In my work I’m lucky to meet some very knowledgeable people in the areas of sport and health-related exercise.

I have conversations about fitness from time to time with ardent enthusiasts, physique/figure competitors, instructors, coaches, current or former competitive athletes, or just about anyone with a strong background in physical training and preparation.

I often walk away from such conversations with at least one thing that surprises me. Today I will share some interesting ‘insider secrets’ that result from some of these encounters.

Sometimes experts tend to say things that contradict the norm. We all know the phrase ‘practise what you preach’, but sometimes this does not appear to be the case with fitness professionals.

This can be worrying, because if the experts advise us about the best ways to train but then turn around and do something different in their own routines, how can we be sure that by implementing their advice we are working out in the safest and most effective way?

Many experts incorporate somewhat of a mish mash when it comes to their own training, doing what they find, through experience, works best for them.

This is also a little alarming, because if everybody just ‘did their own thing’, then where is the science to it all?

Solid science is based on identifying the common denominators, the theories that govern all that we do and can be applied to everyone with a reasonable degree of predicted success, and not just a select few.

So let’s sift through some popular expert don’ts and see if we can make some sense of it all. The first surprise many experts admit to about their gym training is that they don’t spend as much time working out as people might think.

It would seem that the longer someone’s training history, the less they tend to train in the present in order to achieve the same results. This might seem nonsensical, but it actually makes perfect sense when considering the relationship between quality and quantity.

Better technique and the ability to input greater intensity and focus into one’s workout are factors that both take time to develop

Better technique and the ability to input greater intensity and focus into one’s workout are factors that both take time to develop.

Performing exercises with close- to-perfect technique means that muscles and targeted body structures must work harder. Ten perfect repetitions will give you far more than a hundred incorrect similar efforts.

Also related to efficiency is our next common don’t. Many advanced practitioners, unless they are physique or figure contestants, admit they don’t do isolation exercises. This basically means exercises that involve the movement of one joint or set of joints and usually targeting only one corresponding muscle group.

Compound movements, which target more muscles in one go, tend to deliver more exercise value in less time, again supporting the notion of shorter and more efficient sessions.

Now here’s the big one. Many experts admit they don’t do any cardiovascular training (cardio) to lose fat. It should be noted here that by not doing cardio, what they usually mean is that they do not use dedicated cardiovascular training equipment or movements like running, cycling, stepping or striding, and instead only perform resistance or weight training.

The truth is that resistance training also elevates heart rate, so an amount of cardiovascular training is almost always taking place and is difficult to avoid.

Chosen methods of training should always be picked based on the specific goals we aspire to achieve. The goal in this instance, it should be stressed, was to lose fat. Decreasing food intake instead of increasing cardio training will produce this desired effect too.

However, if the goal was to develop general health and fitness, then the story would be a little different and cardio would definitely be central to the chosen exercise regimen.

Talking about food intake, here’s the next shocker: experienced practitioners who don’t weigh their food or count calories. While dramatic results can still be obtained by omitting this practice, this might appear to contradict the norm.

It merely illustrates, however, what significant results we can achieve just by following simple guidelines such as those published by the European Food Information Council. Like many successful fitness enthusiasts have done before you, try simple lifestyle changes at first and see how they work for you, but if you need additional or more specialised guidance, then your best option is to seek advice from a registered nutritionist.

The non-structured, or instinctive approach, may also be applied to exercise programmes themselves. For our final don’t, we paraphrase those practitioners who admit they don’t follow a structured exercise programme.

It should be noted here that all programmes are simply different ways of implementing the same set of principles. If a programme applies specific overload in a progressive manner that incorporates increases in intensity or volume over time and is executed at a frequency that allows optimal recovery and overcompensation between sessions, then it will work.

Programmes are like languages. If you speak five languages, then the language you choose to speak will not affect the original message you are trying to communicate.

Provided the listener speaks the same languages as you, you could technically speak any combination of those languages in any way you like and still manage to get the same message across. So it is with programmes expressing the principles of training that govern all that we do.

matthew.muscat.inglott@mcast.edu.mt