I’ve played college basketball, became a Doctor of PT, and treated 874 patients from professional athletes to many with chronic disease Here’s everything I know about fitness: 1) If they could package the benefits of exercise into a pill, it’d be the biggest event in history
2) There is no “best way” to train; just what works best for you. 3) Simple is always better than complicated, even for high level athletes 4) Exercise is less about the amount of weight moved and more about properly fatiguing the muscle
5) You’d get better results if you didn’t change up your workouts for at least 12 weeks. 6) The best exercise for one person may not be the best one for you: biomechanics vary greatly from one person to another based on height, movement patterns, torso and limb length
7) The only person you are competing with in the gym is the person you were the last time you did the same workout 8) Most common aches and pains are due to inactivity and muscle weakness and would go away with basic programming
9) Your joints get nourished when they are moved 10) Sitting is the most common cause of most neck and back pain 11) You get 50% of the benefits of exercise by just going from the couch to basic movement
12) Walking will do more for your recovery than any BS supplements they are selling you 13) Strengthening your core and glutes will fix most low back symptoms 14) The best programs involve a combination of compound (multi joint) exercises and a few isolated exercises
15) If you aren’t losing weight, you are eating too many calories. Likely in the form of the wrong foods 16) Neglecting cardio to focus on your strength is like neglecting your car engine to focus on the paint job.
17) Unless it’s your job, fitness and nutrition should fit into your life rather than fitting your life into your fitness and nutrition 18) Sometimes more rest is what’s needed to break through plateaus. Deload weeks are part of any good training program.
19) Fitness is a combination of strength, endurance, and mobility. Resistance training allows you to do all 3 at once, but should be complimented with the others 20) Machines can be just as effective as any other exercise for a particular muscle group
21) Slowing down your reps will lead to a better workout and lower risk of injury 22) The weight you lift is not important compared to the fatigue of the target muscle. You are selecting the weight for exercise, not competitive lifting
23) You want to hit each muscle group 2+ times per week for optimal results 24) There is no “best exercise.” You can get the same muscle strong in 100 different ways. 25) Barbells are the gold standard for strength, yet you can get really strong with little to no equipment
26) You can lift weights 2 days per week or 7 days per week. The optimal plan is the one you can stick to consistently. 27) Put the work in now so you can still get out of a chair on your own later
28) Beginners will make considerable more progress than advanced lifters in the gym. You should at least take advantage of those initial results for metabolic health long term 29) You can get strong using only your body weight. It may not be perfectly optimal, but it’s possible
30) Your diet and fitness plan should be enhancing your life or you are doing something wrong. What’s the point of trying to live longer if it’s making your life miserable 31) Exercise is a stress. Most people don’t get enough of it, but too much isn’t always better.
32) The most important workouts are the ones you show up to when you don’t want to 33) The most important reps are the last 2 that you didn’t know you could do 34) Running is only bad for your knees when done excessively and not in combination with proper resistance training
35) You don’t need to take preworkout or carb up before a 30 minute exercise session; you just need a little grit 36) There’s no benefit to eating immediately after a lift. You’ll get the same results from eating within a 3-4 hour window post workout.
37) Sprints, hills and slow jogs will make you a better runner. Moderate paced running is a lot of work for little results. 38) Your calf muscles and core are endurance based muscles. They can be trained more frequently and may benefit from higher reps to grow
39) Sit ups are a terrible place to start for building core strength and hard on the average person’s back and neck; try planks instead 40) Older individuals typically benefit from having additional rest days between hard workout sessions
41) Higher frequency and volume of exercise is only beneficial if you can recover from it. The guys that look like freaks work hard but are genetically capable of recovering from the increased effort.
42) The core’s job 99% of the time is to prevent movement, similar to a plank, but most core exercises involve moving it rather than stabilizing it 43) Running 2 days and lifting 2 days weekly will get you ahead of 99% of fitness plans that overdue one or the other
44) Exercise alone is a terrible weight loss strategy. But it can be very useful for body recomposition 45) If you can’t do pull-ups for reps, nobody cares how much you can lift. You are too heavy
46) Fitness is more important to teach your children about than money: they’ll make more money, but they only get 1 body 47) If you want to help your family get healthy, lead from the front and show them, don’t tell them
