How to Make a Hard Workout that Gets Results

Is a Hard Workout an Effective Workout? 🤔

 

As personal trainers I think the importance of our job is often overlooked.

 

People hire us and trust that we will help them reach their goals. Now of course they still need to put in the work, but we need to design that work.

 

So how do we design the work that will actually lead them towards their goals?

 

Sounds like a good topic for discussion!

 

 

How to Train for Results:

To get results we need to convince the body to create results.

Convincing the body to get results is hard! It’s hard because you need to do hard things.

 

You need to do hard things.

 

Adaptations don’t come easily. There needs to be a reason for them.

And that’s really what training is all about!

 

Creating adaptations.

• Strength.
• Muscle size.
• Conditioning.

To get these results the body must be challenged hard enough.

 

Now, there’s two types of hard.

 

There is hard as in, “this exercise is hard to do.”

And there is, “you can go hard with this exercise.”

 

In todays social media age we mostly see, “Wow! That exercise looks hard to do!”

 

Just because something is hard to do does not mean it is effective at producing results.

 

In fact, when an exercise is hard to do it likely produces less results.

 

For example, a Single Leg Deadlift to a Curl and Press.

That exercise is really hard to do! You need to balance. There’s 3 different parts of the movement. To accomplish the exercise you probably need to use a fairly light weight.

 

You’re not going to be using a 50Lb dumbbell. With all that stuff going on you’ll have to use a light weight and the lighter the weight, the less reason for adaptation.

 

It’s too light to increase your strength or muscle. It’s too hard to move quickly to get the heart rate up.

 

Compare this to a Kickstand Deadlift, where there is very little going on other than sending your hips backwards and standing tall. Now you can go much harder and truly create an adaptation. You can use much heavier weights to increase strength and or muscle, plus being able to go harder will get the heart rate up!

 

 

Hard to Do VS Go Hard With

Essentially, the harder it is to do an exercise, the less likely you are to get results.

 

Here’s a hard workout…

• Reverse lunge, pause at the bottom, now twist! Okay, come up stand on one leg, now halo the weight around your head.
• Next up, push-up while holding dumbbells, at the top row one side, now tricep kickback. Now switch arms and do it again!

 

This is what the majority of workouts look like these days. The workouts are difficult, I’m not going to say they aren’t, but that’s because they are hard to do.

 

That doesn’t mean they do anything in terms of creating results.

 

Looks, strength, conditioning, and movement.

These are the results 99% of general population clients are looking for.

 

Now, I imagine the example above makes sense when chasing looks and strength. I admit it could have conditioning benefits, but there are probably much more effective ways to improve conditioning!

 

Now what about movement?

We need to challenge movement to make it better right??

 

Well let’s try this experiment.

 

Sign your name in the air with your index finger.

Now sign your name with your elbow.

And now try with your nose.

 

You were still able to do it right?

 

Even though you never challenged that movement you were able to do it with your nose.

 

That’s because your brain knows that movement pattern. This isn’t an adaptation that needs to take place, it’s just something the brain needs to learn.

 

So let’s relate this back to exercise.

 

If you want to improve the movement of a Squat, will you do so by having someone squat on a Bosu Ball, challenging the movement, or will you do so by having them squat with a heel wedge, making the movement easier?

 

Making movements easier allows people to go harder.

 

Creating a hard workout that people can go hard with is what will truly get results.

 

The Time and Place for Hard to Do:

I don’t want to say hard to do exercises are useless.

 

There is a time and place for them and here’s when that is…

1. Just for exercise: If a client doesn’t have any specific goals and they just need added exercise in their life. Just make sure its safe enough!
2. For fun and experimentation: If a client likes experimenting and trying new hard stuff. Just make sure it doesn’t takeaway from their goals.
3. Social media views: This stuff gets views. And while I don’t like adding to the ridiculousness of social media fitness, sometimes people gotta do what they gotta do. Just don’t lie about what actually creates results.