Are you Working Out or TRAINING?

This blog is an excerpt from my new book, coming out in the next month, called The Weight Loss Industry wants You to be FAT!  We've had a great special going on this month, so there's been a buzz of new folks around 39 Minute Workout.  And with a new group of people checking out the program, I always like to explain the difference between Working Out and TRAINING.  So here it goes....

Are you Working Out or Training?

Training is a progression of skills.  Working out can be anything- look busy for 60 minutes and break a sweat.  Great, you're working out. 
 
But what the heck are you accomplishing with working out?  Often, very little.  Yet many of the modern "busy work" workouts you'll find in local gyms are simply workouts.  There's no progression of skills. 

The Characteristics of Working Out:

• You look busy
• You get a "pump"
• You break a sweat
• You feel tired or sore afterward

Whopty Do!  Guess what workouts that last over an hour and are just a pile of hard work will do?  Put the STOP on weight loss!  So does doing a workout that does not progress your skill.  I'll explain why working out without developing more skill/athleticism will not progress your physical transformation.

These characteristics of working out above may make you feel like you're doing something great, but they don't have a lot to do with weight loss, health, or progress.  They are markers that show you very little.  You can break a sweat running or doing some lame circuit at Curves and never lose a pound.

Let's compare this with Training:

• Learning a progression of skills
• Becoming more athletic- getting better at basic skills and movements
• Moving with ease and experiencing less pain in everyday life
• Being able to do something you couldn't do before

Unlike the list under working out, these skills under Training will ALL get you where you want to go.  If you're a 55 year old woman, you might scoff at the idea of being a better athlete.  "I'm long past the days of caring about being an athlete," you might say.

I'll have to disagree.  Would you like to be able to pick up your grand kids without pain, to play with them on the playground, to play tennis late into life, or to travel with your husband, and do all this without physical restriction?  Would you like to have the strength to get through life and never be held back by your body's limitations?  Great, then you want to be more athletic. 

Progression of Skills

Simply, Progression of Skills looks like this, and again, I’ll use a client story to explain.  My client Sandy joined us almost two years ago.  She was in her mid 60’s, was maybe 50lbs overweight, had yo-yo dieted her whole life, and had really lost strength and function by the time she came to me.

When she started she literally couldn’t get up and down from the ground without 5 minutes and assistance from someone else.  She could not squat down to a chair, press overhead until her arm locked out, or do a basic kettlebell swing with safe form.  This is an extreme case, but the end of the story (which isn’t over because she’s still training with us and still doing great) shows you the value of progression.

Over the first few months, all we worked on together was to get her good at basic movements that would benefit her life.  If she couldn’t squat or get up and down off the bed, imagine how her quality of life would be in 10 years.  You squat every time you sit down, climb steps, pick something up.  You may not think you care about a good squat, but hopefully you will after Sandy’s story.

It was not an easy process, but together we got her squatting and swinging a kettlebell safely.  To squat, I put a chair or a bench under her butt.  All I wanted was to see her sit on it with good form (knees in line with and behind toes, hips bending, tall posture).  For months she was rarely able to get down to the bench.  Progress seemed slow at times.

Her swing was safe, but it wasn’t long or explosive enough to be a great workout yet.  I’ll explain “explosive” in the next chapter.  We had to get pounds off her belly and thighs while we worked on her form at the same time. 

By that winter, her body was showing real change.  People at the school where she taught were commenting on how good she looked.  Her face, arms and belly were all showing the pounds lost, and she’d dropped around 28 lbs. 

Flash forward six months.  Now she was able to squat down until her thighs were parallel with the ground, she could swing a heavier weight (makes cardio and fat-burn more productive), and she could get up and down off the ground in class!  Up until then, I’d always had to adapt her workout to all standing exercises.  

Sandy has been a client for almost two years now.  And here’s her list of accomplishments:

• Dropped over 30 lbs
• She can hold a true plank for up to 45 seconds
• Can get up and down off floor in 10 seconds
• Squat with perfect posture, butt below her knees
• Swings a 35 lb kettlebell!

How about them apples?  That’s progression at work.  If she’d have just done a “fun” class where she sweat, she may very well never have gotten a stronger core, dropped the pounds, and she certainly wouldn’t have been able to squat and get up and down off the floor.  Because we worked her through these changes, her quality of life has improved in so many ways.

So when you're looking for a routine...make sure you're TRAINING with a purpose!