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Working Hard or Hardly Working?

© Matt Danielson

I was in the gym the other day, spending the usual 45 minutes on an elliptical trainer. At Gold's in Mountain View, where I work out, the cardio section is pretty crammed so I couldn't help noticing a guy on a treadmill right in front of me. He had his back to me, as all the machines are lined up to face the row of TV sets, so I could watch undisturbed and get a valuable lesson in why people don't get any results of their training. This guy was middle-aged and really normal, you know, the kind of guy with a pot belly, bald spot, and a desire to get back in shape. So going to the gym is the best he can do, right? One would think.

Now, this guy started a warm-up, walking slowly for a couple of minutes while reading a newspaper. After his warm-up, he stepped onto the side-pods to get his feet off the belt, and cranked up the speed to the max. And then he went back to his reading. For ten minutes he stood, reading carefully, with his legs spread wide apart to avoid the moving belt. Then he decided that he was done reading, threw the paper away, and stepped on the belt. He actually managed to stay on it, although with some difficulty, for almost two minutes until he realized he was about to get a heart attack and cranked the speed way down. Then he jogged for 10 minutes, sipped some sugary sports drink (that most assuredly added more calories than he burned), and went straight to the scale to see if he'd lost any weight before going home.

I'm sure he'll get a washboard by next week. All jest aside, it IS quite depressing how people with good intentions can end up with no or even negative results once they try to get a grip on themselves. But this is not only an issue for middle-aged men who have this vague desire to get in shape but have no clue of how to go about it, there's another aspect of the same phenomenon with young, fairly bright and educated aspiring bodybuilders! They follow their training schedules religiously, they drink their protein drinks every night, and makes sure to never miss an issue of Flex and Musclemag. So why aren't they growing like crazy? Well, apart from using bad form, an easy to miss but oh-so-vital factor is that they rest 5 minutes between each set, yakking with friends. Not only do they totally lose their focus, but they also miss out on the fact that the muscles need a lot of bashing to be forced to grow. If you generously give your muscles time to recover, and then some, between each set, how do you get the required intensity?

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