A Small Discussion on the Basics

You see, there is one common mistake people make, and they make this mistake in their fitness, health, and nutrition goals. That mistake is that they overcomplicate all their efforts and skip focusing on the basics. Essentially, they are missing the forest for the trees and stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. Remember, you have to learn to walk before you can fly. In this article, I want to talk with you about the most common mistakes people are making and what nailing the basics really looks like.

Nailing the basics in the gym

This idea is especially important if you are within your first year or so of working out. Far too many people are too quick to do super complicated movements and obscure programming. A couple common examples of this type of obscure movement are doing squats on an upside down bosu ball, doing curls while in a wall squat, or putting a band around your legs for all of your leg workouts. Another problem people tend to make is when they try to “shock their muscles.” When people say this, they are saying it as if you can confuse your muscles and doing different workouts all the time will work some magic to stimulate faster growth.

So, my biggest tip in the gym: don’t do complicated movements just because they look cool and don’t switch up your training plan all the time to “shock your muscles.” Try to keep it simple, and here is what that looks like. First, focus on the basic movements. For your upper body, that will include the following: horizontal push (i.e. bench press), horizontal pull (i.e. rows), vertical push (i.e. shoulder press), and vertical pulls (i.e. pull ups or pull downs). For your lower body, the basics will include the following: squat patterns (i.e. barbell squats, leg press, etc.), and hip hinges (deadlift patterns, hip thrusts, etc.). Of course, these movement do not have to make up the entirety of your training, but they should absolutely make up the majority. Your workout program should be individualized to your goals, life style, etc., but regardless; these are the movements that people should spend the most time doing.

Further, try to keep the same workout routine for at least a month and don’t do crazy different workouts every session. It is best to just try to pick a few movements you want to get better at and do accessory movements in addition to them. Let’s look at example. Let’s say you do one squatting motion in your leg workouts. What you should not do is barbell squats in one leg workout, then leg press the next leg workout, then lunges, in the next, then Bulgarian split squats in the next, etc. What would be better to do is something like this: let barbell squats be the squatting motion you do in every legwork out or every other leg workout for at least a month. You don’t have to pick barbell squats as the squatting motion you do, you could use this logic with leg press, lunges, etc. Further, this idea could also be applied to your chest, back, etc. Also, you are obviously welcome to do more than one squatting motion in a leg workout but the point I want to make is this: keep the plan the same and the workouts similar for at least a month before changing things up; your progress will be much better following this.

Nailing the basics in your nutrition

This is where many people end up choosing the complicated path, and understandably so. Social media has made this a very confusing place. I believe this is because consistency, hard work, and basic principles aren’t ideas that sell very well. However, if someone can confuse you about nutrition, say you need to eat a specific diet and take specific supplements, and then convince you that they know it all by throwing a bunch of big and scientific words at you, then they can sell a little easier. Before trying to follow any specific and restrictive diet plan or spend a bunch of money on supplements, try to just follow these rules and take any other steps after (spoiler alert: you’ll likely end up reaching your goals just following these):

1.     Eat enough protein in a day (about 1.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight; to find this just divide your bodyweight by 2.2 and then multiply that by 1.8).

2.     Eat 3-5 servings of fruits and vegetables on average each day and try to a variety of fruits and vegetables.

3.     Eat between 20-30 grams of fiber a day.

4.     Adjust your calories outside of these rules in accordance with your goals (more calories if you want to gain weight, less calories if you want to lose weight, maintenance calories if you want to maintain your current body weight).

Once you start following these rules, then you can start thinking about adding supplements if you really want to. However, you should understand that the supplements will be more effective when you nail these 4 ideas. Of course, if you have specialized needs (kidney disease, PCOS, diabetes, etc.) you should speak with your doctor or a registered dietitian.

The most underrated factor for better health, performance, and well being

On top of what we have just discussed, there is one more piece to the puzzle that is equally, if not more, important. What I am referring to is good sleep. I know, you were probably hoping for something a little more exciting, but this really is more important than people realize. Far too many people just use coffee and energy drinks as a band aid for the problems that bad sleep is causing them. You might not be able to get good sleep every night, because of course life happens and sometimes you just can’t sleep. I am also definitely a victim of this as well from time to time. However, I guarantee that when you are getting good sleep you will feel better, be more productive, feel stronger, need less coffee, and reach your body composition goals faster (whether it’s fat loss or muscle gain). Here are a few tips to help you get better sleep:

1.     Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. For many people, this is the hardest one to get down, but it allows your body to have a regular sleep cycle so it knows when to cool down and when to wake up.

2.     Try to limit electronics before bed and/or read a book before falling asleep.

3.     Make your room as dark as possible such as using black out curtains or an eye covering.

4.     Try to not have a caffeine any later than 6 hours prior to the time you want to fall asleep (I say 6 hours because that is the half-life of caffeine in the body).

Conclusion

Likely, none of the ideas and tips I talked about here sounded like rocket science to you, nor was it my intention to show you any magic short cuts. However, the main point I want you to take from this is that getting the basics right will give you far more benefit than any magic exercise, supplement, or diet.