Why Your Workouts Don't Work

How to Change Your Workout to Get the Results You Want

By Elizabeth Quinn, About.com

Updated: August 11, 2009

About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board

Did you know the average health club exerciser quits after just six months for one of the following reasons:

1. Not Enough Time
2. Not Seeing Results

Sadly, most people become frustrated and quit exercising before they see any real results. But it's not surprising given the common mistakes many people make with their training programs. Are you making these workout mistakes? Common Reasons Your Workouts Don't Work

• All Quantity, No Quality
  Take a look around the gym (if you haven't quit going yet) and see how many people are really getting a quality workout. I'm always amazed by how many people are wandering aimlessly, walking leisurely on a treadmill while reading a book, lifting weights so light that not one hair moves out of place, or simply look bored. A lot of exercisers head to the gym out of habit, and as if on automatic pilot, put in some time and head back to work or home. If you are one of these people, ask yourself, "What do I want to get out of this?" If you want serious results, you need to do serious exercise. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy it and have fun. But it does means you need to focus on what you are doing and increase the quality of every movement. Once you start exercising with a real purpose and pushing both your aerobic capacity and your strength you will find your workouts take half the time and give better results.

Overestimating Your Exercise

• Most exercisers are far too generous with estimates of exercise intensity and time, weight lifted and the frequency of their workouts. To avoid overestimating it's helpful to keep an exercise log and track these items. Additionally, many people mistakingly believe that if they exercise at a moderate pace for 30 minutes they have burned lots and lots of calories and fat. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. While exercise does burn calories over time and consistent exercise is one of the best ways to lose weight and keep it off, it's hard to lose body fat through exercise alone. Which brings us to the next mistake. . .
  
  
• Underestimating Your Eating
  Many people are in denial about the foods they eat and especially the quantity consumed. If you really want to lose weight you need to be honest with yourself about what you put into your mouth and how that helps or hinders your weight loss goals. To get real with yourself, write it down. Tracking what you eat in a food diary will help you break the cycle of food denial. (Besides, you are the only one who needs to know).
  
  
• Doing the Wrong Type of Workout
  Where did you learn your current exercise routine? Watching others at the gym (who are exercising incorrectly)? From your friends, coworkers, the web, tv, newspaper, the latest research findings, or perhaps your 5th grade gym teacher? What you are doing for exercise directly determines the results you will get. To learn what you should do, there is no better place to start then by writing down your goals and then working with a professional trainer to design the right workout to meet those goals. Haphazard exercise will provide haphazard results.
  
  
• Never Changing Your Workout
  When you do the same thing day after day, you get very good at it. In exercise this is called the principle of adaptation. It basically means that we become very efficient by doing the same exercise over and over. This is great for sports performance, but not that great for weight lose, strength increases or physical fitness progression. If you always do the same workout for the same amount of time you will eventually hit a plateau where you fail to see any additional change. One way of overcoming this plateau is to modify your workouts every few weeks or months. You can change the type of exercise you do, the length, the amount of weight lifted or the number or reps. This is why professional athletes change their program during the off-season.
  
  
• Using Incorrect Form or Technique
  Learning the right way to exercise is essential to getting results. Form does matter, especially when doing any strength training exercise. Incorrect form or technique also sets you up for potential injuries, pain and soreness. To learn proper technique, there is no better place to start than with a personal trainer or coach. (JUST ASK ME!)
  

• Setting Unrealistic Goals
  So, what are your goals? Are they realistic for you? If your goal is to be the next Lance Armstrong, and you only have 30 minutes a day to train, or wanting to lose 25 pounds in a month, well, how realistic is that? Again, it comes back to being honest with yourself about your abilities, your level of commitment and your lifestyle. We need to set appropriate goals that start from where we are and progress at a reasonable rate or we are sure to get frustrated and quit.
  

• Measuring the Wrong Results
  Many people think their workout isn't working because they don't measure the right things. Looking for proof in a scale is often a set-up for disappointment because some new exercisers build muscle and lose fat, but the scale doesn't provide information about body composition. Better ways to measure your fitness progress include tracking your heart rate at a given pace, measuring the distance you can cover in a certain amount of time, tracking the amount of weight you can lift, or even writing down how you feel -- physically -- at the end of each day. Many of the benefits from exercise are subtle and not visible by looking into the mirror, but things such as cholesterol level, blood pressure, and the ease with which you can do daily chores are every bit as motivating -- if you monitor them.
  
  

Customizing Your Workouts for Maximum Results

By Charles Staley, B.Sc, MSS Director, Staley Training Systems Question: If you train and eat exactly like Dorian Yates, can you expect to develop an identical physique? The question is rhetorical, obviously. And while genetics is usually blamed for lack of progress, it's not that simple. Your genes are just one aspect of what makes you different from everyone else. But more on that later. We know that the outcome of any exercise program can be made more predictable if a handful of established training concepts are understood and applied. In a field where there is no absolute right and wrong (only good, better,or best), the skillful application of these concepts helps us make the "best" decisions regarding exercise programming.

For instance, exercise should be progressive. In other words, you'll progress only when exercise is more difficult than what you're used to. We also know that the type of exercise selected determines the result you'll see .

This is also sometimes called the S.A.I.D. principle— Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand.
Further, it's clear that eventually, the body will stop responding to any exercise regime. This is one reason why there can never be the "perfect" training program— no matter how scientific and well planned it is, your body will eventually stop responding to it. When it does, you've got to be ready with "Plan B." (This is why it's important to switch up your routine every 4-6 weeks. It keeps you & your muscles engaged).

The concepts just discussed form a good "template" for developing exercise programs. However, by themselves, they offer only part of the answer. That's because a fourth factor— your individuality— must be considered to "fine tune" the program to your own unique situation. If the previously discussed concepts are the road map, individuality is the steering wheel. It allows for constant, minute to minute adjustments, so that the exercise program can be "fitted" the individual, rather than vice versa.

Commonly, people make the incorrect assumption that training = results, without factoring in the individual.

The importance of individual response is often misunderstood. Even science can be misleading. As an example, let's take an imaginary research study that evaluates the effectiveness of pre-exhausting the triceps prior to bench pressing. The researchers find that the majority of the subjects do not experience greater pectoral hypertrophy than the control group. HOWEVER, a few individuals DO make greater progress than the control subjects. The scientist who did this study would rightly conclude that pre-exhaustion is not effective. But for a few of those test subjects, it WAS. So the lesson is, not all people (in fact, very few) fall in the middle of the so called bell curve .