Efficiency is a good thing in so many aspects of life, but one place you really don’t want to be efficient is the gym.

Wait? What?

If you want to build muscle or burn through fat, you want your body to be inefficient in what it does. 

Ponder that for a few seconds. You want inefficiency to build muscle and burn fat. The more inefficient the better, as your body will have to work that much harder, which in turn will lead to you getting closer to your goals quicker.

Still not quite sure what I am on about?

Think about it. Your body is brilliant at adapting to what you ask it to do. Whether you are lifting heavy things or running, or rowing, or working out on that horrible piece of equipment known commonly as the “puke bike” (look up ‘airodyne’ if you don’t know what this is), your body will adapt and you will get stronger, faster, better conditioned. Your body was inefficient at doing what it was asked to do at the start, and then after time it adapted and became more efficient at that task. Which is why it is tough going to begin with, and then gets easier.

Once it starts getting too easy (although it probably never will on the puke bike), it means that the body has adapted sufficiently that the effort required is minimal.

At that point we need to change the stimulus to create inefficiency once again. Changing the stimulus for your body, might be to change the number of reps you’re doing. Or it might be to change the speed. Or the time. Or the weight being lifted. Or the exercise.

You might have heard about people talking about plateaux in their training. They can’t get over a certain weight they are trying to lift. Or maybe they can’t get under a time limit. Whatever it is, changing the stimulus and creating inefficiency for the body will allow progress to continue.

The quote “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” is often attributed to Albert Einstein, but whether he said it or not is not important in this context. The take away message here is that with regard to exercise, not changing the stimulus will mean you struggle to make the progress you are after.

And that’s where I come in, creating structured programmes for my clients, that allow them to work towards their goals by building in inefficiencies through changes to their workouts.

Those changes are not random, or change for changes sake. They are deliberate and allow for continued progress, but are always dictated by the client and how they are getting on. Change might happen after a couple of weeks, or it might happen after a few months; all depending on how quickly their body adapts to, and becomes efficient at, what it is being asked to do. 

So despite the fact Vidal Sassoon might never have set foot in a gym, he was correct when he said the only place that success comes before work is in a dictionary. If you would like help structuring that work to help you achieve your health and fitness goals, please do get in touch. I’d love to be able to help you.