism, an increased susceptibility to colds, and increased fatigue.
Hopefully now you can understand why so many people end up dithering between the two options, and basically end up going nowhere. But there is a trick to getting exactly what you want out of the gym, and it’s very simple.
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The importance of following a plan
Sit down and write out exactly what it is that you want from training and nutrition, are you looking to improve performance? Or perhaps you want bigger muscles? Maybe all you require is a little fat loss, or just improved health. Whatever it is that you desire, right it down – it can be more than one thing, but if it is then place these goals in order.
Let’s say that you do this and you desire 1. To lose weight, and 2. To gain muscle. Unless you are a complete beginner (or are very overweight) it is almost impossible to do both. So you are going to set a realistic plan around these two goals, let’s aim for a year. For six months you are going to target losing body fat, you will slowly lower your calories and increase activity to create a calorie deficit.
Once you have reached your target (within 6 months) you can start to look at building muscle, this process can be just as slow. Adding in calories a little bit at a time (a process known as reverse dieting). Do this slowly and you will build muscle with minimal fat gain.
By focusing on one goal at a time you can finally achieve the results that you always wanted, this approach may seem slow at first, but compared to the usual methods, it is lightening fast.
If we can help you with any aspect of your training please click here for a free consultation.
