Everyday thousands of people head to the gym with the goal of getting in shape, whether it’s losing weight, gaining weight, or just improving their fitness level. Unfortunately few people every truly achieve their desired goal. Some people may claim to achieve their goals, but a lot of times that is because they lowered their expectations.

Why is it that so few people reach their ultimate goal? Could it be possible that not everyone is meant to look and feel the way they want? I believe that anyone can achieve anything and everything they want in their life. It just comes down to two things, effort and perseverance. Very little in life is easy. If it was easy it wouldn’t be nearly as rewarding when you achieve your goals. People need to evaluate what they are currently doing and decide whether or not the level of effort matches their expectations and goals.

I will be up front and say that there are a lot of things that stand between you and your ultimate goal of getting in shape. There is the job you have to go to everyday, you could have demanding kids and significant others, friends, family, and any other distraction that arises on a daily basis. On top of that you have to deal with your own body and any physical limitations you may have.

With all of the distractions in your life it is imperative that the time you spend in the gym is as productive as possible. Unfortunately, this is rarely true. Walking around the gym and observing the members working out hardly justifies the name “working out.” The average gym-goer does very little working. Let’s follow the average woman around the gym for their workout.

The average female will walk in the front door without much idea of what they are going to do that day. Maybe they know they want to do a little cardio and a little ab work. Oh and you can’t forget the inner and outer thighs. So, after dropping their bag off in the locker room they proceed to find an open elliptical because running on a treadmill is too much work. The average female will spend five minutes on a relatively easy resistance maintaining around 120 rpm pedaling forward. When the five minutes are up they reverse directions and start pedaling backwards because it works the butt more, or so they think. They continue this for anywhere from 10 minutes all the way up to an hour or more. Some days instead of the elliptical they will actually get on a treadmill, speed it up to 2.0 mph with an incline of 10, hold on, lean back, and proceed to walk for 30 minutes or so. The incline really helps work the butt, or so they think.

After finishing with the cardio it’s time to journey back to the weights. There are three machines that the average woman has their eye on, the inner thigh, outer thigh, and the ab crunch machine. The average women will select a very easy weight and then complete 15 to 20 repetitions. They will then either rest for about 10 seconds or 5 minutes. The rest time is extremely unpredictable and arbitrary. After finishing the three machines they may look around to decide if they want to do anything else. Maybe they would perform a set of bicep curls, tricep extensions, and lateral raises, but not much else beyond that. After finishing with the machines the average woman may find a stability ball and proceed to complete upwards of 100 crunches. After the crunches the average woman is typically done working out.

Now comes the best part, it’s time for the juice bar smoothie. You have to get your protein, right? The average woman orders a medium peanut butter and chocolate protein smoothie, or if they are being really healthy, a strawberry and banana smoothie. After sitting at the juice bar socializing with the juice bar girl for 15 minutes it’s time to get changed and go home, another hard day at the gym.

This may seem like a great workout to a lot of people and that is the reason so many people are overweight and out of shape. The average woman gets very little work done at the gym. Rarely, will a woman break a good sweat and I don’t want to hear any excuses that “I just don’t sweat very much.” I have never had a woman not sweat when working out with me. If you aren’t sweating, unless you have a medical condition that doesn’t allow you to sweat, you aren’t working out hard enough.

Let’s break down the average woman’s trip to the gym. Spending 30 minutes to an hour doing steady state cardio is a waste of time and it is keeping you fat and out of shape. Performing long periods of cardio at a moderate intensity is viewed by your body as a negative stress. When you are under negative stress your body releases cortisol. Cortisol causes your body to store abdominal body fat. So, instead of supposedly losing weight you are doing the exact opposite.

The choice of resistance training is just as poor. There is no such thing as spot reduction. You can’t perform an exercise for a certain muscle to cause body fat to leave that area. For all the people performing inner/ outer thigh exercises or thousands of sit-ups and crunches to tighten up those areas, it just doesn’t work. You are wasting your time sitting on the inner/ outer thigh machine. You are wasting your time doing hundreds of crunches. In the long run you are causing more harm than good by only performing those exercises.

So what is the average female gym-goer supposed to do? Start by sweating. In order to do that you need to stop doing what you have been doing and develop an actual plan. Enter the gym everyday knowing exactly what you are going to do. Instead of starting with the cardio, start with the resistance training. You will be more likely to complete the resistance training when you are fresh, than when you are tired after the cardio. The resistance training will actually get you in better shape and help you lose more body fat anyway. Go to the gym with the goal of completing four to seven resistance exercises. You could either complete the exercises one at a time, by super-setting, or by creating a circuit with the exercises depending on your current fitness level.

A quick and easy circuit that the average woman could complete would be eight repetitions of push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and a plank. Perform them all in a row, holding the plank for a maximum of 30 seconds and then repeat two to three times. Don’t start making excuses that you can’t do the exercises. Reduce the difficulty by performing push-ups from your knees, pull-ups with the assistance of a machine, and squats to a comfortable depth. I have never come across someone who cannot perform some variation of these exercises.

After finishing the resistance training head over to an open treadmill and hop on. An elliptical allows you to take it easy, while a treadmill forces you to keep up with the belt. Set a goal of completing 15 minutes of an interval style cardio session and you should be exhausted and ready to go home. Depending on your fitness level spend two minutes walking at around three miles per hour. Then increase the speed of the treadmill to around six miles per hour and run for 30 seconds, after the 30 seconds decrease the speed back to three miles per hour and walk for another two minutes. Continue this pattern for the entire 15 minutes. That is all it should take initially to get you on the right road to achieving your goals.

After the workout it is important to consume carbohydrates and protein, but a peanut butter smoothie is not what you need. Most people replace all of the calories they burned if not more when they drink the crap made at the juice bars of gyms. Buy your own protein powder and use your own container to add water and drink it up. You could eat a handful of almonds after a workout. You need to replace your glycogen stores and consume protein to speed the recovery process. Don’t void your entire workout by drinking a sugar filled concoction.

As your fitness level improves, increase the intensity instead of increasing the number of repetitions or the amount of time on the treadmill. Intensity is the key to achieving all of your fitness goals. Anyone and everyone can achieve their goals. It is just a matter of stepping outside your comfort zone and pushing yourself to greatness. When things are getting tough and you are struggling to see results, don’t get discouraged, keep pushing yourself harder. Effort plus perseverance will always result in the achievement of your goals.

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