What are your REAL Fitness Goals?

Let me ask you a very direct question, then let it sit for a minute and think before you comment:

What does your exercise plan do to help you reach your fitness goals?

If you answered, "It burns off my fat," chances are you are wrong.

Now, I am making an assumption here about your workout program. Most people who exercise are performing a workout or group of exercises because it is similar to something you read in a magazine, saw someone in the gym or a friend of your doing it, or is a combination of things that you have seen done over the years.

Perhaps you saw Jack LaLane doing it on TV, or Richard Simmons, or perhaps Billy Blanks. Jane Fonda, Cory Everson, and the one and only Idaho potato spokesperson Denise Austin are also possibilities.

The truth is that exercise practiced by million each year is, for the most part (generalizing again, but a lot of truth to it), a collection of movements that caught on due to the brilliance of their marketing via magazines, TV, or products themselves. Can anyone explain to me why the Thighmaster burns thinner, sleeker legs, but if someone used an identical piece of equipment for their biceps it would be marketed to build huge arms?

Is the muscle in the upper body different than that in the legs? Do weights make guys bigger, but women smaller? If Pilates lengthens muscles, then what form of exercise shortens muscles?

Don't allow marketing to determine what kind of an exercise regiment works best for you. While confusing, if you take a moment to rationalize to yourself why it is you are doing the things you are doing, it may become clear that you do not know why you are doing the things you are doing. And that is OK.

On behalf of the entire fitness industry, I apologize for the confusion.

You see, there are a lot of different ways to exercise, and you should pick one that you enjoy and will do on a regular basis. The key is to make sure that you are truly working hard, and hard does not mean exercising at a level where you can hold a conversation with a friend right alongside you.

Hard means doing things that push your limits, not staying within your "comfort zone." The goal with any respectable workout regiment targeting a body transformation goal should be to safely lift heavier weights than your body wants to. Think more 20-25-pound dumb bells than 2-pound dumb bells.

Focus on multi-joint exercises like squats, lunges, pushups, dead lifts, cleans, overhead presses, etc. You should be tired by the sixth or eighth repetition, not able to do five more after your set of 20. Ladies, you should want to train more like the men do. Guys, you should want to train with the same form that women do, which is usually very strict.

The most effective workouts for fat loss involve lifting a relatively heavy load for few reps (between 6-10), not a light one for high reps (15-25). If you've hit a plateau in your workouts, you should be asking yourself if you are working hard enough, and if you haven't changed your workout in a while, change something! Change the weights, the reps, some of the exercises, cut down on the rest time. etc. Don't just do what you have always done, as the body is incredible in terms of adapting, and when the gains slow down or stop, it is time for a change.

Increase the weights while maintaining good form, decrease the reps, increase the intensity of your effort, and then get out of the gym! If you can maintain your effort for 45 minutes or more, then you just aren't working hard enough to transform your body. And if your goal is not to improve, then why are you doing it?

And don't worry, ladies. You won't start looking like a man with big muscles. That myth was also a marketing message ...