Decrease Your Failure Rate: A Guide to Fitness Philosophy

Like most things in life, guiding principles and philosophies can make decision-making much, much easier. These allow you to accomplish your goals without stumbling on common pitfalls. For example, let’s say your guiding principle is I want to lose weight. By simply reflecting on the principle when a difficult decision or situation presents itself, you’ll be more likely to choose wisely. Should you eat that piece of cake? Should you watch TV or workout for 10 minutes? Should have a hamburger or a chicken salad?

This simple method of comparing decisions to personal principles and philosophies may seem obvious, but they have the power to make a substantial difference on your results. They make things simple, helping you avoid an internal dialogue that may enable you to validate poor decisions through random justifications.

For example, you may decide to eat that piece of cake because you worked out earlier today, you’ve been really good for the whole week, you had a rough day and you deserve it, and on and on and on. Alternatively, if you compared the decision to your principle: Will this help me lose weight? You would quickly realize that no, it will not help you lose weight. End of the decision making process!

In my fitness company, we have developed a set of principles that are applied to both the business and the Unconventional Training methods that we practice and teach. We call them REAP: Results, Efficiency, Autonomy, and Precision.

Results
Before any action is taken, the results and purpose of that action are considered. In training, this means frequent assessments and goal setting. Progression is an important aspect of results; in order to continue getting results, increasingly difficult challenges must be pursued. That is why MBody Strength trainees frequently wonder why training sessions are always difficult, no matter what shape they’re in. We make the workouts harder through reps, weight, or method, every single time.

Efficiency
Once objectives are set, the most efficient methods to attain them must be learned. In fitness, this means high-intensity training methods; less time spent training and faster results. That is why we constantly review and test different training methods.

Autonomy
We design workout programs for clientele and exercise information online to allow people to gain sustainable independence in fitness. We believe that proper health and fitness requires a lifetime of dedication. For this reason, it is impractical to think that anyone (other than the wealthy) can afford trainers over their entire lifetimes. Our personal training is designed to train clientele through specific training methods (such as kettlebell training), showing them essential exercises with proper form and how to construct workouts independently. In addition, clients also learn how to eat healthy and construct their own diets.

MBody Strength also maintains an online, free database of exercise demonstrations, workouts, and other fitness information which can be used by anyone to stay fit and healthy. Our goal is to help as many people as possible, as fast possible.

Precision
We emphasize perfect form for each exercise. Having perfect form is essential to avoiding injury, allowing you to get the maximum benefit from each repetition, and ensuring an understanding of the benefits through careful focus. Rather than teach each trainee a hundred different ways to train with a dozen different tools and methods, we break the process down into simple parts that can be easily taught and understood.

So, if you want to decrease your failure rate, make a personal principle or philosophy and follow it. You’ll find that achieve your fitness goals (and improving your life), will be much easier.