Recently I had a conversation with a client asking about if there was anything else they should be doing to see results. One of my business mentors suggests that when writing blog posts, a simple thing to do is just write about the problems that your clients are having that you’re already talking about with them. So here we are.
The client has been in the gym for only about a month or two, and is happy with their consistency, but is starting to get that feeling of “when do I start seeing results.”
The question posed to me was “What else should I be doing to change my physique faster?” They used the word toned, which essentially means they want to look like they have some muscle – not too much – and low body fat percentage.
Ok so theres a big topic to understand here:
There’s no such thing as “toning a muscle.” It either grows or it doesn’t. If you lift weights, your body is going to change shape the way your body is designed to do so. You can do more or less, but you can’t do specific exercises or lift a certain way to make the muscles look “longer” or “leaner” or whatever. If you can envision the body of a swimmer or elite beach volleyball player – you’ll see what looks to be “long lean muscles.” But really, you’re looking at people who are tall and slender and have lifted weights to add muscle to their frame. That’s just how those people already are. I think people genuinely think you can workout a certain way to look like that. No, those are the genetics those folks have and it’s how they end up looking from working out.
All you can do to “tone” is to do the appropriate amount of strength training to the level that suits your desire and don’t go beyond that. If you go too far one way you could get bigger and more muscular than you wanted. However,…
And this is a big HOWEVER,
In all of my years of fitness coaching I’ve never once had someone come up to me and say “I’ve gained too much muscle, I’m too toned, I need to lose some of this.” Nope. Not once. Yet, people, mostly women, have this huge fear of somehow accidentally working out a few days per week and getting too big.
You won’t get too big and gain too much muscle. Period.
I like to remind people that the only way this is going to happen is if you quit your job, because a full-time gym goer who works out for hours a day every day. Eats absurd amounts of protein – like steak at every meal – invests highly in supplements and sacrifices all of the fun things in life to dedicate every moment to building muscle. This is the life of a pro body builder – and the person with this concern is definitely not trying to be a pro body builder.
Ok, I got off topic, although it was still relevant. So the client who wanted to know if they should add anything else needed a reminder of time:
How long did it take you to get to the current physique and fitness level you are at?
Is it 5, 10, 20 years of being sedentary and not focusing on your diet at all? Usually this is accurate. So then, if it took many years of doing the wrong things to get us where we are, why are we to think that we can reverse all of that in just a few months?
We can’t. As unfortunate as it may sound, if it took years to get you where you are, it may take years to get you where you want to be. Granted there are a million variables here, but unless you’re going all in on 5 days per week of very specific exercise, following a very strict diet, managing your stress, sleeping and hydrating perfectly, then it’s going to take longer than a few months.
The hard part is that the years of doing the wrong things were easy, so we don’t notice it took years. Doing the right things takes work and dedicated effort, of which we pay more attention to. So after a few months of this it seems like a lot of work, but that’s just because you’re aware of if. You weren’t aware of the sedentary lifestyle with bad eating habits.
The solution is to start exercising consistently, I suggest a minimum of 3 days per week, but if you can manage 4 or 5, great. Then do this, for a long time. Check back in with yourself in a year and be surprised at how much progress you’ve made!
With those 3 days per week of exercise, if you’re doing strength training that targets the whole body and adding in some type of cardio (aka conditioning, heavy breathing) on 2 of those days then you’re off to a great start.
I reminded the client that they don’t need to add anything. They already have a good diet, and are coming to the gym 3 days per week, now all they have to do is be patient. Consistency + Patience is the key to the fitness results we want.
The hardest part is knowing the “what” to do. If you’re struggling to figure that part out, come chat with us at my gym, Rampage, and we can guide you so you don’t have to figure anything out, as we’ll tell you exactly what to do. Here’s a page where you can book a meeting with us.