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How Much Time is Wasted in the Gym? (10/01/06)

Roundtable Discussion #15

"In your opinion, how much time is wasted in the gym by gym-goers?"

Panel:

Steve Payne:

First and foremost, I believe that there are several distinct, different persona's within the confines of the gym "arena". Many previous articles have discussed them and brought them to light for the enjoyment and connectedness of us all. For the purposes of this message, I will restrict my comments to three basic phylum of these classes of people.

The first is the "Puritan"; the individual who simply comes to the gym to "get 'er done", if you will. They are often defined by the sweat, headphones and lack of eye contact with others. These people are usually devoid of humor, seldom "work in" with other members and often have a "don't talk to me" type of body language. They do not waste time. That's cool, as long as they carry a towel to wipe up after themselves.

Then there's the "Socialite"; it's usually a guy (but not always) who's been married for a number of years, has a couple or ten kids and a wife who serves more as a mom than a partner. He saunters about from piece to piece, training a set of bi's and tri's between solving all of the world's problems (a skill at which he is MOST adept) and soliciting and/or inciting "smack" and chatter from whomever will respond to his taunts. This is his version of "Happy Hour", usually conducted at a specific time each day. Hey, at least he's not driving under the influence of anything stronger than obnoxious behavior.

The next type is in a class all their own. The worst offender in the bunch, bar none, is the one who pays double for the privilege of being at the gym. The "Therapy Session Client"; you know this one. Not only do they pay gym dues, they pay a trainer as well. They hire a trainer to "train" them and then spend the bulk of the session talking about...whatever. These folks are under the impression that they are doing well, when in reality they are being deluded into a false sense of security. Personally, I blame the trainer; they should know better. I have clients that want to talk about their "issues". Believe me, I'm not insensitive...much. The way I figure it, there's two ways to handle it. 1) We can talk and train and talk and you can pay me and feel like you accomplished something, or 2) I can add weight to all of your sets and you'll forget all about your problems for a while. This, for most people, is what they really want to do in the first place. Am I a genius or what?

I hope you see that I'm having some fun with this. The people I've mentioned above are real, even if their circumstances and situations have been exaggerated by my eloquence and skill of prose. (Kids, don't try writing like this at home. I'm a professional. Just ask me.)

People waste time in the gym for several reasons. Either they don't know what their doing but are too scared, egotistical or pride-filled to ask for assistance, so they muddle along. Some THINK they know what their doing, and probably suffer from the same afflictions. Either way, they all waste days, months or years by never seeing any appreciable progress or results. If others simply want to waste time by being overly talkative or appear affable in some way, that is their choice, I guess. Just please don't interrupt my training session. I'm probably doing a quick set between my own personal conversations.

Rick Karboviak:

I've seen a lot of time wasted in the gym, and having been guilty of it myself in the past when I didn't know better, I can see why people waste time.

There's always the stereotypical "bench, talk & rest, repeat' workout that lasts for 45 minutes to no avail.

Then there's the women sauntering ever so slowly on a treadmill at a pace that wouldn't pass the speed limit on a snail's highway, burning more time away than calories.

I honestly think that about a good 20 to 40 minutes is wasted on idle chit-chat and no focus.

From what I've seen with doing 20 to 25 minute workout sessions lately with my boot camp clientele and other clients for personal training, and even sports training, we don't have too much time for chit-chat, we need to get
things DONE. Do more work in less time. Get more accomplished with solid conditioning principles. There's a time to discuss what diet is working or isn't, or what 'fat loss cycle' one should be on. It shouldn't be in the middle of a workout session while doing more curl sets than you spend on squats.

There is an extreme lack of focus in most cases of time-wasting, otherwise there wouldn't be this issue. If people gained more focus and distinction in their workouts, they'd be on their way to maintaining, not trying to just develop, a healthier lifestyle.

Robert Belley:

I’m not sure of an exact number but I’m positive it revolves somewhere around WAY TOO FRICKIN’ MUCH! Almost every prospect that comes to me looking for a refreshing new routine and a killer set of abs tends to tread in the wake of the 1980’s “Flex” routine. The women spend an hour a day running on a treadmill and take six aerobics classes a week for that ‘so-unattainable’ physique. The men grit and sweat their way through multiple training sessions daily typically training back with bi’s and chest with tri’s in the hope of developing sleeve stretching arms and button popping pecs!

Is all of this really needed? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, if it’s a reality based TV show such as NBC’s The Biggest Loser then yeah, the trainee’s are severely overweight, they have a very short time frame, some really cool prizes are offered, there’s the competitive sprit against another group and an entire nation of millions holding them accountable. In this instance vigorous and long training sessions are in order but for average day-to-day Jack and Jill’s 30-45 minutes 3-5 times a week may do the trick.

So I guess the next series of questions would be, what does this hypothetical group of “people” want as a result, where are they presently, how much time have they allotted for this result, how are their realistic dietary habits and how will they eat and how committed will they be when it comes to working towards this result?

Otherwise I’ll guess based upon my experiences that most waste about 30-60 minutes in the gym and eat about 60-70% of the minimum requirement needed to achieve their goals.

But maybe a future roundtable with a case study would be kind of interesting.

And many trainee’s waste this time either because they do not know any better, they are confused by the plethora of information circulating, they’d rather socialize with the other gym members or they may not enjoy working out at all. Any variety of answers would suffice here but each individual and his or her actions are based on a case to case study.

If people would define clear goals for themselves and found the most reasonable way to reach those goals without causing harm to themselves and without wasting precious free time then hopefully this trend would dissipate.

John Izzo:

I think alot of time is wasted in the gym due to all of gym-goers relying on old information in regrards to warming-up, stretching, rest periods, and lack of intensity. I used to be the gym goer who spent 2-3 hours in the gym. My trainigh routine consisted of 1-3 minute rest periods, constant yapping to fellow lifters, and a 10 minute walk on the treadmill to get things started. Fast forward 12 years and you wll find me in the gym a minimum of 1 hour. Today, my workout consists of 8 minute movemnt prep with core work and 5 strength training exercises that take about 25 minutes. I then polish off the workout with a 20 minute cardio session consisted of intevals. Do I jib-jab? Nope...and I teach clients to stay focused in a session also.

The cliche is "people that workout, don't train" --there's a difference and I believe it. I think the factor that differentiates workouts versus training sessions is intensity. People need to increase their intensity in order to focus on their training session and avoid wasting time. As Arnold said in "Pumping Iron", you must have the guts to go in there and not be afraid of fainting...

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