When it comes to getting fitter, it doesn’t have to be complicated. The theory of doing a bit more than you used to do seems solid enough and for a lot of people it can move them towards their health and fitness goals. But the longer you train for, the more you might find that just doing a bit more isn’t moving you towards your goals.
Over the next few articles, we’ll be highlighting and explaining various pitfalls that we see people fall into time and time again. As well as explaining the reason you may not be making progress, we’ll also be providing guidance for how you can go about fixing it. Some of the points are linked and may seem contradictory to each other, but that’s where the coaching staff at SC FIT come in – to help you work out what’s holding you back and how to address it.
So, without further ado, let’s start this list off:
- – You are doing too much….
- This can seem like an odd thing to start out with, but if you’re just adding more and more training then you may well be exceeding your recovery capacity. Just because you saw something cool on Instagram doesn’t mean that you have to add it on to one of your training sessions. What if you did a bit less but tried a bit harder at each individual thing – aim to lift heavier, move faster or complete more reps in the time given?
- – You are not working with enough intensity…
- This links to the first point but is slightly different – you are just going through the motions and doing too much volume. Quite often, intensity leads to the results you are seeking. So cut back on the amount of stuff you’re doing and work harder when it is work time – you’ll also have more free time outside the gym as well!
- – You are trying to bury yourself every session
- Just because someone else seems to be able to move faster or lift heavier than you on a daily basis doesn’t mean that you should be trying to keep up all the time. If you try and kill yourself every single session then you’ll probably not be able to train as often as you want to. Some days it’s absolutely fine to lower the pace and work on something different.