I had a conversation with a family member of mine about vegetarianism…If you can find lean protein sources other than animal meat, is it still good or are there other drawbacks or anything surrounding that regarding optimal health?

Answer

First of all, yes. In theory, non-animal protein sources can be used for good health, but realistically it’ll probably be a hard route to take.

The two aspects we’ll look at to understand this better are quantity and quality.

Quantity

Quantity is actually the biggest roadbump and as we’ll mention later on, quality just compounds the issue.

A fairly agreed upon realistic minimum for protein intake lies somewhere around .5 grams for every pound of bodyweight per day. Now mind you this is a minimum value and is geared more towards not excessively active individuals (walks in the park not counting as excessive activity) who are eating simply for maintenance and general health.

Let’s use a sample couple, Jack and Jill. Jack is a 5′ 9″, 160 lb male while Jill is a 5′ 3″ 110 lb female. Both are in generally healthy weight ranges, have desk jobs, go bowling once a week together, and go for leisure walks when the weather’s gentle.

Using our set minimum, Jack should be getting at least 80 grams of protein per day and Jill needs at least 55 grams.

To get an idea of how this would play out, we’ll look at what they might eat. Being both vegetarians, their main protein sources would be:
-Beans
-Nuts and seeds
-Soy/alternative milk
-Vegetables
-Grain

Beans
Beans, while they have a fair amount of protein per sensible serving, are more dense in carbohydrate. A cup of beans tends to range from 40-50g of carbohydrate (10-15 of which are fiber), while the protein is typically around 10-15g in that cup. Fat is usually virtually absent unless prepared with fats.

Nuts and Seeds
Nuts are much more modest in their carb to protein ratio, but are heavily a fatty food. A handful might have 2-6g of protein, only 3-9g of carb (1-3g being fiber), but 12-21g of fat. Seeds follow a similar trend. In a handful we see 5-9g of protein, 4-10g carb (none to 8g fiber), and 10-14g of fat.

Alternative Milk
Soy and alternative milks are somewhere in the range of 14/5/3 grams of carb/protein/fat in a cup. Some are fattier than others, but they’re all generally more dense in carbohydrate. Coconut milk is extremely fatty: a cup contains about 48g with only about 6g of protein and carb.

Vegetables
There’s a pretty good amount of variance in vegetable nutrient profiles, though most are naturally absent of fat. A cup of green beans is fat-free, has about 2g of protein, and about 8g of carb. A cup of broccoli registers as also fat-free, with 3g of protein and 6g of carb. A whole cucumber is also fat free and has 11g of carb and 2g of protein. A potato clocks in at a whopping 34g of carbohydrate, with 3g of protein, and no fat either.

Grains
There’s a decent range of difference with grains as well. A slice of whole wheat bread: 12g carb, 4g protein, 0g fat. A cup of plain, cooked pasta has 35g of carb with 7g of protein, and a single gram of fat. A wheat dinner roll is around 13g carbohydrate and 2g of protein and fat.

What all this number mumbo-jumbo really comes down to meaning is this: nearly all non-animal protein sources more concentrated in either fat, carb, or both. Because of their density in these other nutrients, and many of them are very fibrous and watery, they fill you up before significant protein is taken in.

Even under the assumption of a balance between all of those categories, it’s a hard goal to fill. A cup of pasta, a cup of broccoli, a handful of nuts or seeds, and a cup of beans with a glass of imitation milk would put the protein total at somewhere around 30-35g on average, and that’s a lot of food!

Jill would need a little less than 2 of these meals to hit her minimum, while Jack needs about 3. If beans seem to always give both of them gas (putting a strain on their relationship), it’s likely they’ll cut those out or cut back on them. If nuts and seeds give them the bubble guts and block normal digestive flow, they’ll get reduced too.

Worst of all, this is under the assumption that the protein taken in is all perfectly used, which sadly isn’t the case.

Quality

Vitamin content, mineral content, inflammatory factors, essential fatty acids, and some other components of food are of concern to health, but are beyond the scope of this response. For now we’ll stick to three components: digestive efficiency of different proteins, fiber, and protein quality.

Human digestive efficiency
No process in the body is seamless or perfect, and digestion is no exception. Animal products are absorbed the most efficiently at about 95%. An oddity is that peanut butter actually falls in that range, too. Vegetarians note.

But, save peanut butter, non-animal food isn’t digested as well. Only anywhere from 76% to 86% of those proteins are digested, the rest pass through digestion and down the toilet.
Our well-rounded 30-35g now drops to somewhere in the vicinity of 23-30g.

Protein quality
Protein quality, simply, is how well or not the human body will use protein after it’s digested. We wanted to address this because there’s a lot of back and forth on the protein quality of both animal and non-animal foods.

As silly as it is, despite all the arguments, protein quality is actually pretty irrelevant. If there’s general malnourishment, negative calorie balance with not enough food, and single-source poor proteins, it can start to become an issue.

But, since Jack and Jill live in a modern society with grocery stores, restaurants, and generally plenty of food (and I’m assuming most readers are too), this isn’t a huge concern.

Fiber
Among plenty of other health benefits, fiber is well known for keeping you regular. Of interest to us are three major qualities of fiber:
-Increased fullness
-Slowed gastric emptying/Fuller longer
-Impaired nutrient absorption.

The first two were mentioned earlier but to reiterate: because of them and the water content in the foods, it’s hard to eat a lot of them. People dieting can use this to their advantage as it’ll help control cravings for naughty foods by keeping them full from generally better foods. This works in the opposite direction for this situation, though. Fiber really fights against those trying to fit in adequate dietary protein to a non-animal diet.

As if that weren’t troublesome enough, fiber also blocks some absorption of nutrients. Our concern, protein, is blocked another 5 or so percent with the higher fiber nature of this eating pattern. By the time it’s all said and done, that food which was very filling and hard to stuff down only really brought in a functional 22-28g of protein.
Bringing Jill to need 2 of these meals or a little more to meet her 55g requirement, and Jack to need closer to 3 and a half or 4 of these meals.

If someone were heavier (raising his or her need), more active (raising his or her need), dieting (raising his or her need), or trying to put on weight (which typically implies mainly lean weight, so again raising his or her need), this gets a hell of a lot more problematic.

To Summarize

Lower protein density in non-animal foods to begin with makes it harder to eat enough protein initially. Digestive efficiency of these proteins limits how much of those are even absorbed. Fiber, a stronger point of this diet, not only is part of what makes these foods so hard to eat in high amounts, but even contributes a little bit to blocking protein absorption further.

More or less, while it’s technically possible to get adequate protein on a non-animal diet, don’t expect it to be easy street.

Did you have a question that you would like the EMI team to answer?  If so, send all questions to questions@eatmoveimprove.com.  We look forward to hearing from you!

I like this rule, and the more I train the more I realize that’s how it should be.

When you first get into exercise you just want to do it. But then you find out about all of this other information that you need to know to make your workouts, nutrition, etc. more effective. It’s overwhelming. However, it need not be that complicated.

Basically, the gist of KISS is keeping everything simple. There’s 4 things that you need to be doing to have good results with your training namely (1) training, (2) nutrition, (3) sleep, and (4) low levels of stress.

1. Training is best kept simple. Workout hard and rest hard. Put your best into your workouts, and they will give their best back to you. But when it’s time to rest, make sure you really rest. Don’t try to complicate things with so many exercises or so many varying repetition schemes – just work hard and you’ll get results. As you learn about your body and understand more then you may need to vary it up, but by then you’ll generally know enough that it shouldn’t be complicated.

If you ever find yourself thinking about programming for more than 10-20 minutes, you’re probably overcomplicating things.

Define goals -> Select exercises -> organize them into workouts -> Go do it.

2. Nutrition… keep it simple.

I think this article from the guys at LifeSpotlight says it very well.   Essentially, just eat real food.  Over in our beginners section we put together a great article that breaks it down into very simple, easy to follow guidelines.

3. Sleep is simple. Get 7-8 hours per night. Maybe a bit more or a bit less depending on your body’s needs. No exceptions. Make time if you have to.

4. Low levels of stress. Self explanatory. Don’t worry so much. Training and sleeping help alleviate stress, but don’t get all worked up about anything going on in your daily lives. Just step back, take a few deep breaths and deal with it.

Try to schedule some ‘you’ time every week – massages, learn new sports or do other activities, meet new people, etc. Chronic levels of stress will beat you down hard and be disruptive to your training so try to stay as stress free as possible.

Firstly, this article outlines a very simple, basic methodology that will allow you to take the first steps towards eating better for health. It is my opinion that this methodology is applicable for a vast majority of individuals. This article is not a list of healthy foods. Do note that there there is a sample menu listed below. This does not mean that this sample menu is anywhere near a comprehensive list of foods that are healthy.

This article will not address the dozens of ideologies and schemes that exist in mainstream dieting (high carb, low carb, etc.), nor will it address things like why breads/grains are poor dietary choices. Rather, it will address a structured, simple methodology to increase the “quality” of your food. This is what most credible nutritional sources will say is the first step to proper nutrition. If you need a simple rule of thumb and some interesting information on how to identify healthy foods then you should check out this article from the Life Spotlight.

Secondly, I want to point out that diet itself will not put on any muscle mass – for most people, anyway. While a small amount of weight loss is possible with purely dietary changes, proper diet must be coupled with an appropriate training regimen for your body composition goals in order to achieve optimal results. If weight loss is the goal then, oftentimes, there are significant lifestyle changes that come into play. I support changing diet first since it is easier for most people to change the way they eat than to add a new workout routine to a busy schedule. Once your weight levels off from dietary changes alone, then it is usually a good time to look into an appropriate exercise program. Ideally, however, diet and exercise should be part of one’s everyday lifestyle.

Finally, in the past I had some different foods listed as special food items. I have cut some items out of this list because I prefer that novices who are just starting out avoid high-carb meals. As a result quinoa has been removed from my list of “other good foods” and oatmeal has the caveat of eating one serving per day. These foods are very calorically dense and are not good choices when learning how to eat properly. These types of foods are great but their place is not in the program for someone just getting started, in my opinion. Do note that if you find that you operate better with more carbs then it is still easy to implement high-carb meals while adhering to the guidelines below.

I am attempting to keep this short so that most people will be able to fix their diet without going into too much detail.

I. High-Quality Food Categories

Without going into much detail we can boil high-quality nutrition down to 7 basic categories:
1) Vegetables – Source of carbohydrate.
2) Fruits – Source of carbohydrate.
3) Beans – Source of carbohydrate.
4) Meats – Source of protein.
5) Fish – Source of protein.
6) Nuts – Source of fat.
7) Seeds – Source of fat.
Oils – Source of fat. If trying to gain weight, pour it on everything including ice cream. Well…maybe not ice cream, but you get the point. If you need to gain weight, the fats listed on the table at the bottom of this site can be very useful. If you are trying to lose weight you should probably limit the amount of oil you consume due to the high caloric density

Additionally, there are some high-quality foods that are rather ambiguous and need to be addressed individually:
A) Olives – Source of fat.
B) Avocados – Source of fat.
C) Coconuts – Source of fat.
D) Eggs – Excellent source of protein. Interchangeable with meat sources. (1 whole egg = 1 oz. meat or 2 egg whites = 1 oz. meat)
E) Dairy

• Milk – Whole milk is good if you are trying to gain weight. Skim milk is good if you are trying to lose.
• Cheese – Only recommended to those who want to gain weight. Avoid if trying to lose.
• Cottage Cheese – 3% milkfat is fine if trying to gain weight. Low-/nonfat if trying to lose. Low-calorie fruits spruce up flavor.

F) Oatmeal – Source of carbohydrate. Eat this at most once daily as part of a balanced meal – which means you need to include protein and fat.

II. Menu Creation

With these categories, you can make a comprehensive menu of foods. On your own, personal menu, you should list any and all foods in these categories that you enjoy. Additionally, list any foods that you can just tolerate. As you get used to eating better, the foods you can barely stand now will start to taste better, as well. Remember, it takes 21 days on any regimen, whether its exercise, diet, or even a new job, before the whole ordeal becomes routine in your brain. Keep this in mind as you transition into your new diet – you will need at least three weeks to acclimate psychologically and physiologically.

Menus can vary dramatically from person to person and still be very “healthy.” Your menu should be your own and based on your personal tastes and preferences.

For clarity, an example of a good starting menu is shown below:

When you make your own menu, I suggest that you carry it around with you everywhere you go. The goal is to constantly expand the menu as you learn new food items that you enjoy that fit into these categories.

III. Five Simple Rules

These categories come with a basic set of five simple rules for each meal:
1) Many Veggies – At least 2 cups (total) of veggies with every meal. These can be spruced up by cooking with onions, garlic, spices and oils.
2) Always Meat – At least 4-6 oz. of lean meat or fish. Roughly speaking, 4-6 oz. is a palm-sized portion or larger. Lean meat is poultry (chicken, turkey, hen), lean cuts of beef and pork tenderloin. Most other cuts of pork are not lean. Avoid beef altogether when you are first starting since it is hard to identify the lean cuts when you are new. Some people eat over a pound of meat/fish each sitting, depending on their goals. A minimum of 4-6 oz. is a good place to start.
3) Fruits Vary – Some fruits, like bananas, pears, peaches and apples, are loaded with sugars so you should limit the intake of such fruits to one per meal. Other fruits, like berries and melon, can be eaten with virtually no limit. Berries should be a staple in all diets due to their high concentration of antioxidants. More information on the amount of calories in these fruits can be found by searching www.nutritiondata.com.
4) Replacing Veggies – If you aren’t in the mood for veggies, you can replace 1 cup beans for every 2 cups veggies. You can also eat beans with your vegetables, if you like. Try not to put veggies off, but its okay to do so sometimes. Veggies can also be replaced by fruit. High quantities of the low-calorie fruits such as berries, melons, etc., can replace vegetables. Alternatively, low quantities (1-2 servings) of the high-calorie fruits, such as bananas, dates, peaches, pears, etc., can replace vegetables, as well.
5) Eat Fat – Eat nuts, seeds, olives, avocado, coconut or olive oil with every meal. For weight loss, a male would want around 6-10 nuts, half an ounce of seeds, 4-6 olives, 1/4 of an avocado, 25 g. coconut or 1 tsp. of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). Do keep in mind that, oftentimes, women may consume much smaller quantities – sometimes as little as 50% of what is listed above – depending on their goals. In general, for weight gain, eat significantly more than these quantities – you will know when you had enough if you are trying to gain. As you lose fat and your goals change, realize that the amount of fat that you need will change, as well!

IV. Snacking

Snacking is acceptable when you are just focusing on improving the quality of your food. Snacking is encouraged by some methodologies and discouraged by others. Both have good reasons for these recommendations, and it usually depends on the context and goals. For those just starting, however, make sure your snacks only come from foods on your menu. If possible, make snacks contain a source of fat, carb and protein so that they are “balanced.”

V. Supplementation

One final note is that supplementation is something that should be done only when one knows what they are doing. Most times, supplements will be a waste of your time and money. The best way to get everything you need is through whole foods. However, I suggest three supplements below that I believe everyone should make part of their daily routine. Supplementing as specified below is relatively inexpensive when compared to the benefits MOST HUMAN BEINGS experience from this supplementation.

A) Supplement with 3-5 g of DHA+EPA fish oil. Every day. At a bare minimum, take in 2 g. Note that when I say 2 g. I mean the combined value of EPA and DHA. If your pills have 280 mg. EPA and 120 g. DHA then the total EPA+DHA is 400 mg. You would need to consume at least 5 of these pills daily.
B) Drink green tea. Every day. If you are concerned about caffeine, brew one cup with a green tea bag, discard the water, then use the same tea bag with fresh, boiling water. This eliminates most of the caffeine while maintaining most of the antioxidants for which we are drinking the tea.
C) 2 multivitamin pills daily, with food. Every day. Centrum brand is cheap and should be just fine. One should consider upgrading to a multivitamin with no iron so that dosages can be increased dramatically without worrying about iron poisoning.

1) Mistake: Not Enjoying the Process

Let’s be realistic – human beings typically don’t do things they don’t enjoy. Diet and training are no exception.

This is not to say that you need to love every minute at the gym. When I am going in for my last set of a heavy squat I sometimes can’t help but stare at the ground and mutter, “I really don’t want to do this.” The same goes for the sets of work for one-armed chin-ups. The negative feelings, however, are far outweighed by the positive. All in all, when I walk out of the gym I find that I thoroughly enjoyed myself – despite the fact that I may have had a bad day or didn’t perform as well as I wanted.

Similarly, when it comes to diet, very few of us are happy to watch everyone else eat the birthday cake or huge bowl of ice cream. Forcing yourself to sit on the sidelines of social eating is going to set you up for a poorly balanced diet. This is because many people fall back into the trap of consistently eating poorly after a “day off” from eating well.

This gives rise to two troubling questions: How can I enjoy what I hate? How can I consistently stay away from what I love?

To address the first question, we need to find goals that you would absolutely love to achieve. Maybe you really want to run that mile track around the park. Maybe you play in a weekend softball league and would like to get around the bases faster. Maybe you just saw a video of someone demonstrating parkour and that really lit your fire. Everyone’s life involves movements – find the movements you really enjoy performing and identify workouts and short-term goals to achieve them. Going to the gym for years to “look good” will have one of the following results:
(a) You stop working out after a short time.
(b) You get bored and become jaded.

To address the second question the answer is simple: don’t. Dieting and training doesn’t need to be boring. If you seriously don’t like tuna and brussell sprouts then you don’t need to eat them even though they are undeniably “healthy” foods. Instead, identify those foods that are really enjoyable to you AND considered healthy. Make a menu of these healthy foods and then you know exactly what you can eat and what you can avoid. Even then, once you have established a relatively “healthy” way of eating you may want to incorporate a scheduled “cheat day” into your routine. Avoiding the things you love for an unpredictable period of time is a proven cause of stress. Having a cheat day alleviates immediate stress; scheduling the cheat day alleviates long-term stress.

The key to healthy living and dieting is consistency. If you have one day a month or week where you eat a terrible meal that’s not a travesty. If you have terrible meals every day then its a problem. The best way to stay consistent in eating healthy is to schedule a cheat day (one day a week or something similar) and stick to it no matter what. This helps keep sanity and you get to really eat the things you love.

2) Mistake: Not Understanding Mistakes

Over my years of training in various disciplines, I obviously made many mistakes, learned a bunch, and grew from it. I see many people who, in their training, lack the open-minded nature to understand that what they are doing is not correct. Rather than admit that they may be wrong, they continue to do poor workouts without exploring their methodology. Understanding that you will err in some way is an important part of the growth process.

3) Mistake: Working Too Hard

When most people find their way into an athletic lifestyle, they get addicted to their sport and to being active. This is great but comes with a major caveat.

Many athletes, even some who consider themselves seasoned, often neglect the importance of rest and recovery into their regimens. Working out for 6 hours, 7 days a week, is a bit overkill. When I first fell into my athletic lifestyle I was going to the gym twice a day for 3 hours at a time, then would scratch my head as to why my performance was not improving.

A vast majority of the population can be considered a novice or intermediate trainee. At this level one can recover quite quickly from the stresses of a workout. Therefore, a short, 20-30 minute workout 6 days of every 8 will provide substantial performance gains. Depending on goals, these times and cycles will vary, but the bottom line is that less is usually more.

You must remember that you are an individual, and your own rest cycles will be determined based on your personal level (novice, intermediate, advanced, or elite) in your domain (all inclusive, power lifter, weight lifter, long-distance runner, short-distance runner, bodybuilder, etc.).

4) Mistake: Violating KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

A common error I see among novices, self included, is a lack of simplicity in diet and exercise routines. Usually those who become obsessed with fitness start reading very much, from very different sources. The sources never seem to agree and always seem to have very strong points that contradict one another.

Results, however, are one thing that you can never, ever question. At a novice and intermediate level, keep your workouts simple. Do not worry about your fast and slow twitch fibers. Don’t worry about your energetic pathways. Don’t worry about your omega-3 to omega-6 ratios in your diet. Sure, these things are important, but you are better off worrying about them when you know much more about them. If you stick to eating real, whole foods in tandem with a regular workout program then you can certainly see major results before you have much knowledge about the details.

If you try to make things too complicated too soon, it is disheartening and you wind up swearing off training, diet, research or all three because it is much too complicated.

An important thing to remember is that, no matter who says any different, no one knows EXACTLY how the body works. An overwhelming number of biological and physiological findings have occurred within the past 20 years, and most of the groundbreaking discoveries have only been happening in the past 100 years. Hell, DNA was only discovered in the 1940s. The effects of IGF-I on muscle growth are still being explored, and were only been discovered about a decade ago.

The point is, don’t let yourself get bogged down by science that is still yet incomplete. Train for results.

5) Mistake: Blindly Following Sources/Informers

This is where the fitness industry fails horribly in delivering quality content to its members. Standing in line at the grocery store you can be looking at five different magazines – each of which is advertising 10 days to flat abs or 30 days to sexy legs. Sadly, an overwhelming number of people begin a program involving these ineffective cookie-cutter workouts. The results are never good – this is just a bad idea.

Another bad idea is to not question a more scientific or practical source – such as an article from the Journal of Applied Physiology or the ACE’s certified personal trainer study guide.

Having dealt with dozens of PhDs and trainers on a daily basis, all of whom are well respected in their field, I have come to learn much about the knowledge possessed by both individuals on opposite sides of the spectrum. Whether the source in question is a PhD or a trainer, they have respect from a group of people somewhere. Their certifications, degrees and titles leave people with the impression that they know what they are talking about. While many PhD holders and trainers have an in-depth knowledge of a specific aspect of their field, oftentimes the buck stops there. Some individuals in these positions realize the limitations of their expertise. Others, however, apply their specific knowledge to a broad domain – which results in myths and falsehoods spreading through the fitness industry like wildfire. A good example of this is how many studies attempt to extrapolate data found in a nutritional study based on a population of ten undergraduate students.

Recent studies are showing that individuals totally turn off the part of their brain associated with critical thinking and counterarguing when they are confronted with advice from someone they consider an “expert.” [1] The way to counter this natural tendency is to remain vigilant and question all sources.

With this in mind, anything written by a trainer or PhD should be taken with a grain of salt until they have been proven credible through your own research or their acceptance in the fitness community in which you belong. Even then, one should constantly be trying to reevaluate the validity of the expert statements. Would you convict someone of murder based on a single eyewitness testimony? Some more hard evidence is usually needed.

You should always question what people tell you, including those who are “credible.” What you will come to realize over time is that some people know very much about one domain but know little about another. For example, Fred Hatfield (a.k.a “Dr. Squat” and, anecdotally, a PhD holder) knows much about heavy squatting, but I would not go to him for advice or information specific to planche progressions. Some (poor) trainers think that because they know much about one domain, that they know much about all domains. This is just not true. You will never see an expert on airplanes trying to fix a locomotive. They are two different things, both accomplishing similar goals, and you should keep this in mind when reading articles or asking advice from trainers.

A true professional trainer will not only enjoy answering these questions, they will likely be happy that you asked. If your trainer gets upset by questions like this I would seriously question their experience and merit.

6) Mistake: Lack of Goals

Goals are pretty much the only reason any of us exercise. Training is a means of achieving your goals. You probably have goals even if you don’t think you do. However, you likely have not framed them in a quantifiable, useful manner.

For a long time I had no quantifiable goals, I just wanted to “look better” or “not be fat.” You run into this mistake with a lot of people, in my experience. Their only goal falls into the following categories: “be skinny,” “workout without getting too big,” “be healthy,” “looking good naked.” To fix this trend, it is important to make sure your goals are quantifiable. Setting quantifiable goals, a wide variety of them, will accelerate your training vastly whether you are male or female.

Quantifiable goals usually have a magnitude and specific direction. “Be able to perform 10 kipping pullups” is a good quantifiable goal. “Lose 10 pounds by May 1″ is another good example.

Firstly, setting quantifiable goals gives you direction. It gives you something to check off a list. Studies show that creating to-do lists, and then checking things off of them, actually releases neurotransmitters that heighten mood. If you don’t believe this, try it for yourself – you will notice that crossing something off your list actually does give you a little bit of a high.

This is what psychologists call “positive reinforcement” and is known as the most effective method of behavior modification. We are modifying you as an athlete and your dedication to your training. Taking advantage of your biochemistry and psyche is a great way to accelerate your training and keep you focused on an ever-changing list of achievements. Before you know it, the list of goals gets tremendous and you have tons of new things that you want to do. With a longer goals list there is just that much more room for growth.

7) Mistake: Failure to Keep a Log

This is another one that is pretty major and often overlooked. When you do finally set goals, how do you know when you have achieved them if you never write them down? If you do write them down, but do not note your progress, how do you know that you are actually getting closer to your goal? If you feel like you are on a hamster wheel in your training, looking back over your log is a great way to make sure that you are not just running in circles but actually progressing.

Another aspect of log keeping, especially in a skill sport like parkour, gymnastics or weight lifting, is often overlooked. Recording your training in a log allows you to record how you have been FEELING during these workouts. Sure, your day of training might have sucked, but you might have felt that you were not up to par that day. Maybe you had a stuffy nose or you went on a bender the night before, which negatively impacted your performance. It also lets you note how much fear and/or confidence you had that day. I recently went to the Museum of Sports in NYC where some logs of elite-level athletes were put on display. Each of these logs not only listed performance metrics, but also their state of mind and thought process. It was nice to see things like “Felt great today, focused on positive thoughts and the game went really well” in an olympian’s training log. These small, seemingly insignificant thoughts impact your training, which impacts you reaching your goals.

Another benefit to keeping a log, especially if you maintain it on a forum, is that this leaves it open to critique and criticism. At this point, you should understand that you WILL make mistakes. Asking others, especially those with more experience than you, to review your logs allows you to get more detailed advice from them and achieve your goals faster.

Mistake: Misunderstanding Workouts Selection

It is extremely important to understand why you are doing what you are doing.

Perhaps someone suggested that you do a 5×5 linear progression on olympic lifts. Maybe another person told you to do a split routine including biceps curls, bench presses and front shoulder raises.

Which one do you do? What influenced your decision?

If you honestly don’t know why you do the exercises you are doing, then I recommend that you STOP doing them until you figure that out. A good example of this is wall sits. Many people do this exercise, but why? There are few, if any, situations where your body will be in this position functionally. Yet many people train this, some of them with goals to hold wall sits for over an hour. There are many workouts and goals like this. If that is what you want to do, then more power to you, but you should understand WHY you are doing it.

Once you identify why you are doing a certain movement, you should really verify that this movement/technique will actually help you achieve your goals. This can be done by seeking out external resources and experts with more experience and better formulated opinions than your own while you figure out the details.

9) Mistake: Arrogance

Once I started hitting some of my goals, particularly in weight loss, I began to think that if anyone needed advice they should come to me. It took me being put in my place by quite a few people before I realized that I did not know it all. I think this is just human nature, because since I realized the error of my ways, I have noticed this is a problem with many people.

One thing to remember when giving advice is that there will always be someone out there with more knowledge and information than you. Unless you can back it up with solid facts, don’t say it or pretend like you know anything about it.

Coaching people takes experience. Not just experience doing something for yourself, but experience as a teacher and a trainer. You need a solid understanding of what you are trying to coach. A solid understanding denotes that you have examined multiple people from multiple angles.

At my current level of experience and understanding I do not consider myself any sort of authority in any aspect of fitness. This is why I give most of my advice with the disclaimer that it’s based on my personal research and opinions rather than my professional knowledge.

This is something many people can, and will, learn the hard way. The hard way means posting or speaking out in public and being put in your place brutally by someone who knows much more than you. When this happens to you, then my advice is to embrace the moment, be humbled and hit the gym/library to learn more so it doesn’t happen again.

10) Mistake: Reinventing the Wheel

We see further ahead by standing on the shoulders of giants. That is, we learn more by learning from those before us. As I said before, there is no real reason to try to invent movements or ways of training. People have been training for centuries. Some of the best methods of getting strong and fast for long periods of time are already well known and developed.

It will save you a lot of time if you learn to ask the right questions and read the right articles so that you can stick with what has been shown to work, as opposed to trying new things that will just impede your training.

While gains at the highest levels of performance are constantly being reevaluated, you should wait until you know more about the techniques surrounding your goals before attempting to work out like an elite athlete.

Keep it simple and always focus on achieving your goals!

References:

1. Engelman, J. B., Capra, C. M., Noussair, C., and Berns, G. S. (2009). Expert financial advice neurobiologically offloads financial decision-making under risk. Public Library of Science One, 4, e4957, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004957.