The intention of this article is to help you identify trends that are going to be a waste of time. When you have a goal that you are working towards, you don’t want to waste your time putting effort into a method that isn’t the most productive. There are many gimmicks and trends that come and go in the fitness industry and there will be many more. We want you to be able to identify when something new is a new tool that will help you reach your goal or if it will be a waste of your time.

There are a few different reasons why gimmicks are prevalent in the fitness industry. Fitness as an industry is very young, only becoming popular as recent as the 1970s and isn’t enough time for some of the basic nonsense to be routed out. There is a low barrier of entry for people to enter the fitness industry and it can be difficult to evaluate a person’s credentials as there are often no educational requirements to coach or get involved in fitness-specific marketing. A lack of well-educated coaches and marketing efforts to create trends that stand out are two of the main reasons why gimmicks are so prevalent. We separated identifying gimmicks into training gimmicks and nutrition gimmicks.

Training 

It is helpful to frame most of training and nutrition as appropriate or inappropriate when deciding on individual parts of a training plan and as it fits into the program as a whole. It’s very common for coaches to talk about certain exercises as a secret movement for muscle growth, some method or training being the best or “this is the perfect training split…”. All training is just strength and conditioning work to an extent, so proclaiming a particular method is “the best and other methods are wrong” lacks the nuance needed to work towards what is ideal. Individual differences such as age, gender, height, weight, training age, strength, nutrition, stress, recovery history, variance in people’s goals, starting point, and limitations immediately eliminate the possibility that there is one answer for the best program. 

A common gimmick used to sell training plans is the “hardest possible exercise” or the most intense workout. First off, why would the hardest exercise or training plan be the most effective plan? There is a minimum level of intensity required to yield results, but maximal intensity or challenge isn’t guaranteed to be best. We must consider fatigue costs. If a workout leaves you too fatigued to have quality workouts for the remainder of the week, then it won’t be as effective. One hard workout and four crappy ones is not as productive as five quality workouts. Five quality workouts will allow for greater total volume, higher average intensity, higher frequency, and decreased probability of injury. On top of this, when an exercise or workout is altered with the intent of making it harder or more challenging, it is often made easier through a misunderstanding of intensity. 

Many coaches confuse more complex with harder. Increasing exercise complexity will limit an exercise’s intensity by creating obstacles for the athlete preventing them from maximal effort. It is common for two separate exercises to be put together as one movement to make it “harder”. When this happens, it is more likely for one movement to limit the ability of the other exercise. An example would be combining a deadlift and a bicep curl. No one can curl enough weight to be able to challenge themselves on deadlift. Having the deadlift also adds extra rest time between curls and makes the curls less challenging. Some changes to movements will make a workout feel harder without increasing the effectiveness. Some examples would be: instability training- Squatting on a bosu ball limits your ability to recruit muscle so it feels harder while you’re working less; excessive resistance (running up hill, weighted vest, adding weight or other resistance) - This can help for developing specific strength but depending on the movement or workout this might result in moving slower and not allowing peak power output you would want for explosiveness.

Another common way coaches try to make a workout “harder” is to eliminate or reduce rest time. There are times when this is appropriate but more commonly it forces a reduction in intensity by the person not being capable of that level of sustained energy output. To illustrate these faults in making a workout “harder” let’s use running as an example. Let’s say the workout is 20 sprints of 100 yards with 1min rest in between. This would be a hard conditioning workout if you run at full speed each sprint. If we make the workout more complex by changing to 100 yards sprint but you need to take one step back every three steps forward and jump to the left every five steps, the workout becomes much easier by slowing it down with unnecessary extra steps not allowing for full speed. If we eliminate the rest time between each sprint, you will end up just going for a light jog for 2000 yards. This can be challenging for more endurance, but the workout will be much less intense. Simpler movements or workouts allow for an athlete to put maximal effort into each part and will be more beneficial. 

Nutrition

Fitness gimmicks and trends are most prevalent in nutrition. Everyone is looking for a trick or secret to lose weight. People want a quick fix and fast results. When you break down each trend, they all boil down to manipulation of certain variables. In nutrition there are 6 variables that we can work with to create all diet plans. All of the diet trends and fads fall into the manipulation of these variables:

Calories- A measurement of energy.  

Macronutrient Ratio- The proportion of calories spent towards protein, fats, and carbs. 

Nutrient Timing- When food is consumed.

Food Quality- The source of food that usually relates to the micronutrients. 

Supplementation- Consumption of nonfood sources. 

Hydration- Water intake.

Knowing how the diet produces results is just as important as if it produces results. Most diets have a goal of losing weight. There is no limit to the ways people claim a diet causes weight loss, but all weight loss is the result of creating a caloric deficit. It is a law of thermodynamics that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Calories are a measure of energy. When we expend more calories than we take in we burn stored body fat to make up the difference. If any diet claims to work through a different method, they are claiming to have figured out how to break the laws of physics. Calories in vs calories out holds true but in practice it is impossible to have exact numbers. Counting calories gives us a good estimate, but it is not exact. As a result, some have taken this to completely discredit calories in vs calories out. Whether you count or not your body is tracking the calories. Think of most diets as strategies of ways to get closer to what is optimal while being able to stick to it for the length of time needed to achieve a goal. Since creating a caloric deficit is the most important aspect for losing weight, let’s logically go some popular diets and see how a caloric deficit is created.

Keto/Atkins- (No or Low Carb)- You are eliminating a third of the foods you can eat. With less options you will likely eat less.

Intermittent Fasting- You are reducing the amount of time you can eat. With a narrower window, you are likely not able to eat as much overall in a day.

Vegan/Vegetarian- You are eliminating many foods you are allowed to eat and more likely to choose less processed calorically dense foods since most involve animal products. Vegetables and high fiber foods tend to be more filling for the number of calories. All of these factors make it more likely for you to eat less. 

Paleo/Whole Foods- High quality unprocessed foods tend to be lower calorie and more filling for the number of calories. As a result, less calories are consumed. 

Zone/WW(Weight Watchers- They convert calorie units into points. You are counting calories. 

There are a few common claim strategies used to push nutrition trends into popularity. Each tactic feeds on the psychology of people. One common tactic is using complicated or lesser understood mechanisms- Examples: “It’s your hormones” or “It’s your gut microbiome” This tactic plays on the thought of “it must be more complicated, that’s why I haven’t been successful before.” It’s also common to demonize one food or categorize something as good or bad. It is much easier to pit someone against something than it is to rally behind something. With the choice between blaming something for our past downfalls and motivating us to make changes to improve poor choices; we will almost always choose to place the blame elsewhere. It is not a healthy mindset to label foods as good or bad. Not all gimmicks or trends are a result of intentional misleading. Some are a result of misinterpreting information from a single study. Until a theory has been put through the entire scientific process we can’t definitely know something to be true. Making a major claim off of a small amount of information will lead to us being wrong more often than not. 

Be cautious of new trends that pop up in fitness and nutrition because they may be ineffective and will waste your time and money. Creating something in the fitness industry to stand out can lead to prioritizing novelty over effectiveness. We should seek to work towards what is optimal and proven to work for the majority of people when making recommendations while taking into account the individual’s likelihood to adhere and sustain something. The ability to adhere to a plan should be included in decision making. So, if it is something you like, and it allows you to work towards your goals then go for it. We don’t always need to make progress in an optimal way, but if progress stops or stalls, it is beneficial to know what to try next and what would be a waste of time and effort.

 

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