7 Other Signs Your Fitness Routine is Working
There are a lot of reasons someone would want to begin or restart their fitness journey. But how do we go about measuring success throughout that journey? If social media marketing is any indicator, the goal is usually weight loss and a smaller or more “toned” body. Now that might be the case for some of you, and if it is, let's get after it, but tracking with a scale or body fat is only the tip of the iceberg for how we can measure success.
If you have ever been on a “weight loss journey” you know the work can be quite challenging. Sometimes it takes several attempts. The longevity and daunting amount of focus can turn people off from starting or even starting again. When someone feels like fitness isn’t for them, it reduces their chance of gaining the myriad of other benefits that come from regular exercise, including a longer life, freedom of movement, and resilience to sickness and disease. By viewing diet and exercise as short term inconveniences to achieve a purely aesthetic outcome we deny ourselves the patience and dedication to make lasting, lifelong changes.
Yet, if the number on the scale isn’t what you want to prioritize, how do you know whether you're reaping the benefits of your fitness program? What do you look for from day to day or week to week? Fortunately, there are many markers of success.
Here are 7 other signs your fitness routine is working:
Your endurance is improving.
When you first start exercising, a 10min walk, bike ride, swim, or even the class warm up can be enough to knock you on your ass. Funny enough your workout doesn't need to leave you on the brink of death to be successful.
Coaches/Trainers are taught that progressions and progressive overload are what builds long lasting changes and helps build consistency for life. With regular exposure to walking for example, you’ll build strength and intermuscular coordination in your legs, hips and back, and 10 mins gradually turns into 20, 30 or even a jog. This same rule applies to all aspects of exercise, to swimming, weightlifting to zumba (do people still do that?)
You stand up straighter and move more fluidly.
Posture and Position, a phrase I learned from former NFL offensive tackle and founder of Power Athlete, John Welbourn. When we can stand up straight with our shoulders back, joints stacked in alignment we can say we have good posture. Now can we maintain that same posture as we move through life?
Posture can go overlooked because we often don't realize there's a problem until it's pointed out or worse, we have a problem. Where I see posture breakdown the most is when we are sitting or standing for long periods of time. We all have some vision of bad posture in our heads, the person slouching in a chair with a hunchback and t-rex arms. If you are training your body in all the ways we can move, you will notice your posture will just be there! This decreases low back, shoulder and neck pain because our body can correctly transfer weight and forces through our body as it's meant to be.
You have more energy.
A well structured exercise program should be progressive. This will provide several beneficial factors that allow you to feel better over time and increase your energy. Bouts of pushing outside of your comfort zone help train your energy systems making them more efficient. With a more efficient system you can stave off fatigue in your day to day.
The “fitter” you become not only increases your energy systems efficiency, but increases capillary ( blood vessel) and mitochondria (powerhouse of the cell) density and balances your hormones. These traits help leave you feeling better and more energized throughout the day.
Your overall energy can also be an indicator if you are working too hard! If you find you are becoming more fatigued, tired, or sore, you might not be recovering enough. This is where we need to look at how you are training, sleeping and fueling your body with food. If you train hard, you must recover harder.
You’re stronger.
Generally we all want to be capable in our bodies. There are many ways we can achieve that, but physical strength in most situations is the best way to feel capable. For most of my clients they aren't as hyper focused on the number in the gym but how they are able to move and perform in their lives. Can they carry their kids, play pick up games, or carry the groceries in 1 trip!
Weight training can be a great way to make your daily tasks just a little bit easier, and less taxing.
You’re developing an ability to know what your body needs and can handle.
A massive focus for all of my clients is for them to learn to listen to what their body is telling them. We have all heard the phrase “No pain no gain” but is that really the mantra we need to live by? There is a difference between being uncomfortable, I'm fatigued, breathing hard, and sweaty, and I’m in pain. There's also a difference between being tired because I rolled out of bed and came straight to the gym, and my body is fatigued and can't move well.
Knowing the difference between these can allow you to adjust how you train for the day to make sure that you can have a productive session. Through the years I have sent people home because they slept horrible or have had long exhausting days, and to do anything other than sleep or eat wouldn't be beneficial to their body or goals. Sometimes taking a day off will yield more results than pushing through and training.
Lab markers are improving
Getting your labs done is important to any health program. Sadly we don't have xray vision so we have to go to the doctor to see how our insides are doing. Factors to look at are: fasting glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure, A1C, hormones, the list goes on. These markers can give us insight into what's going on internally, so we can adjust what we are doing externally.
Exercise has a phenomenal effect on a majority of our lab numbers, purely by just training. Oftentimes our doctors will prescribe weight loss to combat a slue of different health issues. . In some cases weight loss might be the main focus, other times its an additional measure. With an appropriate strength and conditioning program, we can train and live for health and have phenomenal success! For many of my clients the aesthetics are a byproduct of quality training.
You’re doing more of the things you love.
At the end of the day, why are we training in the first place? Often health is a factor, but what I come across more is we want to be able to do the things we love. I have a client who liked to play “Old Man Basketball” on the weekends. He hadn’t mentioned this in the beginning of our training. One day it came up in conversation about how he’d stopped being able to play. I realized that this would be a great goal for him. I started to implement some training that would build him up to play again. Fast forward and he's back to playing every weekend with his friends. This opened up his eyes to the world of possibilities of what can be accomplished inside the gym.
Measuring success is actually not as complicated as people think. It’s finding what people value and then planning with those values in mind. Once I find out what they care about, it becomes a lot easier to figure out what we can do to move forward.
Signs your fitness routine is working can be measured in many ways other than staring solely at the scale. Looking at what your life is like outside of the gym and how it has improved is not only important but can also be very motivating. If you are starting your fitness journey make a list of things that you would like to improve that have an impact on your life, and see how you can measure it. If you have already started, take a look at where you were before you started and see what has improved.
If you have any questions or would like to get clear on what your goals are follow the link below to set up a consultation. Now go live your life!