When it comes to exercise programs, techniques, styles, fads, guides, I’ve tried almost all of them – and not because I’ve hoped they would ‘cure’ me, but out of genuine interest and study. I feel lucky to have been able to ‘curate’ the best parts of each exercise theory and keep it in my arsenal. However I also feel lucky not to have been the victim of shackling myself to a specific type of exercise since they all have their flaws, shortcomings, and miscalculations.
Here are the main problems I see:
No sense of vision or purpose. Simply show up, torture yourself for 45-90 min, feel bad about your inability in certain areas or even worse, about your deeper sense of acknowledgement of how much you cheated yourself on the exercises. So you stress eat by the time you get home, might be less likely to go back next time or have resentment towards that style of exercise
FF&F Solution: we spend our warm up visualizing the body we are building for ourselves, relaxed shoulders, strong midsection, lifted butt muscles from using them correctly, no jiggle thighs, happy smiling face from pride
No true holistic body alignment advice – yes you’re working your gluteus muscles in one particular exercise, but are you hunched over just praying to finish the set? Yes you are focusing on one of your triceps muscles but what about the other shoulder, is it raising up in tension and lack of awareness? In becoming a better you, are you actually creating some areas of worse you or even worse causing injury?
FF&F Solution: Every exercise is considered a full body exercise, with focus on one of your three major body sections. The overall important goal is to build a body that is a conduit of energy, letting it flow from your feet to your head and back down to your feet. No hunching, wincing, limping, injury. Just a taller, rosy cheeked, flexible and strong version of you
What happens the other 23 hours? It’s one thing to set yourself into a state of piercing determination and sweat out your frustration with life for a short period of time a few times each week. Why is it, after working so hard, that instructors generally give no words of wisdom of what to do immediately after the class to transition back into the rest of your normal day? How is one supposed to prepare for the next class in order to get even more out of it, so as to be on a journey and not playing an equivalent of whack a mole and just getting some ‘fitness’ in just to keep the muffin top at bay?
FF&F Solution: Each workout contains transitionary ideas and trigger points for the rest of your day in order to keep your mind focused on your own incredibly responsive anatomy. Did you know that you can truly strengthen and lengthen muscles just by THINKING about them more? It would be such a shame to sequester your body-mind connection simply to the recesses of exercise class, wouldn’t it?
Ebooks are lonely. No one wants to learn calculus from a textbook. People only get inspired to learn calculus either from great natural ability or from an inspiring teacher or situation. Being good at something and achieving desired progress comes from putting it in action, over and over, no matter what the circumstances. You set yourself up for failure if you get no real words of encouragement and are just told some simple exercises to do (or not, depending on your self discipline…)
FF&F Solution: Music plus voice direction plus reading equals company! You have a personal friend and trainer who only wants YOU to succeed and is not worried about the rest of the class. Fitness is a personal journey, about looking inside and finding your WHY – digging out that WHY – fostering it in moments of doubt and temptation – protecting it from questions and haters. This journey is about you becoming your own best friend and workout buddy, because in the end you’re the one who benefits from your hard work.
Too much equipment. Even workouts that say they are ‘no equipment’ need a chair or a yoga mat or worse, kettle bells, resistance tubes, etc. No misunderstandings here – equipment is amazing. But you absolutely do not need equipment to make yourself feel better, to tighten up, and to feel happy in your body. All you need is your living room, your bedroom next to your bed, your hallway, a park, whatever. The body and its infinite motions can be led to a new level, simply from being you.
FF&F Solution: Using body weight, with small focused actions, no larger than a ‘dancing in front of the mirror’ space is needed. Well, maybe it’s enough space to ‘get really into it dancing in front of the mirror’.
What are your biggest grievances with traditional fitness methods? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!