The two things everyone gets wrong when they start to lift

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One of my favorite things to do is play Dr. House with people’s workout routines. I enjoy to armchair-differentially-diagnose a description of someone’s life when they just can’t figure out why working out isn’t going well for them. Unfortunately for me, a lot of these descriptions turn out to all have the same central issues (and they are, to be honest, kind of boring and basic ones, which explains why they are also so often overlooked).

But let’s have some fun: I’m going to mock up one of these routine descriptions that I usually see, and you are going to pick out at least one of the problems where they are going wrong. Bonus points if you can figure out both problems. Here we go:

“I’m so excited that I finally got up the nerve to start strength training! I’ve been going to the gym now for a month, but I’m sad to say that the changes I hoped for just aren’t happening. I work out four times a week alternating upper and lower body for about 45 minutes, doing compound moves (squats, bench, lunges, overhead press, hip thrust, etc). I sleep eight hours every night in a 65-degree room; once a week I get a massage and take a cold plunge in 58-degree water infused with essential oils and sprinkled with bay leaves. On alternating days, I follow a stretching class on Peloton (love you, Cody!!!). When I get stressed out, I pull up YouTube and follow Win Wender’s “5 MINUTE RELAXATION BREATH ROUTINE FOR CIRCULATION AND POSITIVITY.” I went to the doctor to check my Vitamin D and sodium and potassium and glucose levels, and she said I’m in perfect health. I hiked to the top of the nearest mountain and sat in communion with my higher power, who said my soul is pure. I tried a jade egg. I tried ice rollers. I bought crystals, took up meditation, and stopped heating up my leftovers in the microwave in plastic containers. NOTHING is working. Why am I not getting any results, why do I still look and feel the same!!”

Now, when these posts are online, they tend to get two kinds of responses. The first response lists yet more arcane solutions that are supposed to “give results”, e.g. “I also wasn’t seeing results until I tried [some special strain of herbal tea/a particular yoga pose/sound baths/hydrotherapy] and now everything’s going great! You should try it!”

The second is usually like, “You are doing great sweetie!! Try give yourself credit for all the things you ARE doing!: You’re going to the gym regularly, you’re taking care of yourself; you deserve a good pat on the back!”

Neither of these responses are wrong, per se. But they are not, let’s say, maximally helpful. Because there are two big missed opportunities that are not specifically mentioned in the original post. And usually, as soon as someone asks about them, we find out that not only are they under-leveraged, but the original poster was totally unaware they should even be very high priorities.

Can you spot them? I will give you a minute. Find a piece of paper and a pen and write your answer(s) down. Take your time! I myself am going to pause here and collect my thoughts—

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Okay. We’ve all had time to reflect and introspect. What’s going on here? Two big things.