4 important factors to remember which will lead you to seeing results or not in the gym.
- Your not lifting heavy enough
One reason you won’t see a result in the gym is simply because your going too light. If you have a goal of losing body fat, or just increasing some Tone then i can understand the initial thought of your not wanting to lift heavy mentality.
The truth of the matter is when you do lift heavy (with perfect form of course) you:
Stimulate even more muscle fibres which requires more energy and effectively
When your workouts are metabolically taxing it creates more heat in your body for a longer duration so when you are in your recovery period you will be elevating your fat burning hormones
The best results will come from slowly but consistently getting stronger. Your body will respond to that extra load and have to adapt to your new strength therefore creates thicker muscle fibres and tighter skin.
Keep in mind that when i see thicker muscle fibres you won’t bulk up unless your loose with your nutrition and give your body reasons to gain body fat. If you gain 1kg of solid muscle (Ladies) 2.5kg (Men) in a 1 year period then you have trained well and been on track through out the year.
- Your doing too much slow endless cardio work
Long duration cardio is the best way to burn Body Fat! The myth being told for years.
there is a couple reasons ill mention as to why this is not the best method to burn body fat. It can be used to your advantage with a structured weights training program.
When your burning calories during your cardio workout that will generally be your sole purpose of the workout… but, with more calories burnt will be more calories added into your daily nutrition with the potential to over compensate and eat too much or to go the other extreme of not eating enough which is the wrong method when trying to lose body fat
Training like this will not see you reach your training goal plus when aerobic style training (cardio) becomes your primary source of training, your body quickly adapts meaning it becomes so efficient staying in your comfort zone simply because you are not putting your body under load which will cause fewer calories being burnt.
Aerobic exercise will interfere with weight training adaptations because of triggering different pathways in the body.
A very simple way of comparing is to say long duration cardio (aerobic) will bring you the stringy appearance and potentially malnourished look as opposed to weight training focused brining you more cell volumising fuller and tighter appearance.
- Your Calorie intake is not where it should be
One common approach people take when trying to lose body fat is to nearly starve themselves, not realising that for the very short time it takes for your body to catch on and defend itself against the lack of nutrition, your body will be shedding that hard earned muscle for energy setting yourself up for failure down the track and extra weight gain. If it’s body fat you want to lose, starving yourself is NOT the approach to take.
Instead, you need to fuel your body with sufficient energy to support your daily activity levels and speed up recovery times. Keep in mind, your body’s metabolic rate with be determined by how much heat you can generate. The less activity and less calories = Less heat (sluggish metabolism)
One other related issue is justifying eating cakes, breads, alcohol, chocolate and those empty naughty calories simply because you burnt a little extra calories that day. Generally when this does happen people tend to overshoot their daily calorie mark simply because it really doesn’t take much to go above your daily quota when you have all that naughtiness included.
- When training and eating for results gets tough you give up
An example of a common approach to training. The initial excitement of wanting to train for a result, You make the commitment, The first week is great but you feel so sore from starting your training regime The food starts off well, Your on track.
Second week, the excitement is still at around 60% but your wondering why you were so sore and don’t want to feel that again, It’s a good week of training still and you lose some weight but not like the first week.
Now we are into the third week this is where for the last 25 years I’ve seen this same instance with the mentality of people who find it tough.
21 days of training and the momentum drops, motivation goes down, the result the individual was expecting to see hasn’t happened overnight.
Training is no longer a priority simple because a quick fix was wanted but not achieved even though the body fat gain has been over the last 5-10+ years.
This is the story I’ve heard so many times and have seen. No matter what triggers you may use on someone to keep them going, it becomes the individuals mindset of not having a real importance or urgency as to why they wanted to achieve that result.
If you want the change, you need to get used to the fact there will be some painful moments, your muscles will burn and be sore(this will calm down), you will puff and pant and wonder why you are doing this. It is those hard moments that will push you to the next level and get you closer to the result you want to see.
When the going gets tough just keep in mind that all this hard work is getting you closer and closer to your fitness goals. It’s these moments you need to go through in training pushing you to the next level, stepping out of your comfort zone which has caused your health where it currently is.
You’ll be thankful for it when you see the result you are chasing.
Find your importance? There is always at least one!
Final words: Put the effort in, stay consistent. educate yourself with the basics to keep you on track.
Figure out what works for you and ask questions. This will make health and fitness fun, keep you progressing and a part of your life rather than always being a confusing struggle.