What are the most underrated fitness tips?

What are the most underrated fitness tips?

At the risk of being overly semantic, the hardest part of getting fit is consistently doing the things that would get us fit. The hardest part is showing up. Quite literally, the hardest part is consistency.

Getting fit is a by-product of the choices we make. Being fit is a state that exists only to the degree that we are doing the things that would make us fit. We keep doing those things and we keep getting fitter. We stop doing those things and we stop growing our fitness.

One thing that helps with being consistent in the gym is properly addressing a workout. This is called scaling.

When we consider scaling workouts, both as coaches and as athletes, it is very important to consider three things:

Safety

The most important being the athlete’s safety. Some movements or loads are simply too much for us to handle safely. As athletes, we have all had to deal with previous injuries, or current pain that could limit our ability to perform. If we are chasing after an Rx next to our name we could end up pushing ourselves past our limits and doing further damage.

Movement Mechanics

My second case for scaling is our experience or ability level with specific movements. We all have movements that we dread seeing show up on the whiteboard. One of the great things about FCF is the continued opportunities to improve upon our weaknesses. Scaling the weight or the movement can afford us the opportunity to get better at skill or movement until we feel more comfortable.

What we want to avoid is sacrificing movement quality just to move heavier weights. This could lead to bad habits concerning our movement quality. The more we ingrain bad movement patterns into our nervous system, the harder it is to break those bad habits and reset good movement patterns.

Intent

We can still keep the intended stimulus of the workout by scaling the weight or the movement. Our goal should be to have ourselves working within the intended time frame under the appropriate intensity. This way we are training the same metabolic pathway as the prescribed workout had intended. For example, the infamous workout “Fran” should be done in five minutes or less. If we don’t scale appropriately and complete the workout in 12 minutes, we’ve missed the point of the workout, and therefore are not progressing in our health and fitness journey.

Our coaching staff are very skilled and knowledgeable in finding the appropriate scale for anyone who is uncertain of how to scale a prescribed workout. Remember we want you to stay safe, keep striving to be your happiest healthiest self.

See you in class!

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