There’s no denying that portraying a strong work ethic is advantageous to achieving your goals. However, when it comes to health and fitness, it’s a fairly common misconception that more is always better. “Just because you can” implement a particular technique, protocol or strategy, doesn’t mean it will be the most conducive to achieving your goals in the long-term.
The phrase “work smarter, not harder” is particularly relevant here and unsurprisingly a combination of both approaches will yield the most successful results. For instance, applying effort and critical thinking to your goal of choice will allow you to make deliberate choices, which can help you achieve your goals more efficiently.
Below are a few examples we would consider as “working harder, not smarter”. Keep in mind this is subjective and based on the interpretation that an individual is trying to maximally build muscle mass and optimise metabolic health.
- Frequently testing 1RM’s in training
- Incorporating excessive set volume
- Supersets and/or drop sets on every exercise
- “Cardio” finishers e.g box squats after a leg workout
- Excessive daily step targets
- Not taking rest days or deloads
- Extreme prolonged periods of fasting
- Unnecessarily aggressive weight loss + surpluses (energy intake)
- Strictly preparing and consuming only a select group of foods
- High-dose vitamin, mineral, and sport supplements
- Significantly compromising sleep to exercise
Let us know, what are a few examples you can think of?