Can You Feel It?

Shawn Perine
Mon, 16 Jun 2014 21:00:00 -0700
Lifestyle

As you might imagine, I'm regularly asked for my advice on the most effective exercise technique for building muscle and losing fat. In fact, most often I'm pressed for my No. 1 bit of information; the one thing that, if applied, is most effective in transforming one's body. Is it an exercise? They wonder. A ratio of resistance training to cardio? A particular machine? It's actually much simpler than all of that. It's engagement. Engagement? Yup, engagement.

Engagement means being fully invested in the task at hand. You know what it's like to be engaged in an activity because you're most likely engaged in your job, engaged in raising your kids and even engaged in watching your favorite TV show. But the one place where I often see people disengaged is at the gym. They sign up for memberships, make sure they get there a few times a week, but fritter away their time there, listlessly going through the motions. All too often I'll catch, out of the corner of my eye, people texting, watching TV monitors or gabbing at the gym, when they should be working out. And then they wonder why they aren't making the kinds of improvements they think they should.

I can't stress enough the importance of being fully engaged in your gym time, be it 20 minutes or two hours. I'm sure you've heard the expression, "You get out what you put in," and the gym is a prime example of this. Just because you spend those 20 minutes within the confines of a gym doesn't mean your body will magically benefit, as if by osmosis. You have to work for results, and that means keeping your goals firmly implanted in your mind to help motivate you through each repetition of every set.
Updated: Tue Jun 17, 2014

As you might imagine, I'm regularly asked for my advice on the most effective exercise technique for building muscle and losing fat. In fact, most often I'm pressed for my No. 1 bit of information; the one thing that, if applied, is most effective in transforming one's body. Is it an exercise? They wonder. A ratio of resistance training to cardio? A particular machine? It's actually much simpler than all of that. It's engagement. Engagement? Yup, engagement.

Engagement means being fully invested in the task at hand. You know what it's like to be engaged in an activity because you're most likely engaged in your job, engaged in raising your kids and even engaged in watching your favorite TV show. But the one place where I often see people disengaged is at the gym. They sign up for memberships, make sure they get there a few times a week, but fritter away their time there, listlessly going through the motions. All too often I'll catch, out of the corner of my eye, people texting, watching TV monitors or gabbing at the gym, when they should be working out. And then they wonder why they aren't making the kinds of improvements they think they should.

I can't stress enough the importance of being fully engaged in your gym time, be it 20 minutes or two hours. I'm sure you've heard the expression, "You get out what you put in," and the gym is a prime example of this. Just because you spend those 20 minutes within the confines of a gym doesn't mean your body will magically benefit, as if by osmosis. You have to work for results, and that means keeping your goals firmly implanted in your mind to help motivate you through each repetition of every set.

You don't have to kill yourself in the gym to see results, but you do have to train like you mean it. It pains me to say that the majority of people I see working out around me on any given day are squandering their precious time, so much so that I feel like telling them to go home. Their lack of energy brings down that of the gym, and in the end they're doing little more than taking up space. That may sound harsh, but the gym is no place for half-efforts. You should be at the gym for one reason alone — to exercise — not to chat, or text, or watch TV. If any of those things are on your agenda, then you should probably consider canceling your membership and doing all of those things in places not designed for exercising.

If you have been going to the gym regularly, yet aren't seeing the changes in your body that you want, don't look to a new routine or a new trainer or a new gym. Look to yourself and see about adopting a new attitude about your time spent in the gym. A fresh perspective can be exactly the thing that kick-starts the changes you want to see in yourself.