“Fitness Trends That Don’t Work (And What To Do Instead)” – Monica May
Fitness is a ever-changing matter.
Especially nowadays with so many people getting into fitness, trainers and enthusiast experiment a lot hoping to make fitness more fun and much more appealing.
However, the reality is, not all of them work.
In fact, there are so many famous fitness trends around us, that in reality are not that effective and don’t hold up to the hype around them.
And today, we’re going through all of them.
And I’m not saying there is a bad workout because we all know the drill – the only bad workout is the one you didn’t do.
However, when we already spend so much time working out, we might as well make the best out of it.
So, without further ado, lets jump into them right now!
Fitness Trends That Don’t Work
Single Exercise Challenges
I’ve talked about this so many times – there’s no such thing as a single “best” exercise, and the real deal in fitness is variety.
That’s why I don’t believe that single-exercise challenges really work.
Doing one movement for a set amount of time and hoping to do huge body changes is not realistic.
Doing 500 reps of crunches a day won’t give you the abs you wanted.
As I’ve said before, it’s not possible to spot-tone or reduce fat just by doing one single exercise.
Heated Cardio Classes
If you haven’t heard of heated cardio before, it’s basically a heated fitness class that sets up the temperature to 80 degrees or even higher in hopes for bigger sweats.
Now, it all sounds legit, until you dig in a bit and find out the facts.
Turns out that even though you feel like your workout is harder and more effective when you’re doing it in a hot room, the only thing that happens is your workout suffering.
In fact, it only feels harder to your body, since it’s using so much energy to cool itself off, and it certainly becomes much harder to workout at the same intensity level as you’d be able to normally.
That being said, more sweat does NOT equal a harder workout, and sweating is only your body’s way of cooling down.
It’s not an indicator for a harder workout, or higher intensity, and it most certainly not and indicator for bigger results.
Instagram/TikTok Workouts
Instagram and TikTok slowly evolved from people dancing and taking selfies, to a point where you can quit the gym and basically conduct your entire workout routine from your feed.
And while that’s a great way to discover and learn new workouts and more and find effective exercises that can spice up your workouts, you shouldn’t rely on them alone.
While there is quality content, there are tons profiles that are more entertaining than they are educational and effective.
Especially, accounts that post videos exercising with toilet paper rolls and suitcases, explaining workouts in brief (or not at all) and do not offer advice or show any techniques, reps and sets.
Not to mention the fact that you’re probably getting unrealistic impressions that you can achieve it all if you follow just those 4 brief exercises.
Unfortunately, you can’t.
In fact, what you can see in a 30 second video is most certainly not the workout routine that influencer is doing on a daily basis.
She is fit because she has a workout program that’s usually 30-60 minutes a day and doesn’t include objects from the house, but actual fitness equipment.
So, yes, you can steal a workout or two, be creative and try it out on your next session, but never rely on those workouts to be your primary focus.
Isolated Workout Programs
Oh, I know the drill:
1 Week Booty Challenge To Grow Your Booty.
Tons of workout programs that promise you a bigger booty, or smaller waist and doing isolated exercises just for that body part.
Sorry to break this down for you, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – you can’t do spot training, because spot training doesn’t work.
Our bodies doesn’t work that way.
And unfortunately we cannot choose which body part we want to lose weight from.
What we can do is work on our bodies as the whole pieces they are, and make sure to get fit overall.
We can focus on a certain muscle group more along the way, however, working out on the body as a whole piece is necessary.
Cardio Only Workout
Yes, cardio burns calories.
And yes, it helps you lose weight.
However, you most certainly can’t rely on cardio only if you want to achieve great fitness results.
You have to understand that working on your muscles burns fat too and is an important part of the fitness process.
In fact, strength training burns twice as much calories, compared to the ones burned when doing only cardio.
And while it’s true that doing steady state cardio will probably help out with weight loss, it’s actually totally unnecessary if your main goal is fat loss.
I’m not saying that you should never do cardio.
You just don’t need dedicated cardio sessions.
Cardio is actually one of the least effective fitness modalities for weight loss.
In fact, you can achieve that in many different ways that are not as boring and are a lot more effective.
We’ll head on to them in a second…
What To Do Instead
Find a workout program that works for you in terms of body goals, time, intensity and effectiveness.
For me that’s HIIT.
After long years of a gym workout, doing mostly weightlifting split training that lasts for hours and boring cardio on a machine that feels like an eternity, I realized that I’ve been wasting precious time on something that’s not that effective.
Oh, the countless times I’ve left the gym after an hour and a half of workout, without even breaking a serious sweat and without feeling like I’ve reached my maximum…
Not to mention cardio, which when done on a cardio machine, takes at least 15 minutes just to possibly enter the fat-burning zone, and not to mention burning fat.
Well, that’s not the case with HIIT.
HIIT is designed to push you to the limits and give you the maximum amount of benefits in a shorter period of time.
Quality HIIT training sessions are approximately 30 minutes a day, warm-up included, which is amazing for anyone with a busy schedule.
Yes it is hard, yes it pushes you far away out of your comfort zone and yes you think you’re going to die.
But that’s exactly what it takes to make a real change.
It’s not boring, nor to you nor to your body.
You can read more about my workout program here: Lose Weight & Build Muscles At The Same Time – All About HIIT
I really hope I cleared out some common fitness trends that are ineffective.
I hope some of them are already vanished by the time you read this article, since I’m mainly talking about 2020 fitness trends in this article.
However, in my long experience in fitness, these trends are usually here to stay for years ahead.
That being said, share this article with your friends and workout buddies to help them get on the right track.
Till next time, babes!
xoxo
Thank you so much for posting these awesome articles. I very much enjoy reading them and use them to help my weight loss and fitness in check. They are very encouraging indeed
Thank you again and continue with the awesome work. You rock!!!!
Kindest regards
Nina
Thanks a lot, I appreciate your opinion, and I am glad that you liked my blog! ^^
Best wishes to you!
I think the title should say something more along the lines of ” fitness trends to reconsider” rather than ignore. I am a trainer, dietitian and exercise physiologist. People will take your title literally and run with it . . . Just a thought, I do agree with the reasoning behind most of your info
Thanks for the advice, I agree with you!
This article seems a little irresponsible to me. Yeah weights are important but so is cardio. Calories matter a lot. 3000 healthy calories a day left unburned equals weight gain no matter who you are.
Hi,
what I’m saying is that it’s better to have 2000 healthy calories, than 200 junk calories.
The healthy, natural calories are burned faster. Our body recognizes them, and it burns them faster.
Also, it all comes down to healthy living and workout. If you workout daily, you can make it through the weight loss process only by eating healthy, natural and colorful foods.
All the best!
How are “healthy”, “natural” calories burned faster?
Hey,
When we eat healthy organic food, our organism uses more calories to burn it. That’s how it works. With the processed food, our body uses fewer calories to digest it, so we find ourselves getting empty calories.
Monica
Thank you for posting this! This is a great little post and it is very true! One of my pet peeves as a health enthusiast is hearing “count calories” to lose weight. It is so not true! You must eat pure and healthy and exercise well in order to obtain a healthy fit body!
I think you’re wrong about counting calories.
Well, I have a whole post about why we shouldn’t count calories. You can read it and see my side of the story :)
I know that it is one really specific topic, but I took my side, and here I am fit and toned, without having to count a calorie in my life.
My point is that you should think about healthy, not some calorie unit. If you workout, you’ll lose that calories as an energy anyway, right?
All the best to you
Monica
I think both of your opinions have truth – the biggest key is awareness. Pay attention to what you are putting into your body, when and why – think about what the food will do for you (benefits of eating that particular food) vs. potential consequences.
Sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but you are totally wrong about counting calories. And giving wrong information is not helpful. 3500 calories equals 1 pound. You eat more calories than your body burns, regardless of where those calories come from, you will gain weight. That is fact, and that is thermodynamics. Look it up. Now, if you are talking about changing body composition, body building competitors manipulate their macros to achieve a certain look, lean, but they always stay in check with their calories, while eating very clean, either in a calorie deficit to lose fat or calorie excess to build muscle.
I hear you, many people count calories nowadays, but all I’m saying is – Healthy food is healthy foods, no mater how many calories you’ll count in it.
My first example is coca cola zero and a hand full of almonds – What would you choose?
Zero calories vs 300 calories right, you’d probably choose the coke.
But let’s see it the other way around – almonds are natural source of proteins, fibers, healthy fats, vitamins and minerals, and they’ll load you up with long lasting energy and lots of nutrients.
And what will the coke provide? How many nutrients for the zero calorie it contains? You know how many? Zero!
And along the way, it will mess up with your liver, blood sugar levels and your dopamine will rise to the sky wanting for more.
Well, this is why I don’t believe in calories, because as long as you eat healthy, you’re all set.