Bad Advice: Final Installment

Thanks for your consideration this week of my #badadvice posts.

I’m going to cram several different sayings into this last post. I’ll just give you my “hot take” on each one.

These first two were sent to me as a joke, but jokes are often funny because they’re partially true. They reveal a somewhat ridiculous side of reality that we can relate to, but that also doesn’t quite sit right.

“We don’t do it because it’s easy. We do it because we THINK it will be easy!” The gentleman that has this sign in his home gym (we trained via Zoom) likes to refer to this saying often. It’s his way of addressing the reality that great form doesn’t come naturally to all.

Getting fit, staying healthy, and working out relatively injury free looks easy enough. I can’t tell you the number of times I watch someone demonstrate a move and think, “oh I think I can do that”. Nope. They just make it look easy likely because they practice.

I follow this guy on Instagram who responds to videos of people doing really difficult workout tricks. The person doing the move is usually some little girl or a skinny looking person. The guy I follow is super buff and owns a gym. He clearly trains! What’s  funny is the fact that his dog keeps interrupting him, he can’t figure out how the original poster did it… and often times he just fails! Miserably! It’s refreshing and hilarious! I love the way he uses humor to draw attention to the fact that you don’t have to do whatever everybody else is doing to be good enough. Sometimes confidence is misplaced. He looks like the kind of guy who could do anything. Clearly a I don’t do it because it’s easy. I do it because i thought it was going to be easy.

If I don’t get hurt how will I know I worked out?

I hear this type of sentiment a lot in Massage as well as Training. The idea that if I don’t hurt, I didn’t get the good stuff or I didn’t work hard enough or I’m not going to build muscle or get strong or heal or recover… It’s silly. Veneration (or a kind of worship) of pain is not really good for anyone. Sometimes we have to accept pain because there are no other alternatives, but I don’t think we should elevate it. I don’t think we should strive for it. Pain doesn’t make you better. It makes you hurt.

No excuses.

False. There are lots of excuses. And good ones. I think the idea here is to “be hard on yourself“ to dig deep and do the hard thing because you’ll gain something from it. I’m not against that in general. But I’m against shaming of any kind, whether it’s of ourselves or of others and I don’t like absolutes. I would prefer if it said, “be honest about your situation and we’ll work through it” but that wouldn’t be very catchy with it?

Go hard or Go home.

I like to say go hard and then go home. Give it your best effort let that be good enough and then go home and do fun things. Either or is problematic.

Find your fit. Find your tribe.

There is that hope that when you join a gym or a workout group, you’ll find like-minded people. That can certainly be true! It could also be false. I’ve belonged to lots of gyms done lots of certifications and trained with lots of people. But, I didn’t always find my tribe. If my motivation was to find a tribe - I would have quit. My motivation IS fitness, strength and mobility.  My tribe  and maybe your tribe may just be outside of the gym and that’s totally OK!

Fitness is my therapy session.

No.👏 It.👏 Is. 👏Not.👏

Just go to therapy.

In the gym, you may find that working out may give you endorphins that help you feel better. You may find that working hard gives you something to focus on other than your problems. It doesn’t replace therapy though. (I’ve seen way too many people bring their problems to the gym.) Stop that.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed these #badadvice posts.

Bottom line? I want to normalize simply taking care of your body. Move enough, focus on moving well, don’t overdo it, try not to skip recovery, eat as healthy as you can. And stop shaming yourself or others for not having the perfect body, the perfect routine, or the perfect form… Let’s just move forward together, getting healthier!