“No Excuses”

Here’s what I dislike most about the “no excuses“ mindset so prevalent in the fitness industry.

Clients will bring us all kinds of reasons why training is difficult for them to get started on, or to continue with. Do some people cling to those reasons more tightly than they need to? Of course. I did it myself. There were many reasons why I only got dedicated to my physical health in my very late 40s. Some of those reasons still look like serious challenges, in hindsight. Others were what we mean when we say “excuses“. Looking back, I understand that I could probably have avoided some of the issues that I have to train around now in my late 50s, had I gotten started sooner.

But as serious students of fitness training, we have the experience to understand these distinctions more clearly than our clients do. It’s usually the experience itself that taught us how to differentiate emotional excuses from deeper physical or even psychological challenges.

It’s also experience that teaches us that even when the challenges never go away, we can still achieve fantastic improvements in our health and quality of life. My obstructive sleep apnea hasn’t improved worth a damn in ten years of cardiovascular exercise, weight training, and keeping 60 pounds off. But a bad night’s sleep, when my CPAP mask doesn’t fit right in the middle of the night, doesn’t impact me nearly as badly as they used to.

When a client brings us a issue, they know their own lives much better than we ever will. What we may know better is what’s possible, what they can achieve even with challenges, even when the challenges are very real.

By harping on the “no excuses“ idea, what we are implying to people outside a fitness lifestyle is that there is never any useful distinction between a significant limitation and an emotional roadblock that they could work on and overcome, sometimes more easily than they expect.

I’m currently training around some hip and lower back issues. Some of that goes back 25 years, to a dumb injury I stumbled my way into as an invulnerable youngster in my early thirties … much longer ago than the 10 years or so that I’ve spent working out seriously.

In my personal case, “no excuses“ might be a quick way of summarizing the fact that I am continuing to work on my legs despite having to be cautious, thoughtful, and intentional about building up strength in some muscles that I had not been spending enough time on, which are now the locus of my hip discomfort.

But at the same time, my exercise selection has had to change significantly in order to target those muscles, understand what’s going wrong with them lately, and fix them without adding additional injury.

That’s not an excuse! That’s a real challenge, one which if I didn’t take seriously, I could risk ending my fitness progression entirely. In fact, here at year 10 of my journey, I have the insight to understand that even at year 5, or year 8, when I thought I was being careful enough about these old injuries, I really still wasn’t.

I want my clients to be ready, willing, and able to bring me their physical and emotional challenges, because my training and experience often give me ways to suggest how they can carry on making progress … precisely by taking those challenges seriously.

Were I to dismiss their concerns with the standard “no excuses“ bromide, I’d risk doing them a huge disservice.

And of course I understand that most fitness professionals, when we say “no excuses,“ don’t actually mean things like “so what if you have a broken leg, it’s still leg day.“

But do beginners and people considering whether to begin fitness training with us understand the subtleties that we mean? Can we actually expect them to, without our experience? Or is the brevity of the stock phrase a way of concealing the fact that those challenges can matter, because we think aggressive sales tactics are the only ways to entice people to work with us?

I think it’s high time for fitness professionals to reframe the way we talk about these things. And if you’re the kind of fitness professional who only preaches tough love and “no excuses,”and if my writing this immediately makes you clench up and think “no, I can’t adapt to that“: well, no excuses baby.

Understand why that challenges you, and find ways of working through that challenge.

© 2022 Grampa Fitness

Disclaimer: Ideas expressed in this blog post should not be construed as official advice on how to safely perform fitness activities. Always consult with your doctor and other medical professionals as necessary, before engaging in exercise.