A lot of people join the gym each year to tone their bodies or achieve some fitness goals. And sadly, there are also a big number of people that quit the gym after some time. Reason? They are not getting results from the gym. The fact is, just going to the gym and doing some motions are not enough to get fit or see the results you want. It demands more than that. In this article, we will tell you why you are not getting results in the gym.
According to Personal Trainer Shay Michael, “A healthy lifestyle is much more than just lifting weights. It’s about stretching, warming up, eating healthily, and getting necessary rest and enough sleep.” It means, if you want to achieve your goals in the gym, you have to take care of all these things.
Not Getting Results in the Gym
Even though we all have our personal goals and measure success differently, there are some common reasons why people find themselves in dismay, not getting results from working out.
Your goals are unclear
Apart from not having a goal at all, another most common mistake most people make is that the goal they set for themselves is either set too far (which usually leads to a lack of motivation) or the goal is too unclear. The best approach is to set a goal and then split it into small goals and then achieve those goals one by one. In this way, you won’t get exhausted and you start seeing results. And ultimately, you achieve your final goal.
For instance, just wanting to lose weight or getting into better shape can be broken down into many smaller habits. Losing weight, for instance, means transforming the way that you eat, the way that you sleep, the way that you work, and what you order on weekends, etc.
So don’t set your goals too general and unclear. Be precise. Think about how much weight you need or you want to lose, for instance, or how many inches you need to shrink from your waist.
You don’t know why you are doing this
Question yourself; can you achieve whatever you’re aiming to accomplish? Are you ready to do what it takes to achieve that goal? If your answer is ‘no’ to either question, then you ought to redefine your goal.
Knowing your goal is an important thing but knowing why you are doing this is even more important. It is the source that gives you motivation. It makes you rethink why you started when you feel to quit.
You don’t know how to monitor progress
You might have heard, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” and the same goes for fitness. How will you know you’re improving? A goal is just an aspiration for transformation, and if you want to transform, you need to find out where you are and where you want to be. You need to be able to calculate that so you can tell whether you’re improving or not.
Setting achievable goals that you can measure is essential, but the next step is to understand how to observe improvement. For example, if your goal is to lose weight, don’t just keep hitting the gym and join every fitness classes that grab your attention. Get on the scale and see your progress yourself, week after week. If you want to get more powerful in a certain exercise, you can track the weight lifted or repetitions completed. All in all, tracking your progress is the easiest way to discover where you stand, what your progress is, and what more you need to reach your goal.
You are not changing your workouts
Another common mistake most gym-goers do is that they are not changing their workout routines. They keep doing the repetitive exercises that make them lose interest in the exercise and finally they give up.
The same basic routine is the hurdle blocking your way to better getting fitness results. The ideal way to change your workouts is to do functional training due to its sophistication. If you do frequently altered functional movements the hormonal responses in your body will be greater because your body won’t be able to adapt as fast and will need to work harder to keep up with the new stimulus.
Not getting proper diet
A good nutritional diet is another foremost key to getting the desired results. That doesn’t mean it has to be tedious but too many people conceive the gym as their first priority source for getting the body they want. When people start changing their mindset to consider the gym as something that compliments a good diet, things can start getting better. This applies to any goal, so it is important to get your nutrition right.
For any fitness goal, there is one fundamental rule that will always apply, whether you are new to the gym or a frequent or seasonal gym-goer. It’s the simple rule of energy in vs energy out.
If you want to lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit. In simple words, you need to eat fewer calories than you burn, every day.
If you want to gain weight, you need to be in a calorie surplus i.e. you need to eat more calories than you burn every day.
Not getting proper sleep
The process of muscle growth and repair happens when you sleep. Many studies have proven that people who get 6-8 hours of sleep a night and have lower stress levels have greater chances of reaching their goals. The ideal approach is to listen to your body. If you’re feeling tired, skip the gym or any other activity and get proper sleep instead. Try to sleep between the peak hours of 10 pm – 12 am, when levels of the sleep hormone melatonin are at their highest and this will facilitate sound sleep.
Apart from post-workout recovery routines, rest days, and active recovery, sleep is another vital factor in recovery. During your sleep, hormonal production is at its highest so the amount and quality of your sleep will directly affect your results.
You are not patient
This is probably one of the most noteworthy points. In quest of any health and fitness goal, you need to be ready to give it time.
Firstly, you have to accept that no matter what your goal is, you probably won’t see results straight away.
And the second, you will most likely face some ups and downs, where you’ll see less progress at some times and more progress at others. The aim is to don’t give up. Because slow and steady wins the race.