What Makes a Good Workout?

Key Point: A good workout gets you closer to your goal in some way.

I’ve often heard people talk about how they had a “good workout” and I’ve realized over the years that just about everyone has a different criteria for what makes a workout “good”.  Is a good workout one that leaves you in a pool of sweat?  Is it one that you barely managed to finish?  Is it one that will leave you sore the next day?  These are usually the criteria I hear for what makes a workout good.  And none of them make much sense to me.

I have one simple test for whether a workout is good.  Did it bring you, even a little bit, closer to your goal?  If yes, it was a good workout.  If not, it wasn’t.  That isn’t to say that a workout that leaves you in a pool of sweat, that you had to struggle through, and that will leave you barely able to get out of bed the next day can’t be a good workout.  Sometimes they can be great.  But that simply isn’t a good criteria for whether a workout actually improved you and brought you closer to what you want out of all this.  

I have friends, especially Marines, who I basically have to leave lying on the ground, gasping for breath, or they just don’t feel complete.  That’s fine and I can deliver that.  But it doesn’t take any special skill to “slay” someone.  There is literally no athlete alive who I couldn’t do that to, and it doesn’t take any special skill or knowledge.  You just make them work as hard as possible for longer than they are capable.  But does that make them better?  Well, sometimes.  But it also increases chances of injury or overtraining by a huge amount and doesn’t guarantee better results.  

I won’t mention the name, but for a while there was an extremely popular weightlifting program making the rounds on social media.  It was pretty intense and had a lot of reps, and lot of sets, and all with heavy weight.  People loved it because it worked… or at least it did for those who survived it.  I kept reading reviews that said something like “This is a great program.  I was making so much progress until I injured myself.  But it’s a great program.”  If I had to guess, over 50% of the reviews ended in injury of some kind.  Everyone always blamed themselves without considering that when that many people are getting injured, it might be the program’s fault.  When you are working as hard as people were working on this program, you almost inevitably see one of two results.  They have great success or they get injured.  While injury is a possibility with any program, I would never suggest a client do something that will get them injured 50% of the time.

The skill of a trainer comes from improving their clients’ abilities, leaving them satisfied with their workout, and doing so safely and while keeping them motivated.