The #1 Reason People Fail To Lose Weight

Here’s a quick question for you:

What’s the #1 mistake that prevents people from losing weight?

In my experience, the answer is simple.

It’s progression (or lack of it)

Here’s the deal… So many people workout every day, yet they don’t get the results they want. Why? Usually, it’s because of a misunderstanding of one vital element – progression.

Look, progression in exercise means you’re increasing the difficulty of your workout by manipulating one or more of the following:

1. Exercise

2. Repetition

3. Resistance

4. Rest

The progressive overload principle states that in order to make progress (bigger muscles, more strength or a more efficient energy system) your muscles must be continually challenged with new training stimuli, or they’ll cease to adapt.

So, we all need to learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable (get outside your comfort zone.

This could translate into: lifting more weight, doing more reps, implementing harder exercises or  simply performing them faster.

Once that becomes comfortable, get uncomfortable again. This is what training is all about—continuous progression and muscle confusion.

With this in mind, never ever sacrifice proper form. This is non-negotiable.

Here’s the slogan I love to repeat to my clients:

“Keep the muscles guessing, keep the muscles growing”.

Here are some simple methods to ensure you’re always progressing toward your health and fitness goals.

1. Progress Your Exercises

As obvious as this one may be, it’s often overlooked. When progressing your exercises they should gradually become more and more challenging.

Performing the same exercises week after week isn’t going to have the same impact as switching them up to make your routine more challenging.

So, if you want to lose more weight or build more muscle, switch things up.

2. Progress Your Reps

When progressing your reps, first make sure you are using proper form throughout each and every set. Sometimes just tweaking your form is enough to add just the right amount of difficulty to your routine.

After you have reached a near perfect form, only then begin to slowly add reps based on your current physical limitations.

It’s recommended that you add 1-2 reps to each set while keeping the weight and rest periods the same.

3. Progress Your Weight

This is the most common method of progressing from one workout to the next.

This big problem here is that many trainees do it wrong. The problem isn’t the eagerness to move more weight, instead their form hasn’t been perfected at the lower weight yet.

“Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. – Vince Lombardi”

Make no mistake, for successful results and a lower risk of injury, it’s best to perform full-range-of-motion reps with lighter weight, than performing sloppy reps with a heavier weight.

The general rule of thumb when increasing resistance is to complete two or more repetitions above the desired repetition range, but do this in the last set, in two consecutive workouts for any given exercise.

Once this has been accomplished, you can increase the weight by 2%-10% depending on your physical capability.

4. Rest (Time in between sets)

When decreasing your rest in between sets, keep the weight and rep/set scheme the same. This increases the difficulty of the exercise as you’re challenging your body to recover faster.

After you have successfully made this progression then increase the weight as well as the rest periods and start over with this progression.

Summary

Progression is vital in your weight loss journey. In my experience, it is the #1 mistake that prevents people from losing weight.

Use the steps given above to analyze your own workouts, and then see where you make one progression today. If you do this, you will begin to see your physique transform.

Let’s get fit together!