"Popular Fitness Trends I Regret Wasting My Time On"

A friend of mine, who also works in the Health & Fitness industry in Montreal, shared a post a while back on her Linkdin feed called "Popular Fitness Trends I Regret Wasting My Time on". I thought it would be fun to put my own take on the ones I feel the same about, with a couple extras of my own. Time to have some fun! (Because us "Health & Wellness nerds" really do enjoy discussing these sorts of things. 🤓

🥗The Eat Less, Move More Mentality

Heather mentions in her post, "This gave me poor performance, poor recovery and stagnant results". I personally don't think I hit that point personally, but I definitely ran with it in my coaching mentality for many years. However, as with so many things in health, this is an over-generalized statement that we often keep going back to and wondering why we can't seem to get anywhere. Eat less, move more isn't necessarily for everyone and it can certainly create as many barriers for people as it can success for some others.

Zenergy take away: Eating in a controlled and balanced manner that works for YOU, and moving your body regularly is what we need to focus on. That will look different for all of us.

🏃Fasted cardio to burn fat

Heather comments that "all it did was zap my energy. I didn't see better results, just crankier mornings." 😂 I enjoy experimenting with fasting, but definitely have never seen any magic in this (which is the problem - it's sold to the public as the "greatest and best thing ever"). For me personally, I sometimes feel awesome doing this and other times I feel sluggish. I tend to feel better doing fasted strength personally, but even that isn't all the time.

Zenergy take away:  Be your own experiment, with the mindset that if it doesn't work for YOU, that's ok. Whatever approach will allow you to get consistent cardio is the one for YOU to put your energy into!

🏋High Reps + Light Weight = Toning

Heather says it perfectly in her post: "Toning = building muscle + reducing body fat" . I still today get clients who start with me saying they want to "tone this" or "tone that". There's NO SUCH thing. Our bodies build muscle or loses muscle, and those muscles will build however they will build based on factors such as genetics, regular activities/sports you do over time, nutrition habits etc.... That's it.

-High reps + light weight = muscular endurance

-Low reps + heavy weight = strength

-Body builders spend time in between those realms (8-12 kind of ranges often) to create high volume loads on muscles to create that bulk (along with an incredible strict exercise and diet plan).

I personally never spent too much time in this realm of light weight and high reps. However, in the latter part of my career as I've learned the value of strength in daily health, lifestyle and our longevity, I certainly have leaned more to the opposite end of the spectrum.

Zenergy take away:  There is NO such thing as "toning". We build or lose muscle. That's it. Muscles will have a greater esthetic when body fat percentage is in healthy ranges. Everything in this regard is dependant on YOU: Your goals and activity of choice and/or sport. And that's ok!

💊Chasing Supplements instead of habits

Thankfully I've never dove in too deep with supplements over my career as I'm very much a food first kind of person (personal approach) and I certainly believe we spend WAY too much on supplements that aren't as necessary and magical as we are lead to believe.

At my fittest of my lifetime and lowest body composition numbers, I made the changes 100% with food. YES it can be done. But it's not fancy and it doesn't come in cool containers or packages. Heather said it perfectly in her post: "Adopting good habits like lifting consistently, eating enough, sleeping, hydrating, recovering are the habits you want to adopt to see the best results." The problem is, we jump straight to the supplements thinking our health will come from a container we buy each month; meanwhile we continue to struggle in several of these foundational areas of health.

[Disclaimer - I'm NOT against supplements. I'm against HOW we USE them and how we CHOOSE them]

Zenergy take away:  Focus on the foundational health practices ALWAYS first and foremost. They are the go-to "magic" that works (it's called nature - and it's worked for thousands of years longer than supplements were even a thing!). If the "gaps" your supplements are supposedly filling are actually giant holes in your health practices, the most significant impact they'll have is lowering your bank account. If you do feel you need a supplement, TALK to a professional (not the person at the health food store who sells them... a NUTRITION professional, who can guide you to make the right choices for where your needs are at NOW).

The general population folks (you and I) can be VERY healthy and happy by putting our energy into our health habits and daily practices above all else.

🫣Changing Programs Constantly

It's tough for ANYONE to not fall into this trap in the last decade and a bit, let alone folks like us who are immersed in the profession DAILY! This one resonated with me without question. Especially as I moved out of my fittest couple years of my lifetime, not only was my body beginning to change but also life had changed; it was getting busier, more stressful and I just kept piling on more. Like all of us, in an effort to create change I was experimenting with many different thoughts, programs and ideas. Experimenting is good - But not when it's short lived for just 2-3 weeks before jumping into something else. Afterall, everything I'd switch to "made sense".

Zenergy take away:  Basics and consistency win EVERY time. Health is NOT a sprint. It took me until the latter part of my career before it TRULY clicked. When you find something that makes you feel good and it's easy to make it happen in your days/weeks - STICK WITH IT! Jumping around to different diets, exercise routines and theories is only building your ability to stress yourself (and your physiology out).

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Here's a few extras of my own.... 👇

📚TMI (Too Much Information)

I know it's not a "fitness trend" but it certainly is connected! Again, being in the industry we're in, there is new info ALL THE TIME as we learn more about human physiology, exercise physiology and human psychology. I went through a phase of my career (from approx 2010-2017ish) where I was taking in anything and everything that interest me in regards to human health. There was no focus, no ACTUAL learning I could put to use (personally or in my coaching) because I was all over the map.

I remember my Pocket (website you could save articles to 'read later') literally had well over 1500 UNREAD articles!! During that time I also started listening to podcasts. Books would be skimmed or certain sections read, but nothing completely absorbed or finished.

Zenergy take away:  The age of information has been here and we know enough in present times that we NEED to ACT on it for our own personal wellbeing. Take in as much information as you want, but unless it's ACTUALLY put to use, you'll feel like you're just spinning in circles.

🏃You ONLY need to do HIIT work

Yep, I went there (personally) for a bit. HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) was touted to be all humans needed. I recognized the benefits of sprint training and interval training in sports, but my initial thought was "I can save alot of time this way!". I was a Dad of now two daughters, husband, business owner... Instead of a 5-8km run that takes alot of time, I can do a 15-20min session and get great benefits. 🤔

It's not that I don't believe in the benefits of HIIT, but I know now later in my career and personal life, that (as always) it's specific to what YOU do and it's about BALANCE. As a lifelong soccer player, yes HIIT will help in those quick hard runs on the field, but I also needed the foundation of being able to have the capacity to travel long distance over a longer period of time for my sport. I also came to learn over time that focusing all my attention on weights and HIIT, didn't allow me to feel my best for soccer. I feel better when my approach is more balanced across the board.

Zenergy take away:  As I've learned in the latter part of my career, it's RARELY ever just ONE thing. It's also NOT a "good vs bad" or "A+B" straight forward answer for everyone. HIIT is GREAT and has a host of benefits. But so does longer distance / duration cardio work, so does strength training, so does mobility training...

What I EVENTUALLY realized when my head cleared and I approached it from a place where I could question things, was that, the professionals who were pushing HIIT as the "be all and end all" approach were people who NEVER were runners / long duration cardio people. They didn't play sports where endurance was a key component. So OF COURSE they'll be pushing WHAT THEY KNOW. It didn't mean these were "bad professionals" - It meant it was over-generalized advice and preference.

🤸Fancy and Flashy Exercises

I'm pretty certain EVERY professional in this business goes through a phase of this. Having people do "functional" exercises that are probably only "functional" if you're in the circus. 😂 Plenty of exercises on the bosu ball, stability ball, balance boards... you name it. Sure, some were fun but "functional" - no.

"Functional" is when an exercise transfers into REAL life ability. Such as carrying two weights (farmers walk) which allows us to carry groceries, bags etc with greater ease and builds overall work capacity in the body. OR deadlifts help us lift things from the floor more efficiently and with reduced risk of injury. THOSE are functional exercise examples! HOWEVER, they're not "exciting" or different are they?

Zenergy take away:  I feel like the industry on the whole has moved away from those times (for the most part) thankfully. Ultimately, as you know from the Zen blog posts, it always comes back to SIMPLICITY and BASICS. We DO NOT need fancy and flashy at all!

I personally did enjoy the balance boards though. They're fun! 😉