Exercising vs. Training - A Controversial Debate
Defining Training
Exercising vs. Training is an interesting debate, as I find most people just ‘exercise’ without thinking about what they are doing. Before continuing, I should define the two and detail their differences:
- Exercising is about going to the gym and working out. There isn’t really a rhyme or reason to what you are doing. It doesn’t build on the last workout. There may be a goal in mind (IE, fat loss) but the workout is more just a collection of “stuff” rather than something specific. Typically exercisers just love to sweat and know that they are working hard, as a “hard workout” and “being sore” justifies the “stuff” they did the night before - whether it was beneficial or not is an entirely different story.
- Training on the other hand is about specifics. There is a goal, the program reflects that goal, and each session plays a distinct role in helping you move closer to that goal. Rather than doing “stuff”, the trainee goes to the gym with an objective in mind, or as I say a theme (I’ll talk about this in another article). They have certain things they want to accomplish that day and they make sure they take care of business. In addition, those that are “training” are very processes oriented and know that if today doesn’t not feel like a great day, they can back off of the intensity a bit, because the objective is to be there at the end of the program and not just destroy yourself in one session because “if you don’t work really hard and get sore after each workout it is a waste of time.”
With those two definitions in mind, it can be pretty clear to see exactly where you stand. Are you a person that heads to the gym and does a bunch of “stuff”? Or, are you a person that heads to the gym with specific information to guide you in the training process?
Fitness for the masses
I can’t tell you how many times I am asked questions about things like Crossfit, P90x, Insanity, or the poorly thrown together bootcamp workouts that have been popular of late.
These types of things (in my opinion) fall into the category of “exercising”. They have little to do with the training process and more to do with just giving you are hard workout. Whether or not that workout is beneficial to you (the individual) is moot. Rather, what is important is that you sweat a lot, get sore and perceive the workout to be hard. I emphasize perceive because these programs are nothing more than marketing hype.
I have talked to a few people who are satisfied with their results on all three of these exercise programs. They lost weight - which was their main objective - and they were excited about that because for the first time ever, they actually stuck to a training program. This is obviously excellent and one of great things about these programs is that they actually get people up and exercising and moving. However, upon further inspection of what they are doing, you find that their exercise technique is really poor. They haven’t learned anything because the program is constantly changing, and there is no time to build a foundation and adapt (Muscle confusion is idiotic and is nothing more than a marketing scam. Yes, the body adapts to training and yes you need to change things. But, you don’t need to change things from workout to workout and you don’t necessarily even need to change exercises, as any variation in training stimulus - repetition number, rep tempo, sets, rest interval, sequence, etc - will provide a enough of a change to force an adaptation without performing a totally different workout and not taking the time to learn how to properly train.). Finally, their results are usually accompanied by some sort of ache or pain that has either (a) been there before the program - meaning the program didn’t address this issue or (b) is totally new - meaning the program helped to create this issue (or the issue had already been created, but the inappropriate exercise selection caused the individual to be more “aware” of the issue).
Obviously there are going to be people who come back and say, “I got great results and feel fine!” There will be outliers with anything and programs developed for the masses will be appropriate for some and less appropriate (READ not appropriate at all) for others. One of the limitations is that there is no way to tell if this program is appropriate for you because there is no one there to assess you and get an idea of what a good starting point may be. The programs are simply designed to make people do work, and don’t address anything more than that.
Fitness for the individual
Training is an individual endeavor. The training program should address your limitations, your starting point, your goals and your needs. Most of the exercises in the programs I mentioned above are fine. In fact, I use a lot of them - squats, lunges, plyometrics, olympic lifts - in my training programs. It isn’t the exercise that is bad, it is what you bring to the exercise that is the problem. If you have limitations and restrictions in mobility, if you are weak and unable to perform those exercises at the intensity that is being shown on the DVD or in the class, or if you don’t even understand how to properly perform those exercises, you are asking for trouble! This is where the training program needs to stop, back up and say, “Wait a minute. This may not be right for you AT THIS TIME.” You then need to determine what IS right for you at this time. Where is your starting point and where are you training to get to? This is the training process and this is how training should take place and evolve. Rather than just doing the workout of the day and throwing you to the wolves, we need to get down to the “nitty gritty” and come up with something that is specific to you.
I talked to one guy that told me his back has been hurting for 2-weeks since his last Crossfit workout, where they were doing an ungodly number of hang cleans in a specific amount of time (this in and of itself is a foolish application of a great exercise). He asked me what he could do for his back pain and one of the things I told him was to stop doing silly workouts. He said he loved the training because it was hard and best of all, he could go on the website and get the workout of the day FOR FREE! To which I replied, “Back pain, FOR FREE…AWESOME!”
I can’t tell you how many people we have seen come to our facility after going to bootcamp for months and yet they have general aches and pains from training and extremely poor exercise form. I guess exercise technique is only a minor detail when the real objective is to make people sweat and get sore?
Conclusion
Working out is fun and important. There is nothing wrong with intensity (when it is appropriately applied) and I applaud several of these training programs for getting people up out of their seat and moving. However, the program should address your needs. Shy away from fitness programs designed for the masses and seek out something that is specific to you.
Patrick
15 comments
Great post Patrick. This is probably the best explanation I’ve seen of why muscle confusion is not a good training approach.
Thanks, Elsbeth. I am glad you enjoyed it.
The only thing “muscle confusion training” does is confuse the person on how to properly perform exercises, as mechanics are never fully established since the individual changes exercises so frequently.
patrick
a great explanation of a really common misconception!
Thank you Patrick, I’m printing this out and leaving at my gym. They are constantly removing benchs and racks to make room for more functional and crossfit workout space. it’s frustrating and annoying… Today the crossfit workout of the day including 100 deadlifts.
Michelle
Patrick, you mean the point of exercises is not to puke? You have to stop writing such good articles or I will be out of a job haha. Keep up the good work.
Mike
Michelle,
Thanks for spreading the word!
100 deadlifts? What the heck is the point of that?
Patrick
Mike,
The message isn’t important if people don’t listen. I am only one man and many will disagree with my article because it isn’t “hardcore” enough. Don’t worry, there will always be people who do inapropriate things and wind up in PT.
Patrick
I’m not sure you’ve accurately characterized what happens in P90X or Insanity (no idea about Crossfit). Both of those programs basically have a series of exercises that stay the same for three weeks. You then take a recovery week and begin a different series of exercises for another three weeks. That’s is followed by a recovery week and then another change. It isn’t some sort of mish-mash of workouts that are thrown together to completely confuse your body on a daily basis. It is training using periodization, which I use as a triathlete. You do one thing for 2 to 4 weeks, then lighten up for a week and change to another thing. That’s the concept that has been called, perhaps mistakenly, muscle confusion. With P90X it is different strength exercises, with triathlon it may be endurance or speed. It is important to understand that’s the foundation of these programs. Under your definition that is “training”. I wholeheartedly agree that just doing a different workout every day to burn some calories is largely a waste of time.
Hello Dave,
Thanks for your comments and taking the time to read teh article!
Even if the things change every 2 weeks or even 4 weeks. What sort of adaptations are we to ilicit in that short period of time? How much adaptation is taking place? Is three weeks enough to actually learn an exercise? That is my biggest issue with the program. Why not learning an exercise over 12-weeks? Instead of constantly changing exercises for the sake of adding variety, why not get really really good at a few things? What sort of periodization is being used? Most of the programs are circuit in fashion - do we build efficient strength or power with circuits like that? Where is the rest interval? How do people observe their rest interval when they are doing more intense plyometrics, to ensure that (a) fatigue is not creating technical breakdown and (b) fatigue is not creating a loss of power out put - which is the true goal of power training (not to just do plyometrics to get tired, which is silly, and those who use it this way don’t understand what they are doing).
I understand there is a foundation level built into the programs. However, who is to say what that foundation is for each individual who purcahses the DVDs and (more importantly) who is to say when that individual is ready to progress out of the foundation level and onto the next phase? Do most people training on their own know when they are ready to move to the next level? What sort of objective measurements are taken to ensure that people are moving in the right direction? Furthermore, what sort of objective information is gathered to ensure that people are ready for the given exercises in each phase? One exercises may be okay, but another exerise may be an inappropriate exercise for that individual. As physical therapist Gray Cook says, “Never add strength or fitness to dysfunction.” Are we sure people are moving properly? I saw one gentlement with some pretty intense hip flexor pain who was using the p90x program and he was doing the stretches all wrong and the plyometric progressions where horrible for him - not only in the fact that he technically was not proficient with the movement, but his hip mobility was so poor, that it was completely wrong for him to be trying to add strength and power on top of such a poor platform/base. In addition, he was a distance runner and was doing this as his “resistance training”, even though the plyometric progressions where to intense for the amount of miles he was logging in. I would steer any distance athlete away from these programs because the programs don’t take into account any specificity and they don’t change or modify themselves depending on where in the competitive season the athlete is - which can lead to huge issues with overtraining/overuse.
You don’t have to take my word for it. This is just my opinion. If you feel this is the absolute best thing you can be doing, then go for it. Judging by your website and the fact that you are a beach body coach, meaning you represent this company, I don’t think I will do much to change you mind.
Patrick
Patrick - You raise a number of valid points. Can P90X provide the type of individualized instruction that a personal trainer can? Never. That’s really not why it was developed in the first place. You’d be surprised how many trainers are coaches as well.
My main concern was that P90X and Insanity are accurately represented. I see a lot of articles written by people that have not fully examined them. Your article made it sound as if people were just pulling workouts out of a hat randomly (I’m not sure if that is how crossfit works). With that said, every individual could benefit from the help of a trainer to put together an individualized program.
And I think you assume too much when you assume that because I am a Beachbody Coach I am myopic in my view of exercise programs. P90X was merely a gateway into fitness for me, as it has been for thousands of people. Variety is the spice of life and that belief has lead me to try a lot of different things.
At any rate, I did not mean to hijack your blog here, and I apologize if the comment came out of left field. I saw the article posted on Twitter and wanted to chime in with my two cents.
Have a great weekend.
Dave
Dave,
Hijack? Nonsense! I appreciate you taking the time to offer your views and opinions. Imagine how boring the world would be if everyone agreed!
I wasn’t trying to imply that you are myopic because you are a beachbody coach. Sorry if you took it that way. Rather, I was just trying to say that you have money invested in the company and you make money from that investment, which can be a big bias in how your opinions develop. Like a trainer doing a specific certification and explaining it as the best certification out there, or a massage therapist taking a specific certification and offering it up as the greatest soft tissue technique since sliced bread.
Anyway, I see that you are in Scotsdale AZ. My facility is down in Tempe, just off the 101 and University. If you ever want to come down and check it out and perhaps discuss training just let me know.
Thanks for the correspondence,
Patrick
Patrick:
I think your article has portrayed the P90X and Insanity programs in too bad of a light. It looks like you are commenting on programs without having viewed the workouts, or have you?
For starters, I am not a Beachbody coach. I am a 49-year old female, 5 foot 3. I have been running and working out to home videos for 24 years. Choosing my own running program and videos got me to a certain level but I did not reach the level I desired. Finally two years ago I got stronger and more flexible using the P90X program. For example, I can now do 10 unassisted pullups and 30 from-the-toes pushups; these were goals I had. Finally this year I got faster in my running by adding in the Insanity program; another goal of mine. Finally I got comments of “You are looking good.” instead of “You are looking too skinny and need to put some meat on your bones.” Finally, I stopped clocking in on the scale at 103 to 106 pounds and now am at 109; this might help me reach my goal of not hearing my doctor tell me to gain weight at my next checkup. Finally I am very pleased with my body fat level and only want just a bit more strength and flexibility. Finally I come in near the top in my age group for 10Ks rather than on the low side of the middle.
I agree that a personal trainer would be beneficial for me as I am sure I am doing some things wrong. I agree that a running coach could do wonders for me.
I do understand that you have clients who do videos, book programs, etc. that are not right for them and that have injured them due to their base level, their needs, and/or on their inappropriate techniques.
Lisa,
Thanks for your comments.
It sounds like you have gotten some great results using this program. I am not taking that away from you. I am merely questioning the one-size fits all/cookie cutter approach to these training programs. As you said in your last paragraph - there are people who get injured because the program is not appropriate for them. The program has no way for those people to assess risk and no way for them to know where to start. I am not interested in the shotgun approach to training where you just doing everything and some people will fail and others will succeed. Putting your training in the hands of a DVD that has no rapport or knowledge of you is a pretty big leap of faith in my opinion.
patrick
I thought your article was interesting and made some good points. I do Crossfit; you’ve commented on one of the forum threads that I started on the oxygen site.
I appreciate that you’re respectful even if your opinion is different than mine.
Hi Shelley,
Thanks for reading the article and voicing your opinion.
You’re right, we don’t have to all agree. I am fine with disagreement. I am not trying to bash these types of training philosophies, but rather just offer my opinion that, “there is a better way”. Knowing that, if there were a better way, wouldn’t you want to do it?
Patrick
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