Most of us spend our lives trying to make things easier. We look for the quickest route to work. We automate tasks. We batch emails. We optimise routines. Efficiency is practically a modern virtue. If something takes fewer steps, less effort, or less time, we consider it a win. But when it comes to fitness and strength, the very thing we strive for everywhere else, efficiency, is exactly what holds us back.

Our bodies are brilliant at adapting. That’s their main job. When you repeat the same movement patterns over and over again, your nervous system and muscles learn how to perform them using less energy. The movement becomes smoother, more coordinated, and more economical.

Which sounds great… until you realise what that means for training.

If your body is getting more efficient at the same exercise routine, it’s actually doing less work.

And less work means less stimulus for improvement.

Think about the first time you tried a new exercise. Perhaps it was a squat variation, a kettlebell movement, or even something as simple as a new core drill. It likely felt awkward. Your balance was off. Muscles you didn’t expect started firing. You might even have felt slightly clumsy.

That awkwardness is pure gold.

In those moments your body is solving a new problem. Your brain is recruiting muscle fibres it hasn’t needed before. Stabilising muscles wake up. Coordination pathways are built. Strength develops in slightly unfamiliar ranges. In short, inefficiency forces adaptation. However, our brains are wired to avoid this feeling.

Humans like competence. We like being good at things. Once we’ve learned a movement, repeating it feels satisfying because we can perform it well. We know how heavy to go, how it should feel, and what the rhythm of the set looks like.

It becomes comfortable.

And comfort, while pleasant, is rarely where progress lives.

Left to our own devices, many of us will repeat the same exercises for months or even years. We become very good at a handful of movements. Our technique improves. But gradually, the training effect plateaus because the body has solved the problem.

It has become efficient.

This is why well-designed training programmes deliberately introduce change. Not constant chaos, but thoughtful variation. A squat might become a pause squat. A press might move from dumbbells to a barbell. A stable surface might become an unstable one. A bilateral movement might become unilateral. None of these changes are random. Their purpose is to make the body slightly inefficient again.

Suddenly the familiar movement feels different. The muscles must coordinate in new ways. Stabilisation becomes more demanding. The nervous system has to work harder to organise the movement.

And with that renewed challenge comes renewed adaptation.

Interestingly, elite athletes rely on this principle constantly. Their training cycles are structured so that exercises evolve over time. Load, tempo, angles, and implements all shift slightly. It keeps the body from settling into a fully optimised groove. The programme stays one step ahead of efficiency.

For everyday exercisers, the lesson is simple.

If a workout starts to feel too smooth, too predictable, and too easy to repeat week after week, it may be time to introduce some new friction. That doesn’t mean abandoning what works, but rather nudging the body into new territory.

Try a variation. Adjust the tempo. Change the order of movements. Add pauses, single-limb work, or different equipment.

Let things feel a little awkward again. Because when it comes to strength and fitness, awkwardness is often where growth begins.

So while the rest of life may reward efficiency, fitness often thrives on the opposite. The small inefficiencies; the wobbles, the unfamiliar patterns, the slightly uncomfortable challenges are exactly what push the body to become stronger, more resilient, and more capable.

So the best way forward is not to make things easier. It’s to make them just inefficient enough that your body has no choice but to rise to the challenge. 💪

And if you would like some help with becoming stronger and fitter and healthier, please click the gold button below this paragraph to get a sensible chat in the diary where we can discuss where you are now, where you’d like to get to and how we could work together to get you hitting those targets.