The other day while I was leaving the gym a personal trainer approached me and asked me how many days a week I workout. My response shocked him. Earlier that day during my own workout I had a gym member ask me how much weight I squat. My answer confused him. And I would have to say at least once a week I get asked by random strangers at the gym as to what my total macronutrient intake is for each day. And my reply usually annoys them.

To be completely honest I don’t schedule “rest days” I simply take them when my body needs them. To this day I have no idea how much weight I squat. I’ve never really sat down to calculate it. Some days I squat heavier then other days therefore the weight has always been irrelevant to me. And even when I’m dieting or getting ready for a contest I don’t really keep track of my macronutrient intake, I just keep an eye on the mirror and the scale. If I’m not losing weight or looking a little soft I adjust my macros accordingly by slightly decreasing my portions. If I’m losing weight too quickly then I raise them so that my body does not go into a catabolic state and eat up all of my hard earned muscle. In other words, I don’t have the direct, generic answer that these people are looking for. And even if I did, why would it matter? It’s not as if what I do in the gym and with my diet is going to help them get the exact same results with their physiques that I’ve achieved with mine.

But these questions did leave me wondering as to why so many people overcomplicate building muscle and losing body fat. Is it really that confusing? Do you really need to use precise calculations, complex mathematical formulas and record every single weight that you lift on each set and rep in your training log? (which I like to sarcastically call a diary).

I guess to each their own however just like anything else I do in life I like to apply the “work smarter and not harder” approach when trying to accomplish something that is challenging and almost seems unrealistic to obtain. I mean if what you want to achieve is already hard enough, why make it even harder on yourself?

Technology has definitely helped make working out more convenient and perhaps more fun to do for those people that absolutely hate going to the gym and watching what they eat. We now have fitness apps that can record a person’s total daily macronutrient intake on a click of a button. There are numerous different types of advanced heart rate monitors that allow us to know when we are training in our so-called “fat burning zones”. And I see more and more personal trainers using Ipads during their clients’ workouts to keep track of the weights that are being lifted and the amount of sets and reps that are being completed.

Now all this technology may look fancy and seem cool but is it really that necessary? As I mentioned earlier I’ve never once kept track of a single weight that I’ve lifted in the gym. If for example I start my chest workout off with incline barbell press with a 45lbs plate on each side for 15 reps one week and then decide to finish my next chest workout off with the incline barbell press the following week, is it realistic to expect that I will be able to lift the exact same amount of weight on the bar, even at the very end of my chest workout? Do you get my point?

How a person measures success when it comes to their health and fitness will depend on the individual. Obviously if your sole purpose is to train for power then you will be trying to constantly increase your weights that you lift in the gym. If you are training for aesthetics then you are trying to improve the quality of your physique on a physical level and therefore would be using the mirror as your guide to whether or not you are making the proper gains. If you are training just to maintain your current physique and for overall health and wellbeing then a somewhat challenging and regular workout routine should be suffice.

So by this point it’s clear that I’m not a big fan of using technology to help me with my workouts and diet. I don’t feel that I need to follow some strength training program designed by some famous strength and conditioning coach online who has never worked with me personally or knows of my own training goals, physical limitations and level of fitness. I don’t need to “plug in my macros” to some fitness app so that I can find out how many more M&M’s I can eat before I hit my daily requirements. And I see no benefit to recording my weights in the gym that I lift each week when there are so many other outside factors to take into consideration such as sleep, energy levels, workout routine, time of day, etc that can effect the amounts that I’m using on a specific exercise each week.

Ofcourse I’ve always followed certain guidelines when it comes to training and diet and I always have a plan when entering the gym for a workout. However I’ve also never let a machine or famous fitness guru dictate how I should eat and how I should train. I simply leave these decisions up to my body, the mirror and the scale.

I workout by feel, I eat by feel and I rest by feel.

Do You?

Yours in Good Health,

Nick Cosgrove