Training .vs. Exercise

When we talk about “working out” we’re typically talking about two different things: exercise and training. What differentiates the two? Exercise is typically what your doctor prescribes: anything that gets you moving more and that raises your heart rate. The intention is typically to improve your health-markers such as lowering your weight, your LDL cholesterol, your blood pressure, etc.. On the other hand, training is what athletes do: working out with the intention of performing better. So, the difference is in intent. The reason me and other strength & conditioning coaches are cynical about this subject is because we understand the importance of MINDSET. The mindset of someone who exercises becomes dramatically different from the mindset of someone who trains.

Can you imagine if in Rocky IV Rocky Balboa decided he wanted to run for exercise, lift for exercise, chop trees for exercise, and climb mountains for exercise? Ivan Drago would have killed him too. Instead, Rocky ran because he wanted to win, lifted because he wanted to win, chopped trees because he wanted to win, and climbed mountains because he wanted to win. So, he won, and was leaner and healthier as a bi-product of training. The same can be said for anyone in the armed forces. No U.S. Marine or Navy Seal exercises. Every single one of them trains.
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The problem with exercise is that it becomes arbitrary to most. What that means is that it typically becomes a circus of arbitrarily filling an allotted time with arbitrary activities without the intention of building and improving on those activities in the future. For example, someone who exercises may set out to run 30 minutes every other morning with the idea that doing so will somehow make them “healthier.”

Someone who trains would set out to run 30 minutes every other morning but try to do it a few seconds faster each time with the idea that doing so will make them “better” at running as well as healthier. As another example: someone who exercises may cycle through the same lifting circuit of bicep curls, tricep extensions, shoulder presses, and chest flys with a set of 15 lbs. dumbbells each and every upper-body day. In contrast, someone who trains will try to increase either the repetitions or weight of each lift on each and every upper-body day.
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The problem with the exercise mindset is Zatsiorsky’s Law of Accommodation or, as most people know it, the Law of Diminishing Returns. This means that when you do something continually, your body becomes accustomed to it and ceases to adapt further to the stimulus. In other words, if you don’t make a stimulus (like running or lifting) different and/or more difficult, you will cease to see positive changes beyond a base point.

If you can’t or won’t add weight (intensity) or reps (volume), you won’t make progress. You will simply spin your wheels and be stuck in fitness limbo. Yes, you may lose weight and lower your resting heart rate simply by exercising but when those improvements stall what are you left with? You are smaller, weaker, slower, less athletic, and less capable overall. I experienced these exact things when I lost 109 lbs. with diet, walking, and circuits with 15 lbs. dumbbells.
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I don’t mean to denigrate exercise as doing something is better than nothing but if your intention is to get better and do better, you need to train. Effective training requires doing more than you were able to do previously. This is the principle of progressive overload, the most fundamental part of any training program.