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One of my favourite movies of all time is The Usual Suspects. In a legendary scene Kevin Spacey, as Keyser Soze, tells Agent Kujan “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.” I can tell you that the greatest trick that the gym industry ever pulled was convincing the world that exercise has anything to do with weight loss.
Never mind that exercise isn’t a conceivable strategy for weight loss. The gym industry is banking on the fact that you will fail.
You just won’t go.
For a gym to be profitable it generally has to have a membership base ten times what it can fit inside the premises at any one time.
American gym chain Planet Fitness has on average 6500 members per gym. Most of their gyms can hold around 300 people. Planet Fitness can do this because they know that members won’t show up.
Why aren’t members showing up? They aren’t getting results.
One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding exercise is that it can rapidly transform your body. Gyms and personal trainers have long propagated this notion, and it’s been an amazingly effective marketing tool.
It’s sold millions of gym memberships and personal training packages. But these claims are best half-truths. Exercise is not enough on its own. Those who suggest that the overweight executive can solve their weight issues with a gym membership are ignoring what is by far the most crucial component of any weight loss plan: nutrition.
The research conducted by the American College of Sports Medicine, the peak body for scientific research in this field; show that 4–7 hours of aerobic exercise are needed to ‘promote’ the loss of 5% of your bodyweight.
An old adage that was passed through the fitness industry many years ago interpreted this research into these numbers: to lose 1 pound of fat (0.45kg) you have to expend 3500 calories of energy.
That would mean a 100kg adult would have to run 35km at 10km/hour or 6mins per kilometre. Put that into a training week and it becomes 3 x 10km runs (in an hour) plus one shorter 5km effort.
It may sound doable for a week, but try this as a beginner and you are sure to break down. Even if you avoid injury your body is constantly finding ways to become more efficient. As you get fitter the number of calories you expend will get smaller and the distance or pace will also need to increase.
The fact is, unless you are an athlete, you just can’t consistently exert the level of energy required to change your body weight through exercise. It must be done through nutrition.
Never mind that exercise isn’t a conceivable strategy for weight loss. The gym industry is banking on the fact that you will fail.
You just won’t go.
For a gym to be profitable it generally has to have a membership base ten times what it can fit inside the premises at any one time.
American gym chain Planet Fitness has on average 6500 members per gym. Most of their gyms can hold around 300 people. Planet Fitness can do this because they know that members won’t show up.
Why aren’t members showing up? They aren’t getting results.
One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding exercise is that it can rapidly transform your body. Gyms and personal trainers have long propagated this notion, and it’s been an amazingly effective marketing tool.
It’s sold millions of gym memberships and personal training packages. But these claims are best half-truths. Exercise is not enough on its own. Those who suggest that the overweight executive can solve their weight issues with a gym membership are ignoring what is by far the most crucial component of any weight loss plan: nutrition.
The research conducted by the American College of Sports Medicine, the peak body for scientific research in this field; show that 4–7 hours of aerobic exercise are needed to ‘promote’ the loss of 5% of your bodyweight.
An old adage that was passed through the fitness industry many years ago interpreted this research into these numbers: to lose 1 pound of fat (0.45kg) you have to expend 3500 calories of energy.
That would mean a 100kg adult would have to run 35km at 10km/hour or 6mins per kilometre. Put that into a training week and it becomes 3 x 10km runs (in an hour) plus one shorter 5km effort.
It may sound doable for a week, but try this as a beginner and you are sure to break down. Even if you avoid injury your body is constantly finding ways to become more efficient. As you get fitter the number of calories you expend will get smaller and the distance or pace will also need to increase.
The fact is, unless you are an athlete, you just can’t consistently exert the level of energy required to change your body weight through exercise. It must be done through nutrition.
Build muscle and then move it. It’s the simple advice to maintain your weight that very few take. Without weight training, the average adult can expect to lose approximately 0.25kg of muscle and put on 0.5kg of fat each year between 30 and 60 years of age. Building and preserving muscle mass is a vital strategy that you must begin today.
The total change in 30 years is a loss of 7kg or muscle and 15kg of fat. The net result is that the 60-year-old needs to lose 20kg to re-enter the healthy weight range.
The unhealthy adult lives in constant or nearly constant pain. This is the inevitable result of a weak frame, caused by decreased muscle size supporting far too much weight.
Movement becomes difficult. Muscles tighten, bones creak and ache, posture gets bent out of shape. It’s only a matter of time before something snaps and you find yourself facing a painful injury, one that might forever affect your quality of life.
The solution occurs in three stages:
MOBILITY — STABILITY
This is the Executive Athlete method. Mobility is always the initial focus. An injury is the very definition of backward progress. Once adequate (if in doubt see a physio) range or movement has been achieved then work on your stability (if in doubt see a trainer).
RESISTANCE TRAINING FIRST
This is the second half of the Executive Athlete exercise programming. When designing an exercise week I look at achieving a minimum of 10 points. A resistance training session is 3 points, interval cardio session is 2 points and low-intensity activity is 1 point.
TRAIN WITH YOUR LOVED ONES
This where the fun starts. To make a lifelong commitment to exercise you need to find a way to compete and even better to compete with your loved ones.
People are often more motivated to do something for others than to do something for themselves. To motivate my executives I encourage them to exercise with their children as they are more likely to make time for them rather than to make time to exercise by themselves.
This easily could have been a highly detailed piece on the best exercises for muscle building and improve your metabolic rate to reverse its age-related decline. But the best exercise sessions are the ones that get done, not talked about.
Training adherence for the executive is lead by avoiding injury and training with your children. Each moment with your children is a chance to observe and shape their development. Each second spent with them is a chance for you to lead by example, and, by doing so, influence the kind of person they will become.
The total change in 30 years is a loss of 7kg or muscle and 15kg of fat. The net result is that the 60-year-old needs to lose 20kg to re-enter the healthy weight range.
The unhealthy adult lives in constant or nearly constant pain. This is the inevitable result of a weak frame, caused by decreased muscle size supporting far too much weight.
Movement becomes difficult. Muscles tighten, bones creak and ache, posture gets bent out of shape. It’s only a matter of time before something snaps and you find yourself facing a painful injury, one that might forever affect your quality of life.
The solution occurs in three stages:
MOBILITY — STABILITY
This is the Executive Athlete method. Mobility is always the initial focus. An injury is the very definition of backward progress. Once adequate (if in doubt see a physio) range or movement has been achieved then work on your stability (if in doubt see a trainer).
RESISTANCE TRAINING FIRST
This is the second half of the Executive Athlete exercise programming. When designing an exercise week I look at achieving a minimum of 10 points. A resistance training session is 3 points, interval cardio session is 2 points and low-intensity activity is 1 point.
TRAIN WITH YOUR LOVED ONES
This where the fun starts. To make a lifelong commitment to exercise you need to find a way to compete and even better to compete with your loved ones.
People are often more motivated to do something for others than to do something for themselves. To motivate my executives I encourage them to exercise with their children as they are more likely to make time for them rather than to make time to exercise by themselves.
This easily could have been a highly detailed piece on the best exercises for muscle building and improve your metabolic rate to reverse its age-related decline. But the best exercise sessions are the ones that get done, not talked about.
Training adherence for the executive is lead by avoiding injury and training with your children. Each moment with your children is a chance to observe and shape their development. Each second spent with them is a chance for you to lead by example, and, by doing so, influence the kind of person they will become.
Exercise is part physical and part mental. This concept, to use your physicality to increase your mental output is one of the guiding principles of the Executive Athlete. The physical benefits are obvious and automatic. The mental benefits can be obscure and require your focus. When you learn how to derive the mental benefits of exercise you will dramatically increase the effectiveness of your workouts.
First, you need a goal. You need to make exercise a game. A game that you can win or lose. The goal you are striving for must mean something to you. When you create this game you open up an opportunity to feel elation when you attain it or disappointment if you fail.
The biggest mistake that executives make is that they don’t play the game. They don’t set exercise goals. They don’t open up to a new pathway for pleasure or achievement. They are either afraid of the potential loss or they don’t understand the mental side to exercise.
RESILIENCE
When you strive for a goal you learn how to build resilience. This is one of the fundamental skills of leadership.
When you exercise your body, you exercise your mind as well. The mental side is defeating the little voice inside your head that says, “I’m tired. My lungs are about to burst. I’m hurt. I can’t continue.” This little voice makes you want to quit.
When you learn how to defeat this voice in your training you’ll not only be improving your health, you’ll also be training to persevere when things get hard.
RISK
The amount of success that you achieve is related to the amount of risk you can tolerate.
Executives don’t win by playing safe. When you strive for a goal, when you narrow your focus on lifting a weight or making it to the finish line you learn how to build your risk tolerance.
In no other element of your life do you frequently get an opportunity to ‘go all in’ for the achievement of a goal? When you first lift the weight or start the run, you might make it, you might not. That is the risk you take.
SELF CONFIDENCE
Your level of self-confidence proportional to the quality of your experience.
In your training, if you regularly preserve when it gets hard, defeat the voice inside your head that tells you to quit and are pushing yourself to place where you risk failure..andwin..take a moment to think what the quality of your experience would be.
They say that winning is a habit. Exercise is an opportunity to establish a winning habit that an executive can into their professional and non-professional lives. Wins pile upon wins until the domain of the possible stretches beyond the horizon.
When you don’t play the game. When you don’t set a meaningful exercise goal you don’t get to experience these mental benefits to exercise.
The executive who is just ticking it off, going through the motions or who exercises out of guilt is on the defence. Their exercise with a mentality “if I don’t exercise something bad might happen” — they don’t develop a winner’s mentality.
This is displayed to me recently after I just missed my half marathon goal. The person I was talking to quizzed me “why set a goal, now you will have to do it again”. She doesn’t get it.
She is on the defence. She is playing it safe. This is a value that she lives her life by and one that she has passed onto her children.
First, you need a goal. You need to make exercise a game. A game that you can win or lose. The goal you are striving for must mean something to you. When you create this game you open up an opportunity to feel elation when you attain it or disappointment if you fail.
The biggest mistake that executives make is that they don’t play the game. They don’t set exercise goals. They don’t open up to a new pathway for pleasure or achievement. They are either afraid of the potential loss or they don’t understand the mental side to exercise.
RESILIENCE
When you strive for a goal you learn how to build resilience. This is one of the fundamental skills of leadership.
When you exercise your body, you exercise your mind as well. The mental side is defeating the little voice inside your head that says, “I’m tired. My lungs are about to burst. I’m hurt. I can’t continue.” This little voice makes you want to quit.
When you learn how to defeat this voice in your training you’ll not only be improving your health, you’ll also be training to persevere when things get hard.
RISK
The amount of success that you achieve is related to the amount of risk you can tolerate.
Executives don’t win by playing safe. When you strive for a goal, when you narrow your focus on lifting a weight or making it to the finish line you learn how to build your risk tolerance.
In no other element of your life do you frequently get an opportunity to ‘go all in’ for the achievement of a goal? When you first lift the weight or start the run, you might make it, you might not. That is the risk you take.
SELF CONFIDENCE
Your level of self-confidence proportional to the quality of your experience.
In your training, if you regularly preserve when it gets hard, defeat the voice inside your head that tells you to quit and are pushing yourself to place where you risk failure..andwin..take a moment to think what the quality of your experience would be.
They say that winning is a habit. Exercise is an opportunity to establish a winning habit that an executive can into their professional and non-professional lives. Wins pile upon wins until the domain of the possible stretches beyond the horizon.
When you don’t play the game. When you don’t set a meaningful exercise goal you don’t get to experience these mental benefits to exercise.
The executive who is just ticking it off, going through the motions or who exercises out of guilt is on the defence. Their exercise with a mentality “if I don’t exercise something bad might happen” — they don’t develop a winner’s mentality.
This is displayed to me recently after I just missed my half marathon goal. The person I was talking to quizzed me “why set a goal, now you will have to do it again”. She doesn’t get it.
She is on the defence. She is playing it safe. This is a value that she lives her life by and one that she has passed onto her children.
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