Let’s begin by defining what I mean by the best workout. By best workout I mean the workout that gets you the results that you desire for the long term. Therefore the answer to which is the best workout is the one that you will do. That sounds simple but you are probably enraged like just tell me which one is the best and I will do it. Once again the workout that is the best as defined above is whichever workout that you will do. Let’s look at 3 major questions that you need to ask yourself about the workout before you choose the one that you will do.
When I worked in a health club in January 1997 I gave over 100 “new year’s resolution people” orientations on how to use the “cardiovascular” equipment. Almost all of them told me that I would see them anywhere from three times per week to everyday on the “cardiovascular equipment” (bikes, treadmills, stairsteppers etc.).
In February I saw maybe 5 of them in the gym and in March and till this day I have not seen any of them. The first question that you need to ask yourself is can I do this consistently. If you do it everyday for a week and then take off a month because you were in so much pain you will not reach your desired goal. There is a new “workout” out now that is gaining a reputation for being insanely hard and after the workout participants are calling it “the ultimate workout” likely because they are just so excited that its over. However they have the lowest return rate of any workout program that I have ever heard of and some people that have done the workout have told me that they were literally unable to get out of bed and go to work the next day. If you are sore there is a good chance you will be back. If you are in pain you will look to avoid the workout again much the way if you were in pain from falling down a flight of stairs you will try to avoid falling down the stairs again.
The second question is whether or not the gym is convenient. The statistics weigh heavily against you if you choose a gym that takes you more than 15 minutes in traveling time to get to. My friend’s aunt in high school told me all about how she joined this new health club and how it was so big with all of this state of the art equipment and she got the introductory rate of only $399 for a year. She continued telling me how she was locked into that cheap rate for life and I interrupted with Aunt Ella isn’t that gym a full half hour drive from your house. It turns out she would have saved a lot more money if she would have just paid the $15.00 daily fee each of the three times that she ended up going that year.
One of my personal training clients years ago surprised me one day when I came over for a session. She bought a cardiovascular machine. She went to one of those fitness stores in the mall and they told her that it burned 1000 calories per hour. A week later I went back for another session and I noticed the phone next to the machine, the television right in front of it, the radio on top of the machine with a stack of magazines. I said to Stephanie that it looks like she is using that new piece of equipment everyday. She violently replied to me that she is going to take that devil back to the store and get her money back. She said how she tried everything to get to an hour on that but there is no way. She talked on the telephone to take her mind off of it, read magazines, watched TV, listened to the radio and even began writing a plot to kill the person in the mall who sold her the machine. I asked if it was that boring. She said boring is not the word, it’s torture. She told me that they should make serious criminals do that machine as punishment.
Will you do it consistently? Is the workout convenient? Is the workout stimulating? These are the three questions that you need to answer yes to in order for me to put my money on it being the best workout for you.
