I've been training on and off for years and looking back, I've made some absolute howlers. Training seven days a week. Thinking every workout had to leave me exhausted. Ignoring recovery. Following advice from people who looked great but had no idea what they were talking about. If you could go back and give your younger self one piece of fitness advice, what would it be?
Great question. Looking back, my biggest mistake was constantly changing what I was doing. I'd follow one training programme for a couple of weeks, read an article or watch a video that promised better results, then jump to something else. The same thing happened with nutrition. One week it was low carb, the next, high protein, then intermittent fasting. It took me far too long to realise that consistency is probably the most underrated part of fitness. Most people don't need a better programme. They need to stick with a good one for longer. I'm curious whether others made the same mistake or whether yours was something completely different.
I'm 45 (and a woman) and I don't train seven days a week. I train 3-4x a week and I vary my training all the time. I now drink lots of water as opposed to when I was 21 in college thinking I knew everything about lifting & working out from ESPN fitness shows.I do a lot of lap swimming for cardio & ride a mountain bike and don't run anymore due to the knee pounding I don't want.
