by Tyler Quinn
Everybody, meet Jenny. Jenny, meet everybody.
Jenny is a lean, mean, pulsing, pose holding, sweat machine – she attends class at least three times per week, works hard, eats her greens, drinks lots of water and tries to sleep her eight hours a night. Despite this, she’s not seeing the results she wants. Of course, this isn’t Jenny’s fault. The fault is on the class she attends, and a commonly used, but misguided fitness philosophy made of sand.
You see, Jenny prescribes to a popular “thermostat fitness” routine. Jenny’s fitness receipt is dependent on the size of the puddle she leaves behind. She’s convinced that the bigger the puddle, the bigger the change in endurance, in body fat, in strength. Sorry, but it’s not so simple. I hate to shock you, but while heat might feel good on the muscles, sitting in a sauna for an hour, grilling out on a hot summer day with a few friends, or trying on six different outfits in a tight dressing room will leave you dripping with sweat – none of these things make you fitter.
While heat building and sweating are correlates of your effort, they’re weak correlates at best. Pushing yourself to your own, honest, personal max is the only fitness method that can’t be sidestepped through fake-outs like room temp. Alchemy will never get easy, you’ll just keep getting better at it. Time for more reps, more range of motion, more effort than you ever thought you were capable of. Many variables cause the body to heat and perspire, but there’s no faking effort. Don’t believe the lie of thermostat fitness! Want your fitness receipt to show actual results? Time to opt out of the heat and sweat façade and opt in on effort. At Alchemy, you can bet your bottom dollar you’ll leave dripping with real sweat – the hard-earned byproduct of your hard ass effort. Rest assured, real life results to follow.
Drop the heated room. Make the switch. Use the hashtag #realsweat on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and tag @alchemy_365. Show the front desk your post for a free first time visitor class or 20% off retail.
Tyler Quinn is a coach and founder of Alchmey and Union Fitness. In his spare time he enjoys reading, hockey, jiu jitsu and gun-slinging.
