Do you really need to exercise MORE?

If you’re tired of clocking in the hours at the gym with little to no results, try not to fall into the trap of the idea that your workout regimen is not hard enough.

When health and fitness results are hard to come by, most people start wondering what other exercise routine they can add into their week, how many more calories do they need to restrict, or how much more time do they need to put in the gym, since what they’re doing isn’t enough.

Our fitness culture and health experts have misguided many people into believing success is driven by how hard you go in the gym. That’s why there’s high intensity bootcamps opening all over town with the promise of crushing you into the ground and rewarding you for going all out during every single workout. Unfortunately, this has left many people with little to no results, beat up, and confused on why all their hard work has only dug the hole deeper for them.

Recovery is Key

The truth is, people are exceeding the amount of stress they run their body through and not putting any emphasis on recovering from it.

If we were to compare people’s bodies to bank accounts, many people are walking around with overdrawn accounts. When you keep taking away from the body, it will eventually start fighting back, by not giving you the results you’re search for. You can’t keep taking money out (exercise/stress) without ever putting money back in (recovery).

Beyond the Gym

People not only need to recover from the stress that exercise puts on them, but they also need to diminish the bodily impact of life stressors.

Your kids’ insane schedule, toxic work environment, crazy work deadlines, relationships, loss of loved one, autoimmune disease, horrible diets, dysregulated breathing, low quality of sleep…every single aspect of your life is something to consider when starting a workout regimen, because it will impact your ability to succeed and get results from it.

Before you let another trainer tell you that you need to go harder to see better results, consider you might not be recovering enough. Instead of beating yourself up for not doing more, try taking a step back and see how you can do less. Try working on your sleep, start taking daily walk, start a meditative practice, find a personal trainer that takes a holistic approach that will take your ability to recovery into consideration when they train you.

If you’re looking to get results that you can sustain for a lifetime, it’s time to put money back into your body bank account. If you start taking care of your body, it will start to return the favor and it will give you the results you’ve been looking for.