By Naomi Rabon, NW Fitness Team Trainer

So, you’ve been working out hard for a few months, but are frustrated that you aren’t seeing your physique changing as much as you’d like, or in the ways that you thought it would. Or maybe you’ve been working out for years, even, but feel like you’re stuck in the same place for a while and your body won’t seem to budge.

Or maybe you’ve been eating really healthy, super clean foods for a few months thinking that will help you achieve your physique or performance goals (or both).

Maybe you’ve kicked up your cardio, then kicked it up some more, and more and more. More cardio sessions per week, longer cardio sessions, maybe even two-a-days, but you are still frustrated when you feel like you are doing everything you can to reach your fitness goals, but still so far away from reaching them.

What about recovery? Taking rest days, foam rolling consistently and diligently, practicing meditation or taking a weekly yoga class. Allowing your muscles, your joints and ligaments, your whole body, mind and emotions time to recover, relax, grow and change from the hard workouts the days prior.

THE FOUR FITNESS FACTORS

We have four different elements listed above that make up the “Fitness Quadrant” as I like to call it, and these are:
1. Nutrition The right calories, macros and food sources, as well as supplementation
2. Weight Training The right weight training workouts, exercises, weight selected, intensity techniques, muscular challenge/breakdown
3. Cardio Type, frequency, time/duration, intensity
4. Recovery Type, frequency, quality (ironically, nutrition is part of both the energy to fuel the workouts/cardio and recovery process, so nutrition touches all quadrants)

PUT FORTH MAX EFFORT

Read this statement a few times: it is unlikely you will reach your goals unless all four quadrants are geared toward you reaching your goals and put into practice as diligently as possible.
• If you do one or two really well and at 100%, but you half-ass another one and completely neglect one of them, you won’t reach your goals.
• If you do all three at 100% and one at 50% then you might reach your goals at about 50-75% (for example, you put 50% effort into your workouts, or your nutrition, or your recovery, or even your cardio)
• If you put 100% effort into all four elements, and you don’t have any other health issues or factors that might prevent you from reaching your goals (sleep, stress, hormonal imbalances, etc.) and the program is designed for you to reach your goals, then you will succeed.

OVERCOMPENSATION SYNDROME

It is not uncommon for people to think if they over compensate in one area, it will make up for lack of effort in another area. For example, the term “you can’t out train a bad diet” is referring to overcompensating for poor nutrition with extra workouts or cardio. It doesn’t work like that. Or overtraining and neglecting recovery to try and reach a goal faster. Yeah, good luck with that one. ;-P

There are a lot of different perspectives when it comes to developing fitness programs specifically for people to reach certain goals. Different trainers can have lots of different perspectives, styles, methods and approaches for helping clients reach their fitness goals. But there is one “absolute truth” if you will: with any road to fitness success, a good balance of all four elements needs to exist, and the person executing all four fitness elements needs to do so diligently, consistently and with as much effort as possible for everything to align to achieve success.

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ABOUT NAOMI RABON
Naomi-lighterBIOOne of the trainers on Nicole’s elite NW Fitness Training Team, Naomi is a certified Personal Trainer and Fitness Specialist through the National Academy of Sports Medicine. She is a NPC Figure competitor who has been involved in the health and fitness industry for over 12 years.

Go here to find out more about training with the NW Fitness Training Team!