Be Careful Where You Get Your Fitness Advice

Everybody in the world thinks they know best when it comes to fitness. Of course, like 90% of people have no idea what they’re talking about, so you need to be careful who you get your advice from or you could be either wasting your time or even hurting yourself without knowing it.  Here are a few examples:

• In my gym, there is an aerobics instructor that teaches a full class of step aerobics. The guy teaches a class every night…AND HE HAS A HUGE GUT.  If I was interested in getting into shape, I certainly wouldn’t take a class from a guy that’s out of shape because clearly it’s not working.  Would you take personal trainer lessons from a guy that’s really out of shape?
• I was doing dips the other day at the gym and some random dude came up to me to lecture on how I should be doing the exercise. He went on and on and on about how much farther I should drop my shoulders at the bottom.  After he left, I kept doing them the way I’ve always done them; why? because doing them his way would destroy my shoulders and possibly cause long term damage. Keep this in mind: just because a guy is giving you advice in the gym doesn’t mean he has ANY idea what he’s talking about.
• Hydroxy-cut was recently pulled off the shelves because it apparently caused all kinds of liver problems for a small percent of its users. These products were on the market for over seven years before finally getting pulled off the shelf.  What products are out there today that will get pulled seven years from now for screwing up people’s insides?
• Open a Muscle and Fitness magazine, and you’ll see ads for every supplement under the sun, pictures of body-builders, many of them probably on steroids, and routines that require you to spend 5 hours a day in the gym.  Unless you want to look like those guys, you’re not the target audience for the magazine and probably won’t get much from their advice.

If you’re just starting out with fitness, all of these issues with false information and false advertising can be intimidating.  Now, I’m not saying “only read Nerd Fitness and only get your advice from this site,” because there are still plenty of great sites/books/people out there who are full of great information.   I’m just saying be smart when you get advice from a source.  On Nerd Fitness, the advice and recommendations I give come from first hand experience.  I won’t endorse a product, routine, diet, supplement, or another website unless it’s something I’d use myself.  If I am endorsing something, it’s because I’ve done it and it works.

If you go to the gym, if you read a muscle magazine, if you hear through the grapevine about this amazing weight loss pill or miracle workout, do your research before you put all your eggs in that basket.  As with everything else in life, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

I promise that I’ll continue to do my research before posting an article.  It’s very tough to find 100% reliable information out there, so shoot me an email at [email protected] if you come across something you’re considering but not sure about and I’ll give you a straight answer.  If I don’t know the answer right away, I’ll do the research to make sure you don’t waste your money on a crappy product or do serious damage to yourself.  Just know that the advice I give will always lean towards “better safe than sorry,” because I just don’t thinks health risks are worth the extra few pounds lost or muscle gained.

Life is too damn short. Why not have fun with fitness, be safe, and feel good about yourself?

-Steve