Get Off Your A$$ Already

It never fails to amaze me how some people just don’t seem to get it. I hear, read or see it every single day in letters to editors and in online chat forums – people complaining that even though they devote X amount of time being part of this community or that community or reading this book or that magazine and they still can’t seem to get the results that they want.  These same people often keep workout or diet journals in these online communities with details of consistently missed workouts.

Let me make this as clear as I possibly can for those that seem to missing a very important detail here – you can have the world’s greatest workout plan, that you are constantly doing research and study to further improve upon, but if you don’t actually get off of your ass and do it, you wont see any of the results that it’s capable of delivering.

Don’t get me wrong, I spend a boatload of time on the computer communicating with some of the greatest and most intelligent athletes and trainers in the world – I do some form of research every single day, sometimes several times a day but I somehow still manage to get results.  Why? – because I actually use the information that I compile and learn from others when I get into the gym.  I don’t doubt that some of these people have the very same desire that I do in regards to achieving their personal health and fitness goals, but if you continually let the pursuit of the perfect workout get in the way of you actually working out then it makes no difference what so ever.

The internet is loaded with fantastic sources of information, it’s not at all hard to find free information from some of the most talented strength and endurance athletes competing today, you can also find incredible communities devoted to helping people achieve the very goal that you aspire to.  Whether your goal is to lose weight, build muscle, run faster, get stronger, ride farther or climb better there is a very supportive community out there full of people who were once in your shoes and are willing to share what they’ve learned in order for you to progress towards what they have achieved.

The problem is that people fall in love with the research and the online relationships that they develop and forget about actually getting out and making progress toward their individual goals.  You can spend as much time as you want reading magazines and in front of the computer – as long as it doesn’t interfere with you getting to the gym to work on your body.  Think about this for a second – a large portion of the people who post missing workouts say that they’ve done so because of a lack of time, these are some of the very same people who spent an hour or two reading and posting on some forum (probably part of which focused on complaints about not seeing any results).  What you need to realize is that during the span of two hours of playing online or watching TV you could have driven to the gym, completed a totally kick ass workout, showered, been home and still had some time left to fool around.

Understand that if you are only looking to get in better shape, the route to your goal isn’t akin to rocket science, it’s actually pretty simple.  You need to create a simple workout plan – then get off your butt and perform according to said workout plan.  As your workouts become easier apply the rule of progressive resistance: add weight, add reps or add time as is necessary so your body continues to yield results.  Every six weeks or so change things up so your workouts stay fresh and interesting (so that you’ll continue to do them).

The bottom line is that there is no perfect workout, so stop searching for it.  Join and participate in online communities, read books and magazines and absorb all the information that your brain can process as long as you apply that information to the workouts that you are performing and not letting yourself get too sidetracked to actually get to the gym.  Get off your ass and get moving on a regular basis and the results will come – then you won’t need to spend so much time online complaining about how your progress is stalled.