Is More Exercise Really Better

I think we need to clarify that exercises means different things to different people.  To one person, walking around the block might be the exercise for the day, while to another it’s hammering out 6 days in a row of CrossFit.  For the sake of this argument, let’s assume it’s somewhere in the middle.

The belief that more is always better is continually perpetuated by just about every fitness magazine and, I am sorry to say, many trainers.  I have been in the industry for 9 years and logged a lot of training hours with people of many different fitness backgrounds.  As a young fitness coach, I followed the herd and preached the more is better philosophy to all of my clients.  Please understand that for most, this was good advice.  Their days of sitting at a desk followed by sitting at dinner and finally passing out in the fetal position in bed did little to advance their quality of living.  However, in the rare case that I had a client who possessed all the dream qualities we as trainers look for (motivation, coordination, great mobility, strength) it was hard to tell them to slow down.  The more they improved, the more they wanted, and as their trainer I was all too ready to give it to them. 

Let’s make one thing clear, every devoted client willing to do the work will get better when starting a new fitness program.  This is especially true for the younger (15-35) untrained individuals that have never lifted a weight in their life and have had minimal injuries.  What many people do not know is that the principle of overload will only work for so long.  Eventually we plateau and reach the limit of physical capabilities.  It is at this point that we become vulnerable to injury.  We must now become intelligent about how we can continue to progress or maintain what we have worked so hard to achieve.  

I like to think that it wasn’t long before I began making changes to my programming that followed 5 basic principles:

1.  Train proper movement before loading
2. Select long term joint friendly exercises over sexy and trendy looking ones
3. Stick to the 8-12 rep range
4. Train total body
5. Find and train the minimal effective dose for each client, a term popularized by famed strength and conditioning coach Alwyn Cosgrove.

Stress on the body can be attributed to many things.  Staying up late at night watching TV or writing emails can lead to a lack of sleep and begin a cycle of many sleepless nights.  Dealing with a failing relationship or problems at work can take a huge emotional toll on someone.  Increasing your back squat from 150lbs to 200lbs will stress the soft tissue and ligamentous system within your body.  Going for a 3-5 mile run at night will not only challenge the cardiovascular system, but will create some wear and tear in the feet, knees and hips.   I am not painting a pretty picture here and it certainly doesn’t sound like a good plan to follow.  But wait a second, I just described a majority of fitness enthusiasts out there!   The body does not determine what is good stress or bad stress, it simply responds to the STRESS put on it.  For an individual like this, who continually pushes the limit throughout the day, the body’s tolerance and coping mechanisms will only last for so long.  A threshold will be reached and ultimately an injury will occur.  At some point along the way, we failed to listen to what our body was telling us.  The end result is, we are now not capable of doing the very thing we like to do most…work out and train.

Let’s revisit principle number 5.  As a fitness coach, I must continually search for the minimum effective dose for my client.  In other words, I want to get the most out of each and every one of my clients by applying the least amount of bodily stress possible.  This may mean selecting safer exercises that do not increase load on the spine, cutting sets to 3 instead of 4, keeping the weight at 65-85% of their max, balancing out their pushing to pulling exercises, or challenging their cardiovascular system by using circuits of resistance exercise rather than traditional steady state conditioning on a treadmill or elliptical.

Please do not think that I am afraid of hard work or pushing to get the most out of each one of my clients.  That is simply not the case.  I have just become increasingly aware that more is not better and quantity should never trump quality.  To help simplify my message I have listed some recommendations I live by and relay to my clientele:

1. Always listen to what your body is telling you.  If your back is abnormally stiff in the morning it would be a good idea to skip back squats that day.
2. Take a week off after every 5 weeks or so of training.  This doesn’t mean quit working out altogether, but to focus more on corrective exercise, mobility work and movement training.
3. Incorporate corrective exercises into your programming that you know makes your body feel better.
4. Never try to lift your max weight.  Mark your progress through reps gained at a certain weight rather than 1 rep maximum lifts.
5. Minimize low back stress by selecting safer exercises.  This may mean selecting single leg exercises like a split squat instead of a back squat.  It could also mean using a hex or trap bar instead of a straight bar for deadlifts.
6. Rest if you feel an injury coming on.  Let nature do what it does best.  Avoid getting in its way by trying to just “push” through it or ignore it.
7. Get at least 7 hours of sleep a night.  This may be the most important of them all!
8. Avoid doing sessions that involve multiple exercises targeting one muscle group i.e. shoulder presses followed by lateral raises, followed by incline presses, followed by front raises. 
9. If you are starting back up after a long lay-off, don’t try to lift what you were lifting.  Back off a little bit and make your workout easily achievable.  This will not only leave you without paralyzing soreness, but it will motivate you get back to where you were.
10. Do not be afraid to postpone a workout or a particular exercise if you are still sore from the previous workout.  If your legs are still recovering from the front squats you did Monday, it may not be a good idea to do the split squats you had scheduled for today.  No big deal to put it off a day.

Hopefully this advice will help you walk out of each workout feeling better then when you started it.  Success tends to breed motivation but if we fail to heed the warnings our body gives us, we are destined for a breakdown.   By intelligently moderating our physical efforts we will be assured of a longer more productive training life cycle.