Exercise, General

If you’re not a Pro, don’t try training like one

These days you can train like a Spartan, or a caveman, or a superhero. There are tons of articles describing the training regimens of this or that actor or actress or star player, but do they work?

Sure they do – if you’re an actor or an actress or a star player. If you’ve got the time and energy to invest in them. If you have access to a trainer or a coach all day. If you’re still trying to figure out how to do your first push up though, most of these programmes can be counter productive.

Identify yourself

Let’s say you want to look like your favourite athlete or star. We’ll take The Rock, for example, because everyone loves The Rock.

Yes they do.
Yes they do.

You do your research, find a few articles about how he trains, hit the iron first thing in the morning, and suffer multiple organ failures before you’re a fourth of the way through the warm up.

Fact is, The Rock can train like The Rock because he is The Rock. You’re not The Rock; you’re someone who wants to be like The Rock, so you need to train like someone who wants to be like The Rock. Big difference.

Having an end goal is great, as long as you remember that that is your goal, and not where you are now. Maybe one day you’ll be able to benchpress four times your bodyweight, but if that is not where you are now, don’t try to do it just yet. Training for strength is a great teacher of humility and patience. Work within your limits, and you’ll break them. Work outside them, and you’ll break yourself.

Whether this means picking a “lighter” programme which is more suitable for you, or tuning down an existing one, always work within your limits, stretching them slowly as you go.

Don’t get caught up in the planning

Overplanning is another word for procrastination
Overplanning is another word for procrastination

With the abundance of plans and programmes around, it is easy to waste a lot of your time trying to pick the perfect one. In many cases, that time would have been spent better doing anything.

A beginner will get some benefit out of nearly anything, so if you’re sitting on your couch wondering if it’s better to start off with cardio, or weights, or body weight training, the short answer is: it doesn’t matter. Get up and do any one of them. Or any two, or all three. Everything is going to help you right now.

As you get stronger, you’re going to need to put more thought into your training to keep gaining, but that’s fine. You can change up what you are doing as you go along – a plan isn’t a life sentence.

Manage your expectations

While you’re at it, be aware that exercise is something you’ll need to do over a lifetime. There are no 30 day results in real life. You’re not going to do that one exercise plan for one month and find Hollywood agents battering down your door to cast you for the next Conan The Barbarian.

If you want results – and more importantly, you want results to stick – remember you are in this for the long haul. Changes will happen when they happen. They will happen if you put in the effort, but they won’t last forever unless you maintain them.

There are no silver bullets

We've looked.
We’ve looked.

One final thing you need to keep in mind when looking at a “Train like a [stick your favourite thing here]” is that things are not quite so simple. If you want to train like Bruce Lee, you’re going to need to put in hours of work every day.

Time constraints aside, you also need to consider your other habits. Training like a pro wrestler isn’t going to do much unless you also eat and rest like one.

If training and conditioning isn’t directly related to your means of making a living, you’re not going to be able to make it as life will cut into your training time, rest and nutrition. No one in his right mind should put training ahead of life, so let’s not do that – one should train to live better, not live to train better.

It’s not all doom and gloom

All that said, there’s still plenty of use for this kind of article. For one, they’re a great source of ideas to introduce into your training, with a little judgement on your part.

Even if you can’t do something yet, they can also give you ideas for something to work on in the future, something to build up towards.

Besides, they can help you figure out the right direction – if you’re into wrestling, following a basketball player’s training may make you healthier, but it won’t make you as fit for wrestling as following a wrestler’s path.

And if they motivate you – if they make you tell yourself, “I want to be able to do that”, then that’s already pretty fucking helpful.

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