3 Pieces of Uncommon Fitness Advice That Were Actually Useful

Go hard or go home is overrated

I could hardly hold back tears as I lay on the bench. Luckily my face was buried between my arms while I rested on my belly and endured the procedure.

I would be too embarrassed if my physio saw me crying.

Two weeks earlier, he told me I had to stop all weightlifting immediately because my lower back was at its limit. It could hardly take any more stress.

He also told me the cause for my intense back pain was that my muscles were overly tight, which was, of course, the result of my overzealous lifting routine.

About a year ago, I discovered kettlebells, and I approached training with them like I had approached running — with an all-or-nothing mindset and pushing myself to exhaustion in every workout.

I loved the feeling of accomplishment and pride that accompanied these training sessions.

And when I looked at my desktop wallpaper picturing fitness motivational quotes, I thought, “Yes, that’s right. You’ve got a price to pay.”

I experienced immense psychological and emotional benefits from pushing myself hard and going farther than I thought I could go. I became addicted to the feeling of physical and mental exhaustion.

And to my detriment, the fitness industry often applauds and encourages “pushing yourself” and “going one more.”

And while it is true that you need to put in the effort and sometimes get close to your limit if you want to achieve greatness in fitness or sports, the glorification of “push your limits” can be counterproductive and downright dangerous to people like me, who have no sense of “too much.”

Who run while having the flu and on broken toes, lift while nursing a kidney infection, and somehow still think they aren’t giving it their all.

Now, some ten years later, I look back at my old self and can’t help but wonder how differently I would have trained if I already knew what I know now.

How many fewer injuries would I have sustained? How much more consistent would I have been with my running?

And how much more progress would I have made in my strength training journey if I had allowed sufficient time for recovery, easy workouts, and low-volume periods?

And how differently I would have trained if I had been aware of the following three principles.

Those principles are the unsexy rules of a sustainable fitness routine.

By following them, you set yourself up for lifelong movement and growing old with a strong, mobile body that can endure.

Follow them if you want to risk staying in the fitness game long-term and developing a functional physique.

1. Train. Don’t Strain

“There were guys who would stick with or beat me in training, but when it came to racing, I would be streets ahead. After the race, they would always say ‘Wow you are good at racing,’ but they had it wrong — I was good at training. They had no clue and would often empty the tank in training which I never did. I saved that for the races.”

— Steve Moneghetti

It took me many years to fully understand the concept. Famed running coach Arthur Lydiard coined this term to describe his training philosophy. He meant that you should complete most of your training without being extremely fatigued.

And while I understood it on an intellectual level, on an emotional level, I didn’t want to believe I could improve while taking it easy.

I loved going hard and feeling my muscles ache. I loved the whole-body fatigue that would ensue after I gave it my all in training. Finishing a workout “somewhat fresh” or feeling even “better than before the workout” was unsatisfying. It left me with a weird feeling of having failed.

Over time, however, I learned.

The more I immersed myself in exercise science and the books of great coaches and athletes, the more I realized that continuity and steady progress were crucial for excellent performance.

What mattered was the ability to keep training for long periods and when pushing yourself in a few selected workouts to allow your body to recover and adapt while still continuing to move.

Today, I do most of my running volume at a leisurely, conversational pace.

Tough workouts, like hill sprints or negative split tempo runs, are sprinkled in one to two times per week and based on how my body feels. I have no problem taking it easy one week if other life stressors are high and I get minimal sleep.

In the past, I would have pushed through extreme fatigue and injuries.

Today, I prefer to run healthily another day, adding up to another week, month, and year.

Funnily enough, my kettlebell training went through a similar evolution.

When I started swinging my 12 kg kettlebell in my living room, I would stop only after I was drenched in sweat and completely exhausted. Often I would begin my training sessions still stiff and sore from the last one.

I wish I could say my forced rest described at the beginning of this article was what opened my eyes, but it wasn’t. I thought I was much smarter than my physio, who didn’t even look like he would lift.

Instead, my desire to know the ins and outs of kettlebell training led me to find exceptional mentors who changed my mindset around training.

And when I understood that the goal of training is to practice, my training changed, and my health improved.

2. Approach Training as a Practice, Not as a Workout

“You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way.”

— Michael Jordan

I used to measure the effectiveness of my training sessions by how hard I worked, how exhausted I felt, or if I reached specific, measurable goals as kilometers run, the total amount of weight lifted, etc.

I used to work out to tire myself out, get a pump and feel body ache. I wanted to become stronger, faster, and more enduring. And I wanted to become tougher.

Back then, I didn’t realize that completely wiping myself out in training every day was the reason for my many niggles, frequent injuries, and almost constant fatigue.

Through the kettlebell community and the excellent teachers I encountered, I learned to shift the focus from “working out” to “practicing the movement.”

The goal in every training session now is to become more skilled and practice my skills.

That doesn’t mean I can’t train hard or push myself occasionally. What it does mean is that the focus of the training session is the process of becoming better at lifting instead of getting sore or experiencing satisfying levels of fatigue.

The side effects are better technique and fatigue management.

This also means less fatigue and soreness and the ability to train with purpose again the next day, leading to continuous movement and progress.

In my job as a personal trainer, I see many clients make the same mistakes I did when I started my fitness journey.

When they come to the gym, their goals are to “get fit,” “build my glutes and legs,” or “lose weight.”

Not a single member who just joined our gym told me they wanted to learn how to execute a barbell back squat or a kettlebell swing properly.

The movement becomes an afterthought.

And the same is true for runners: Most runners who think about running technique and are trying to improve their form only do so after they have been injured or are fed up with making zero progress.

However, if you started running to perfect the art of running and paid attention to your form and technique, you would have a much more sustainable journey with likely fewer injuries.

And if you can remain injury free, you can make quicker progress.

3. Focus on Movement. Not on Muscle

“To move is life itself.”

―Debbie Rosas

I work in a women-only gym. We have a lot of younger gals who join a gym for the first time in their life. And you know what is the most common request I hear when those girls request a new training plan?

If you guessed, “Please help me lose weight,” you’ve lost.

If you thought, “Please create a plan for me that only grows my glutes and legs,” you’ve won.

One of my main tasks at the gym is educating women on the importance of whole-body strength, primarily focusing on movements.

What good is a big booty if you’re too weak to carry your groceries up the stairs to your home? And of what use are big muscles that make you look good but can’t coordinate?

When you focus on a few muscles you want to train primarily, you are putting yourself at risk of developing muscle imbalances and injuries.

Your body is meant to move and to move as a unit.

When your training reflects that, you’ll build strength and muscles that move in a coordinated fashion.

I am glad I never went down the bodybuilding route but found kettlebell training early in my strength training journey. I believe this is one reason for my relatively low injury rate.

Apart from the back problems caused by horrible programming and pushing myself much farther than I should have, I have stayed injury-free for the past ten years I have been training with kettlebells.

And I always practice all movement patterns in my workouts.

Many coaches have slightly different versions of what constitutes basic human movements. I have adopted the framework from legendary strength coach Dan John who describes the following fundamental movement patterns in this article:

1. Squat (e.g., barbell back squat, goblet squat, barbell front squat)
2. Hinge (e.g., deadlift, kettlebell swing)
3. Push (e.g., push-up, military press, bench press)
4. Pull (e.g., bent-over row, pull-up, renegade row)
5. Carry (e.g., farmer’s walks)

Designing my workouts with a movements-first approach and then fleshing out which exercises should fill the movement pattern on that particular day has kept my training program simple yet effective.

Move Better

Throughout my fitness journey, I focused on performance. After I saw that I was physically much more capable than I believed, I wanted to find out how much I had in me and how far I could go.

I pushed myself too hard for too long, focused on the wrong goals, and followed an unsustainable approach.

However, the drive to improve my performance eventually led me to find the resources I needed to put me on a more sustainable path toward fitness and physical performance.

The main objective for my training used to be “work harder.”

Today, however, my primary goal is to “move better.”