Simple Beats Complex

Effective exercise doesn't mean that you have to reinvent the wheel. Even in high-intensity training circles, there is considerable debate as to how to construct a workout regimen. People in our profession often spend a large portion of their day on message boards or going back and forth on social media about the structure of their workouts. It sounds to me that these folks have entirely too much time on their hands. I would rather spend my day instructing clients than waste time debating minutiae. Most Total Results clients are new to weight training and have never trained with a protocol that resembles ours. Why would we want to overcomplicate things? In my opinion, simple is always better than complex.

There is beauty in simplicity, and this is especially true whenever you are teaching something to someone else. Yet, for a variety of reasons unknown to me, some folks have a tendency to make life more complicated than it needs to be. I see this quite often in football. Many coaches try to have a play in their playbook for every situation or contingency. It is great to be prepared, but some people take this mindset a little too far. What they fail to understand is that not only do you have a limited amount of practice time per week, the players still need to be able to absorb the concepts that you are teaching. Instead of just executing and playing fast, the players have to think their way through their assignments. It is always better to run a smaller number of plays from multiple formations and execute them well than it is to have a million plays that are mediocre. Football is a much more simple game than most people realize.

By the same token, effective exercise is not particularly complex either. In order to stimulate physical improvements of any kind, you must create a significant stimulus. There are a couple of concepts that should be understood at the beginning. First, exercise must be of a high enough intensity for the body to mobilize its limited resources to make physical improvements. This is why we utilize a slow speed of movement; it enables us to recruit a greater amount of motor units (because momentum is minimized), which will result in a greater depth of fatigue (inroad). There is something in physiology that is referred to as the "All or Nothing" principle. A motor unit is a nerve cell and all the muscle fibers it innervates. When a motor unit is recruited, all of the individual fibers of that unit will contract, or none of them will. There are no half measures. Taking each exercise to muscular failure ensures that we have recruited and fatigued as many motor units as possible and given a maximum effort. That is the stimulus that we seek.

The second thing we must understand is that we are working with a few limitations. Exercise has a narrow therapeutic window; this means that we need to find the right dosage. Just like with medication, too much can have a toxic effect, and not enough does not bring about the desired change. One needs far less exercise than they realize, and it is very easy to overtrain. This is why our workouts are so brief and infrequent; we want to stimulate improvements without causing injury or illness along the way. One or two sessions per week for twenty minutes is not just something that we can get away with; it is a biological necessity. The body typically requires between 48 to 72 hours to recover from a workout, which is why we train no more than twice per week. Because we have these constraints, exercise routines should be fairly simple. We perform full-body workouts that typically consist of five to seven exercises of one set each. There is an equal emphasis on pushing and pulling exercises, as well as a balance between upper body and lower body exercises. Cervical, thoracic, and lumbar muscles are engaged in the course of our workouts, and clients typically rotate between only two different workouts. Because clients only come once or twice per week, there simply isn't enough time to master more than two routines. Some fitness professionals espouse the idea of "muscle confusion" and change up their workouts frequently. This is a mistake, as it does not allow you to master the basics and help your body to recruit muscle in established motor pathways. Split routines are a waste of time; not only do they lead to stagnation of progress and overtraining, they fly in the face of logic. Your body functions as a unit, it is not just the sum of its parts. Since it is a unit, it should be trained as such. Compound exercises are more efficient for engaging a greater amount of muscle, and they are the easiest movements for a novice client to master.

None of the above ideas are particularly original; these are principles that have been understood for over a half century. Some people want to be complex because it gives them a greater sense of self-importance. We just want to help people get stronger and fitter in a safe and efficient manner so that they can squeeze more out of life. A simple, balanced, and brief exercise program will provide the stimulation that you need without overtraining. Total Results can help you do just that.