How Gyms are Failing Us

How Gyms are Failing Us

There are gyms everywhere these days and what is more they offer membership under £15 per month with no contract.  However, whether you train in a budget gym or a premium gym you may be falling victim to the tricks of the industry without even realising.  Here is a summary of how gyms are tricking and therefore failing us.

Buzzwords

The fitness industry loves to play on your insecurities so you regularly see buzzwords such as ‘Core’, ‘Fat Burn’ and classes like ‘Legs, Bums and Tums’ and ‘Tone’.  Why?  Because these are the main areas most gym goers worry about.  However, this does not mean that you can optimally improve your core or burn fat by using whatever equipment the buzzword is attached to, nor is there any logical reason to only train your legs, bum and tums in a class.

- A workout is what YOU make it and most people should train their entire body every session.

Calories, Calories, Calories

Most modern gym cardio equipment defaults to show you how many calories you have burned during your workout.  However, unless you have manually entered your age, weight, height and had the machine monitor your heart rate this figure is just a guess.  In fact, often this equipment assumes you are 100kg plus and 40 plus so shows a figure that is way too high for the average user. People then often get too focused on calorie burn and not about exercise quality and progression.

- If you are working hard you will burn calories so monitor your heart rate using a monitor and progress the intensity each week.

Exercise Classes

Exercises classes are fun there is no doubt about it.  Taking part in regular exercises classes will give you most, if not all of the health benefits associated with exercise (reduce chance of getting heart disease etc).  However, all exercise classes are generic and that means they are not designed specifically for your needs.  Typically the intensity will not be correct for the individual or the exercise selection may not tender to the areas you most need it.  Additionally, for reasons I can not understand more and more exercises classes have the instructor up on a stage taking part instead of walking around correcting form and technique.  Therefore, you regularly see people who have been training regularly for years who cannot execute simple exercise such as the squat or overhead press properly.  Also, as already mentioned above a lot of exercises classes are gimmicks to play on peoples insecurities about a particular part of the body and often do not offer what they claim.

- Specific training provides both the fastest and the best results for any individual.  Classes should be used sparingly for fun.

Energy Drinks, Supplements

Gyms sell energy drinks and protein shakes for one reason, and one reason only = Profit.

There is a huge write up on all supplements and big money too be made.  Gyms do not sell these items because the customer needs them and for most customers they will gain more calories than they burned during their workout.

- Avoid supplements and energy drinks, eat good quality food and your body will respond to it.  Your body stores enough energy to last through a 1 hour workout and seldom is there a reason for anyone to workout longer than that so why eat more?

Cardio, Cardio, Cardio

Gyms pander to popular demand, not science so often have more cardio equipment than any other type.  Why?  Because cardio has a mythical, not factual, effect on our bodies and burns fat the best.  However, the science repeatedly shows that resistance (weight) training is optimal for burning calories, reducing our waistlines and shaping our bodies.  I am not for a second suggesting people should not do cardio, that would be foolish, but it is important that your quantity of cardio training supports your goal.

- Cardio is important, but the science shows it is not optimal for fat loss.  As a beginner perhaps 40% of your training should be cardio and as you get fitter reduce that down to 15-25% depending on your goals.  Ultimately, most fat loss will come from what you do in the kitchen, not the gym.

Abs/Core Classes and Equipment

While I have covered some of this under buzzwords I think this still deserves it’s own section.  All gyms offer a variety of ab machines and abs/core classes.  As we have learned above this is because people are insecure about their bellies and usually think that doing lots of ab training will give them a flat stomach.  This is fundamentally wrong, we do not, sadly, burn fat from the areas which we exercise. 

More importantly is that our abs are just one muscle making up what has come to be known (there is no official definition) as the core.  There is no logic whatsoever to single out the abs for training, the core works as an interlinked system so is only as good as its weakest muscle.  Also, the core works pretty much all day whenever we are stood up.  Therefore, specific core exercise are often less effective than using the core as nature intended while carrying out exercises such as squatting, deadlifting and pressing or using something like the Concept 2 rower.  In fact, more often than not people can maintain good core tension during a plank because it is static, but have terrible or non-existent core tension when they move.  Yet, arguable core tension is far more important under movement.

- Train the core as a system primarily as you move in everyday life and when lifting weights.  Perhaps once a week target the core specifically for approx. 10 mins utilising plank variations, deadbugs and birddogs or using TRX.

So how is this instructor helping her class by taking part herself?

Common Gym Mistakes and Simple Solutions to them - Part 16

16. I Want to Get Fit, Strong, Big and Loose Fat all at the Same Time.

As you have hopefully learned by now your training has to be specific to your goals. If you have too many goals then you can not be specific.

You can be fit but fat, you can be thin but unfit, you can have big muscles but be weak, you can have strong muscles but small muscles. What defines this is partly DNA but mostly specific diet and specific training.

What most people do is join a gym and start a diet at the same time. They then do lots of cardio (See No 5) to burn fat and weights to get big and strong all at the same time. This is WRONG.

Lets use an example to prove the point. You normally eat 2500 cal a day and go on a diet reducing your calories to 2000 a day. You have also joined a gym and go 4 times a weak burning 300 cal per session.

The maths shows that you are now eating 3500 cal a week less, over a days worth of food, and are also now burning 1200 cal per week in the gym. That is a cal difference of 4700!!!! Do you really think that is healthy let alone productive? You will initially loose weight doing this but within about 10-14 days you will be exhausted, probably get ill and then rebound (get fat). If you join a gym do not reduce the calories too, clean up your diet ( reduce cr@p, not calories) and adjust to suite. And that’s just the calories side of things, now the exercise bit.

I wont repeat what I wrote about Cardio in Part 5, please re-read it.

To get strong you need to lift heavy weight for 3-5 reps with a rest period of approx 3 mins between sets and will mainly use the creatine phosphate energy system. 

To get big you need to lift medium to heavy weights, 6 - 12 reps with a rest period of 60-90 seconds and use the lactic acid energy system. 

They are different training systems, different energy systems and strength training also requires more co-ordiantion, power, CNS and is partly governed by individual biomechanics. Therefore, trying to do both at once will always be a compromise and how big a compromise will depend on DNA, Form, Diet and so on.

So what is the answer? Periodisation of course.

In simple terms (for the average gym goer) this is just training once element at a time, in sequence to optimise gains.

So your average newbie to gym who wants to loose fat, gain muscle mass and get stronger could now train like this:

Week 1          -           Light cardio, stretching, mobility

Week 2          -           Light cardio, stretching, mobility

Week 3          -           Medium cardio, stretching, mobility

Week 4          -           Medium-Hard cardio, stretching, mobility

Weeks 5-8     -           Hypertrophy (build muscle size)

Weeks 9-12   -           Strength/Power

Week 13        -           De-load, low intensity cardio/weights

So whats the logic in all this? I think its simple, but its my job so it should be for me. We start by getting the body moving, nothing fancy and a low risk of injury. We then gradually increase the intensity getting the heart and lungs working harder. As we move into the hypertrophy phase the heart and lungs are still working as we build muscle. Finally, we use our now (slightly) bigger muscles to move some big weights. After this we have active rest, we deload and train light to recover.

Each training phase compliments the next training phase where as the original example has all the training contradicting itself.

Whatever your goal or starting point periodisation is the way to go about it. Work in cycles of 6-12 weeks, deload, adjust, repeat.  For an excellent book on periodisation check out Periodisation Training for Sports by Tudor Bompa.

Common Gym Mistakes and Simple Solutions to them - Part 15

15. Being Unscientific

Far too many people are completely unscientific in there training. Typically the people chop and change their training at will or because they saw something on Youtube, or Facebook or the want to copy someone they saw in the gym. For women it often the opposite, they do the same old routine week after week, month after month and wonder why they get no gains.

So choose your training plan to meet your goals ensuring it is specific and appropriate. If you don’t know how to do this most gyms will provide you with either free generic plans or for a small charge you can get a Personal trainer to write you are personalised training plan. Once you have you plan follow it for at least 6 weeks before you re-evaluate it and change or update it to suite. Do not add or subtract exercises without a good reason (injury), do not skip a weight (ie add too much to the bar), do not increase the intensity for the first few week then, because your jeans now fit, stop increasing the intensity.

What you do need to do is log everything, the more you log the better. Top bodybuilders are all completely and utterly OCD and will log everything. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of them log their toilet output. Log the weights you lifted, the reps, the rest, how easy/hard it felt, warm-up activity, cool down, cardio (distance, pace, speed), heart rate, weight, body fat, calories, macros and so on. Top body builders take regular photos of themselves doing their poses too, how vain!

At the 6 week point, armed with your log you have scientific and objective proof of your whether or not your program works. Have you gained strength, lost weight, lost fat, improved cardio vascular fitness etc. Your log should tell you.

You can then evaluate your training and if required make changes due to weaknesses, poor gains etc. You then carryout your new plan for 6-8 weeks, logging everything and repeat. It is actually really simple when it comes down to it, don’t make it complicated, do not over think it.

If you haven’t gained anything or gains have slowed you may just need to swap one exercise out/in or change from machines to free weights, swap Spin for Body Pump or simply increase or decrease calories by 5%. I always describe this to clients as a like stepping stones across a river, lots of small steps forward in the correct direction to reach your goal. It does not matter where you start as long as you get to the other side ideally by the most direct route!

Doing something once does not prove anything. Give me a rifle and I bet I could hit a target 500m away so am I a sniper? Well that depends how many rounds I needed and how repeatable this exploit was. Why am I mentioning this? Simple, time and time again you see, for example, scrawny guys coming into the gym to train with a muscle bound guy. They copy the big guys workout set for set just with smaller weights. What is wrong with that? Well potentially a lot…..

So this big guy must know what he is doing otherwise he wont be big and muscley? Maybe but you need more information just like we still don’t know if I’m a sniper or got lucky. So the questions are:

            How long did take this guy to get big? 2 years, awesome. 10 years poor.

Is he big because he had an excellent training partner in the past? Yes, well train with his old training partner instead. No, ask more questions.

Has this guy always been naturally big? Yes, maybe he has good genetics. No, ask more questions

Is this guy on steroids? Yes, walk away fast. No, ask more questions.

If all the above works out ok 2 more questions.

Has he only ever trained himself? Yes, he could have got lucky. No, lets see some other results from other partners.

Finally and often forgotten,

Did he get big using this current workout, or is this the workout he now does for better definition or another goal? Yes, great. No, this is for definition/another goal well then this is not specific to the scrawny guy.

I have used a bodybuilding example but it works for strength, cardio, sports etc. To be scientific you have to do some research and ask the right questions. This day and age you should consider who is liable if you get hurt too (or you hurt someone else accidently), I would not let some one unqualified and uninsured train me. I may discuss training ideas theory with a customer though as you never stop learning.

You also need to consider that if you have never trained before, or it has been a while, or this is your first time training with a program/partner/trainer you will make gains regardless.

We call this “Newbie Gains” and the gains can be quite big and quite quick at first. I have a client who despite being a gym regular (but cardio only) gained 53% in the leg press in 8 weeks. How do I know this, because he logged everything in detail (well taught of course). So even if you don’t train as hard as he did, nor keep as good form etc you can still gain quickly and that is why logging and re-evaluating is important. If you keep gaining then clearly you are doing something right, if you are not the read this entire post again. You gains will reduce as you get fitter/stronger but they should not stop, especially for the average gym goer (all of us) as we will probably never get close to our genetic potential.

Conversely, don’t go to sciencey and only trust something if a study proves it. There is a thick line between what works in a lab and what works in the gym. A lot of the science stuff Is meaningless in the real world and often gets misquoted by trainers/writers/marketing so be careful.

Common Gym Mistakes and Simple Solutions to them - Part 7

7. Inappropriate Exercise Selection

Firstly, the most common cause of poor exercise selection is the misguided belief that our bodies burn fat from the area of the muscle we use.  This is incorrect so training your triceps is not going to get rid of your bingo wings, sorry.

I have already touched on the over use of isolation exercises, but I am going to say it again. If you are trying to loose weight do you really think that seated bicep curls are going to burn through loads of calories?  Biceps are a tiny muscle, even if you are a top body builder like Phil Heath, and burn few calories and hardly tax the heart and lungs. Your legs are the biggest muscles so squats, lunges, jumps are going to burn calories for fun.

Training for a cross country run on a treadmill is not going to prepare your body for the undulating multi-surface terrain you are going to encounter during the race. The odd treadmill session is fine and productive but you need to get outside and train in similar conditions to the race, regularly.

If you are trying to make your core stronger, then doing 3 sets of 100 crunches is not going to help as that is a cardio workout, not strength (See Part 3). Plus that only really trains one muscle so what about the others? Train the entire core hard, twice a week for no more than 15 mins a session.  Use this for guidance:

http://www.nsca.com/education/articles/core-training-evidence-translating-to-better-performance-and-injury-prevention/

If you play hockey every Saturday there is little point in doing any cardio where you maintain constant speed as that does not mimic your sport. Intervals, Fartlek’s, 10-15m sprints and agility is far more specific along with a basic strength and conditioning program.

Do not miss any part of your body out in your training programme. You are only as strong as your weakest part. Typically guys don’t train legs and girls don’t train arms but most people miss something out. Train the entire body within every 7 days. The easiest way to do this is to do exercises that recruit the most muscles in one go such as squats, deadlifts and presses (chest/bench, overhead) and pulls (barbell rows, lat pull-downs).  Some people consider exercises such as these as ‘only for bodybuilders’ but they are far from it and fundamental exercises that have worked for generations for all.

Often the exercise you want to do the least is the one you need to do the most. Too often people skip the difficult exercise to do more of the easier exercises.


Doing something easy lots of times is not the same as doing something difficult once.

It is rarely wise to copy a workout from the internet, a book or magazine as the author is unlikely to have written the programme for you. Most workouts in magazines are poor, gimmicky and written to fill magazine pages rather than to have helped someone.  Choose exercises that are suitable to your specific goals.