When it Comes to Achieving Your Fitness Goals — Play the Long Game.
The dreaded long game. Nobody wants to hear it. It is the least sexy approach when it comes to seeing results. It’s also the only one that has stood the test of time. Short lived results are exactly that, short lived. Take it from me - I have achieved temporary results repeatedly in my life. I would lose them just as quickly as I’d achieved them. The results that I would keep, were the ones that I worked on for years. Here is an example: I have always struggled with my weight. I have been lean at times, but I usually carried around 10–15 extra pounds of unwanted fat. I also only worked consistently at it for short periods. I would crash diet, lose the weight and gain it all back. I didn’t play the long game, so I never kept it off long term.
When it comes to getting strong and building muscle, I have more-so played the long game. I have been lifting for 12 years — since I was in grade 9. I have taken breaks, lost some intensity and even abandoned ship for short periods. That being said, lifting weight has still been a consistent part of my life for 12 years. So much so that I can’t really imagine life without it or without at least thinking about it. Even when I would be less motivated and training less, I would still be thinking about how to get back at it. That’s what playing the long game does, it takes something foreign to you and weaves it into a part of you.
We all know that fast results are suspect at best and even downright dangerous at worst. If we replace the context of fitness with the context of finance, education, or even relationships, it becomes clear how many red flags there are. “Get the equivalent of a full degree in just 2 months!”, “Make triple of what you normally make in just 12 weeks!”, or “I found the love of my life in only 6 days using (insert app/service)”. These are all massive red flags. We know that, yet we fall for them when it comes to fitness. We give in to the short term results, the quick fixes and the “hacks”. We logically know better, too. Yet, we are fragile when it comes to the world of fitness and more importantly, body image. The desire for that perfect and often unattainable body drives us to fall for shit that we shouldn’t. I’ve done it. I’ve done it while being a coach who is educated in this field. I literally knew better, but I’ve still fallen for it. I wanted to be seen as attractive and worthy so badly that it would cloud my judgment and override my knowledge base. It’s embarrassing to admit, albeit true. I knew what it would take to achieve my goals, but I would rather listen to a man in the body that I wanted to have, saying the things that I wanted to hear.
Changing from following fads to buying into the long game is not an easy sell. Fads are sexy and exciting - they make you feel like you’re a part of something new and “cutting edge”. Which is enticing, but can also be dangerous. If it’s new and cutting edge, that usually means that it’s incomplete science or perhaps even bogus science. Here are two things that research has shown for a long time: energy balance determines weight loss/gain and progressive overload in strength training is a key part of building muscle. Now, go try and sell that! You can’t, it’s settled science that basically says “eat in a caloric deficit over time to lose weight and focus on improving strength while in a caloric surplus to build muscle.” Boring.
Indeed, it can be boring. It can be tedious. There will be times that you really don’t want to do it. There will be times where you feel like everything you’re doing is for nothing. Where you’re seeing no results. Where you feel defeated. Want to know what this sounds remarkably like? It sounds like every student in university at one point before they got their degree. It sounds like every employee at some point who was working toward a promotion. It sounds like anyone who’s ever tried to work through an issue in their relationship at some point. So basically, it sounds like anyone who ever put in the time and effort to achieve their goal.
Fitness goals are no different. There are no hacks or quick fixes. When we talk about fitness goals, we’re talking about forcing your body to physically adapt to your training. Do you want a “hack”? Go to a gym. A gym is literally a hack to create an environment conducive to creating physical adaptations in the body. There are no symmetrically loaded barbells found in nature that allow you to load yourself in a safer and more effective way to stimulate hypertophy. There are no cable machines that you can use to optimize the biomechanical positions of a joint to create the most amount of tension. There are just uneven and heavy objects that you can move around for labour, to complete a task or just for exercise I guess — but I’d rather take advantage of the “hack” that any training facility truly is.
If you want to “hack” your adaptation process and speed it up noticeably, there are ways to do that too. They just aren’t sold at GNC or are secretly being held hostage in some charlatan-influencer’s magical training formula. They are called performance enhancing drugs and they are a true physiological hack. You could also go that route, no judgement here. However, if you want to achieve your fitness goals naturally, then fasten your seat belt and stop asking “are we there yet?” The answer is probably no, you’re not there yet. In all likelihood you won’t be for a while, because even once you achieve them, maintaining them is a whole other ball game.
The journey can be enjoyable though. Are there some stretches of wasteland? Yup, but there are also stretches that are even, dare I say, fun. There have been many for me. There have been plenty for my clients, too. It’s not going to be fun all the time, but the best way to ensure misery is by setting unrealistic goals and feeling defeated every time they don’t actualize.
So don’t play the short game if you want to achieve long term results. Play the short game if you’re training for an upcoming competition— physique competitors do this all the time. Do you think they walk around at 4% body fat year round? Of course not. Even if they are on PED’s they don’t. They play a mix of both. They play the long game in their off season and go all in on the short game to peak for a competition. Then they rinse and repeat. You’re probably not a physique athlete and neither am I, but if the top physique athletes in the world who are enhanced can’t handle living for the short game, then why would you or I be able to? We wouldn’t. Which is precisely why I advise against it.
If you want to achieve your fitness goals and keep them, I advise you start to accept that there are no hacks, quick fixes or shortcuts worthwhile. Surrender to the reality of consistency and the undulation of moderate to hard work for an indefinite period of time. Remind yourself that this shit takes time, and the only way to withstand it is to follow a plan that you enjoy to some degree. Enough to integrate it and sustain it as a part of your life. Anything short of that runs the risk of setting you up for failure and developing a hatred for exercise, when you reflect on all the sweat you poured into it only to end up right back where you started.
Forget about crash dieting into your “summer bod” this spring. Instead, put yourself back into your freshman shoes on the first day of college or at your first job. Remember how far away that degree or promotion felt. Then remember that after an extended period of time and effort, you achieved it. Now copy and paste that blueprint into your fitness goals.
Cheers 🍻
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