The School of Fitness - Lesson 2: Do Smart Work
Mr Delia Steele
Doing the right stuff usually beats doing the wrong stuff or doing right stuff wrong.
FUNNILY ENOUGH, YOU SHOULDN'T DO STUPID STUFF
Today's lesson is exceedingly simple, yet it is violated painfully often.
Of all the people in our society who actually exercise, only a very small percentage of them actually do "smart work".
More often than not they fall foul of crazy fads, poor technique, inappropriate exercise choices and conventional (anti)wisdom.
Unfortunately: If a million people do a stupid thing, it's still a stupid thing.
CONVENTION, UNCONSCIOUS EXERCISING AND LAZY "WORK"
As the saying goes: "There's no point moving fast if you're moving in the wrong direction."
Likewise, there's no point training hard with bad technique, doing silly exercises and injuring yourself.
There's no point forcing yourself to go to the gym if you don't know what you're doing - you could do more harm than good.
Obviously this doesn't mean you shouldn't exercise - or 'train' as we say in the pros. It just means you need to learn what the Hell you're doing.
Clock watching, mindless cardio, weight machines for the wrong reasons and just doing exercises you like all come under the category of lazy "work". It might help you, it might hurt you, it may or may not better than doing nothing at all - this depends on the individual circumstances - what is certain though, is that it is not as useful as doing smart work.
A NEW PHILOSOPHY FOR A MORE-ATHLETIC WORLD
Mr Delia Steel believes that most people would get more out of spending 30 minutes learning about fitness and 30 minutes training than they would out of 60 minutes slogging their guts out inappropriately in the gym.
If time is tight, make sure you do quality work, and spend as much time learning how to get more from your work as you do actually doing the work. Obviously, you shouldn't take this too far...Never violate lesson 1. But if you know what your doing, you won't waste so much time.
The trouble with fitness, people see it as something you just have to do. You either did it or you didn't did it. But in reality, it's about quality, consistency and food. Stimulus, raw materials and the bodies response. It's not simply a did it or didn't kind of thing. We must move beyond this.
There is a reason so many people hire personal trainers - you get more smart work done, more often, with more consistency...and you do less stupid things.
Your body is too important to risk injury by exercising incorrectly.
Your time, energy & willpower are limited. Don't waste them on ineffective methods.
Motivation comes in peaks and troughs, don't waste it on crazy fads.
There are no rewards or punishments in fitness. Simply stimulus & response - Inputs and outputs. If your not happy with your outputs, quit whining like a bitch & change your stimulus & nutrition - change your inputs.
Knowledge with application is the difference between those who attack their physique goal and make it happen fast, and those who spend years training hard in the gym without getting anywhere.
The goal here, in the school of fitness - is to make it as easy as possible for people to quickly understand and put into practice many of the techniques and theories preached by our industries leaders - so that you can do more "smart work" and get More-Athletic as fast as possible.
Take home message: Do Smart Work... Get More-Athletic. Do stupid stuff, get hurt and stay fat.
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