Female Fitness Myth: That you have to give 100% every session

It’s lie. Don’t believe it. Consistency trumps intensity, particularly if the intensity of a given workout means that you skip or avoid it.

In one study looking at weight loss, they looked at who was most successful in maintaining moderate to vigorous intensity exercise over a period of time, and found those who showed up at the same time every day/week lost the most weight and were more able to maintain their training for longer¹. It didn’t matter if the consistent time was in the morning or evening, just that it was the same, day in, day out.

Now, this is not the same as saying there should be no intensity in your training sessions, rather, what I am saying is to aim for balance. A balance of high intensity and recovery, a balance of high volume and short intervals. The variety is far more engaging and also more effective, can reduce overuse injuries and deliver a broad spectrum of health results².

In endurance athletes, peppering their endurance training with high intensity moments, or high intensity sessions, yields better results than high intensity alone, as well as high volume alone³.

The lessons here for your average, female client are:

• Just keep them coming consistently
• Adapt the intensity to how they feel on any given day
• Expecting 100% in every session means you have to have menstrual cycle literacy, because you risk disrupting their hormonal cycle⁴ and RED-S⁵. There are life long consequences of these disorders, including premature osteoporosis and heart disease, infertility, thyroid dysfunction, and more^{6 7 8}.

This is how I do it in my 4wk cycle, for my Women’s Strength and Conditioning clients:

1. Week 1 is half-assed week, where they literally go through the motions.
2. Week 2 is moderate intensity
3. Week 3 is moderate to high, but still not 100%
4. Week 4 is 100% but only if they’ve slept well, are nourished, hydrated, and not stressed, otherwise 90% is enough (which is still very hard!)
5. Then we start over with a new program, and repeat for another 4 weeks, with every 11^th week a high-volume week, where they double their sessions before a week off.

It’s possible to sync the above with the menstrual cycle of the individual.

MYTH: You’ll be Happy When You Achieve X Kilos, or X Dress Size…

Unfortunately, it’s just not true(9).

Happiness is a state brought on by having meaning and purpose in your life.

Your size, and the amount of gravity you displace, has no bearing on your worth as a human being – chances are, even if you achieve your goal you’ll still be unhappy with how you look. It’s better to start retraining your brain right now, than when you’ve spent several months and years flogging your body (this is not the same as saying “don’t lose weight” for health purposes, I’m just saying that your size doesn’t make you happy or unhappy, it’s your self perception of your own worth, and usefulness in life that makes you happy!).

As personal trainers we are placed in a position where we can perpetuate this myth (or untruth), or we can untangle it and address the real needs of real people: the health benefits of exercise are wide ranging, from dementia prevention to anti-aging, to surviving cancer, and instilling our clients with a robust sense of worth. Let’s not cheapen our services and what we do by flat out lying about the fact that losing weight won’t make our clients happy! It’s a myth!

There’s a free course from the Berkely University on the Science of Happiness, that you can enroll in here.

REFERENCES

1Schumacher LM, Thomas JG, Raynor HA, Rhodes RE, O’Leary KC, Wing RR, Bond DS. Relationship of Consistency in Timing of Exercise Performance and Exercise Levels Among Successful Weight Loss Maintainers. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2019 Aug;27(8):1285-1291. doi: 10.1002/oby.22535. Epub 2019 Jul 3. PMID: 31267674.