Are You Exercising Or Training?
Are you exercising or training?
But don’t they mean the same thing?!
No, exercising and training are not the same thing. There’s a difference between the two. While often used in place of one another, they’re NOT interchangeable. Your success depends on your understanding of this.
Why?
Because learning the distinction between the two will go a long way to not only figuring out what to do if you’re just beginning your fitness journey but it’ll also help to find out what camp you’re in, from which you can better grasp why you’re not getting results from whatever the fuck you’re currently doing.
CAUTION: Deciding to read on may very well lead to you becoming a traitorous traitor and defecting to the winning side.
Based on the definitions provided by Mark Rippetoe, author of Starting Strength and world renowned hater of all things Crossfit — bless that man — exercise is:
physical activity performed for the effect it produces today — right now. Each workout is performed for the purpose of producing a stress that satisfies the immediate needs of the exerciser: burning some calories, getting hot, sweaty, and out of breath, pumping up the biceps, stretching — just punching the physical clock. Exercise is physical activity done for its own sake, either during the workout or immediately after it’s through.
Conversely, training is:
physical activity performed for the purpose of satisfying a long-term performance goal, and is therefore about the process instead of the workouts themselves. And since the process must generate a definable result at a point in time removed from each workout, the process must be planned to produce this result.
So once again, are you exercising or training?
Those who exercise pop in Tony Horton’s P90X, Shaun T’s Insanity, or the latest celebrity fitness DVD by so-and-so. They go to the gym and either do excessive cardio. perform a series of arbitrary movements with free weights and machines, or both. And then you have the rare bird who does all three — what is commonly referred to as “the trifecta of WTF”.
Why do they do what they do?
*shrug*
Beats me.
The reason beats them too.
They do what they do all for no well-thought-out reason beyond the vague desire to lose weight and “tone up”.1What the fuck “tone up” means, I don’t have a bloody idea. Either that, or they do what they do to experience some acute sensation, such as feeling the burn while they lift or crippling soreness the day after.
These are the people who remain the same day after day, week after week, month after month, godawful Michael Bay film after godawful Michael Bay film; from decade to decade, century to century, millennia to millennia. Beyond their newbie gains, they never make improvements, visually and in terms of strength, despite their being physically active.2If they do make gains, it’s very marginal.
Those who train not only say they want to lose weight, improve a lagging body part, break a strength plateau, become muscular, blah, but they also map out HOW they’re going to reach that goal.
Not only that, but this plan consists of progressive overload, or changing the amount of stress (e.g. weight, sets, reps, tempo, time under tension, rest periods) placed on the body for the purpose of having it respond by making the wanted adaptations in strength, muscle size, body composition, etc.
These people tend to do the same bor-r-ring exercises each and every workout, with stress acting as the only variant.
Those who train don’t program hop or routinely change the movements they do from session to session in pursuit of that “muscle confusion” that people hawking P90X, Insanity, or the latest fitness trend (Crossfit, I’m looking at you!) have drilled into your head as the most importantest thing in God’s green creation and why you should spend your hard-earned dollars on their high-priced, fancy pants program.
Of those who train, why don’t they pursue “muscle confusion”?
Maybe probably most definitely because the body can’t produce an adaptation if the physical stress introduced to it is constantly and randomly altered.
Said in a slightly less technical way, you can’t become better at somethin’ if you hardly do it!3This might explain the look of utter disappointment on the face of the last person you had sex with, which would be the first person you’ve had sex with.
It’s as simple as that why the concept of endless variety is laughable.
You need repetition and practice.4…unless you’re Allen Iverson.
These people who train do what they do — you know, that bor-r-ring shit like implementing old as dirt methods and giving a fuck about using proper technique when performing a movement (Crossfit, I’m still looking at you, darling!) — because what they do that’s free of all the bullshit bells and whistles is time-tested and proven. They understand that there’s no need to reinvent the wheel twice.
People who train don’t do kipping pull-ups, deadlifts, clean and jerks, or other Olympic lifts for AMRAP. While using your hips to generate the momentum necessary to propel you up and over the bar a bazillion times may give a good boost to the ole ego because very few of us pussies can even do more than 20 pull-ups in a row from a dead-hang, kipping will do nothing to better the body.
People who train don’t stand one-legged on a Bosu ball situated over a bed of spikes while curling 5 lbs pink dumbbells and limboing under a bar of fire as “Who Let the Dogs Out” blasts through the gym’s sound system. While doing that may be entertaining, it will do nothing to better the body — fuck what your idiot, big-box gym’s personal trainer says.
Exercise the right to vote. To bear arms. To remain silent and not incriminate yourself like EVERYONE does on TV in the police interrogation room. But your body? Nah, don’t do that shit!
DON’T EXERCISE!!!
As we’ve seen, what you should do is train…
…but only if you want to actually get something out of dragging your ass to the gym and spending precious moments of your life there that could’ve been spent creating memories in the company of loved ones as you each have your face buried in your phone letting those memories pass by uncreated.
Ahhhhhh, quality time!!!
But have you been exercising for so long that you have no idea how to train now?
It’s just your luck that I wrote Take Your Ass To The MFKN Gym (And What To Do When You Get There), a FREE ebook chock full of goodness that’ll help you do exactly that! All you have to do is subscribe to my mailing list to get your grubby little hands on it.