Is your fitness program flawed?

Hey, welcome to the Daniel Clough Podcast. I'm Daniel Clough, and on this podcast I cover the power of building foundational health habits in your life. I also share strategies that can help you build your own foundational health habits so that you can become the best version of yourself. In today's episode, I will break down what I think is one of the biggest mistakes I see people making when it comes to fitness. This one thing could be the ultimate unlock for getting massively better results, whatever type of fitness you're doing. All right, let's jump in. Today we're going to step outside of the usual discussions on foundational health habits, and that's because I want to tackle one of the biggest opportunities you might have to become fitter, healthier, and to look better. And yes, the claim of being up to 10x your fitness results was definitely designed to be attention-grabbing. But I don't think I'm exaggerating. This is a big mistake I see a lot of people making. I've definitely made it before, and there's a good chance that you're making it now, and you don't even realize it. So I'm not going to sugarcoat it. If you exercise on a regular basis, I think there's a very good chance that the way you're going about it is deeply flawed. And I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad here. And actually, if you are someone who's getting out there and consistently being active, you have a huge amount of respect from me. It shows a real commitment to look after your health and to better yourself. The reason I'm bringing it up is because I think most people can get a huge amount more for the effort that they're putting into their exercise regime. And I've reached that conclusion because over the last few years, I've really come to appreciate just how important it is to have a really well-constructed training program. For me, it's been the biggest game changer when it comes to my health and how I look. Only a few years ago, even though I was spending a lot of time working out, my body was often feeling creaky and I was regularly picking up injuries that would knock me out for many weeks at a time. And this really hurt my consistency. And it pains me to say it, but the results I was getting were average compared to the effort that I was putting in. I was spending hours in the gym every week and I didn't even look like I worked out. And I was embarrassed to take my top off. But over the last couple of years, I've been able to completely transform my physique. My body now feels a lot better, and I've been able to significantly reduce injuries. And I would say easily the biggest contributing factor to that is how I've changed my approach towards my training. And to help illustrate this, and to make a few recommendations, I'm going to go through the different ways in which you can go about approaching an exercise routine. Starting with the worst first. So, the absolute worst way you can go about exercising is to be almost entirely random about it. And you might think, "Look, that's kind of a silly thing to say. Who on earth would go about exercising in a random way?" But you'd be surprised. I've actually done it before, and I suspect you might have too. If you go to a gym, just take a look around, and I bet you'll see a reasonable amount of people wandering around. They maybe do a few sets on each weight training machine. And then perhaps they finish off with a couple of different cardio machines. And in this case, their program is literally defined by what pieces of equipment their gym happens to have. And it's also based on what equipment is free to use at any given point in time. And this is just a horrible way to work out. Look, it's definitely better than doing nothing and being sedentary. 100%. But it's the lowest results-to-effort ratio I can think of. It doesn't take into account your goals, and it just has no strategy to it at all. I'd probably give this way of going about things maybe a 3 out of 10 rating for effectiveness. It's not 0 because at least you're getting out there and you're creating some type of stimulus for the body, but it's really not very good at all. So what's better than being random? The next level is putting together an exercise program yourself. And this is definitely better. Because you can now start to think about your goals, and then put together something which feels reasonable for being able to achieve them. So maybe you decide you want to put on some muscle, and you can also afford to train 3 times a week. You can now start to think about how you would spread things out over those 3 days. And you can start to think about what exercises would be good for building muscle, as well as the sets and reps that you'll use for each exercise. And again, this is so much better than the first example I gave. Which was entirely random. But again, it's still going to be fairly flawed. And that's because creating a training program is actually a very technical skill. Imagine if you had a serious repair that needed doing on your house. You'd find a tradesman that had the right set of skills to fix it. It's unlikely that you would try and tackle it yourself, right? And making up your own training program is really no different to that. But what if you do have some knowledge? Is it then okay to go ahead and create your own training program? I still don't think that's a particularly great idea. Now, I would like to think that I'm quite knowledgeable when it comes to working out and training programs. But based on what I now know is the gold standard— and we'll cover that in a minute— I would definitely make a bit of a hash of it. Case in point, I no longer try and create my own programs. They are made for me. Every now and again, I will drift a bit off script, and it almost always causes me problems, usually involving an injury.— and it always highlights to me that even though I know a few things, I'm very far from being an expert. So look, yes, you can create your own training program. And it's absolutely a level up from wandering around the gym randomly, of course. But even if you know a few things, I think you'll end up with something that is mediocre, will limit results, and will also open yourself up to a fairly high risk of injury. So I'd probably rate making up your own training program as 4 or maybe a 5 out of 10 in terms of effectiveness. Okay, on to the next level, and that's going out and finding an existing training program. It might be from a book, an app, or maybe from the internet. And this is definitely now getting into a much smarter way to approach your training. But like everything, there is a range to how good this will be. On one end of the spectrum, you might try and find something for free. Perhaps you take something from a blog article someone wrote, or you ask ChatGPT to create you something. Now the problem with this is that the quality is going to vary quite a bit. You might get super lucky and stumble across something really good, but you also might stumble across something which is poor. And as I mentioned a second ago, you probably don't have the knowledge or the skills to know one from the other. On the other end of the spectrum, there are many training programs out there that you can buy, and this is actually where it starts to get really interesting. You're going to notice a huge jump in quality with paid training programs.— you now open yourself up to some of the best personal trainers and coaches on the planet. And it's truly amazing how many really good training programs there are out there. Now, most of them can be bought as either one-off purchases or as a monthly subscription. And it isn't as expensive as you think. They'll usually set you back perhaps $100 or $200 for a one-off program. Or if it's a monthly subscription, probably somewhere between $20 and $40 a month. Now, I know not everyone is in a position to be able to afford that necessarily. But if you are, it could be an incredible investment. It's going to be a huge multiplier on the time and effort that you're going to be putting in, and it's going to supercharge the results that you get. You can literally find anything you want, whatever your goal. It doesn't matter whether you want to be a better swimmer, runner, or rower. Maybe you want to get stronger. Maybe you want to build endurance. Maybe you want to have better mobility or fix an injury. And it doesn't matter whether you have a well-equipped home gym or no equipment at all. I promise if you do a bit of research, and if you're willing to invest some money in it, you'll find a world-class training program for whatever you want to achieve. Now of course, as with everything, there will be a huge range in quality out there. And that's where I can help a little bit. I can think of at least 10 or so really popular training programs by some incredibly good coaches. And I'm going to put a varied list of these in the show notes, which should give you a massive head start. And for the record, I have absolutely zero affiliation with any of these. Now, if you can find a high-quality, pre-prepared training program that fits your goals, you're now getting into the 8 out of 10 territory. You're going to start to get amazing results for the work that you put in. So what more could you ask for? Well, there's one last level that I would call the absolute icing on the cake. We're talking 10 out of 10. And that's working with a personal trainer. When you work with a personal trainer, not only do you get a quality training program, but you get something that's highly personalized for you. It's personalized towards your goals, your limitations, what you enjoy doing, and your schedule. And one of the other benefits to working with a personal trainer is that you can ask questions around things, and it ends up helping you understand everything better. You basically end up educating yourself as part of the process. I think in the last couple of years of working with a personal trainer I've become more knowledgeable around training and fitness than perhaps the last 5 years before. And lastly, you also get the benefit of accountability. And this is huge. I've talked about it in previous episodes. Actually, the accountability that you get from working with a personal trainer in itself could be the best lever that you can pull to increase your consistency and therefore your results. Working with a personal trainer is the option that I choose, and I've absolutely benefited from all of these things. My training program is so much better than anything I could come up with myself, or that I could buy off the shelf. And that's because it's highly personalized towards me and my goals. It's no coincidence that I'm the most consistent I've ever been with my training. And a big part of that is because I feel accountable to my trainer to getting my workouts done. I don't want to waste my money or his time. It's worth noting that my personal trainer is actually remote. So physical train— sorry, physical location doesn't even have to be a barrier to working with one. For the most part, we work through video calls and through an app. And every week I have my full week's worth of training lined up for me. So warm-ups, exercises, sets and reps, guided notes for each exercise, and also video demos of all of the exercises. I simply just have to follow the script. A quick word of warning when it comes to personal trainers, and I guess in fact any existing training program that you're looking at. As with anything, the quality is going to vary massively. And at least from what I can see in the fitness space, quite a large percentage of coaches are actually pretty bad. So do your own research, and preferably get recommendations from people you know. And look at that list of programs in the show notes. I'll also put a link to Jamie, who's my personal trainer, in the show notes too. I also have no affiliation other than perhaps I'm biased because of how good I think he is. And how much he's helped me. All right, before we wrap up, take a moment to consider: Which approach to exercise are you currently using? Is there a chance to step it up and optimize your routine for massively better results? Reflect on what I've covered in this episode, and don't hesitate to move up the ladder to get more out of your fitness efforts. And as always, thanks for listening, and I hope this has been useful.