As a fitness professional trying to grow his business, I always encounter pretty much the same objections, some of these objections, however, seems to keep coming back more than others and they make absolutely no sense whatsoever. The goal of this article is to address in the most scientific and clear manner these objections that seem so deeply rooted in the untrained population.

Before I go any further I have to explain a clear distinction between two words that I will use extensively in this article: Exercising and Training. Even though these two might seem quite similar, they really are not. Exercising is basically a form of dynamic, random, somewhat athletic activity that may results in caloric expenditure and elevated heart rate (walking the dog, cycling with the family on Sundays, swimming whenever the weather is nice enough, etc…). Training is something that is planned, thought out, regular and specifically aimed at progressing in a particular modality of exercise.

Training might seem reserved or limited to athletes, this is a total misconception, any goal in life cannot be reached without an amount of training, you have to do something over and over, while slowly increasing the difficulty in order to “get better” at something or in order to achieve a “goal”. In the realm of health and fitness, your goal doesn’t have to be an Olympic medal, it might simply be loosing a few pounds, gaining muscle, getting rid of that nasty lower back pain, not being out of breath after walking up a flight of stairs, etc… Exercising might induce, with a lot of luck and on an extended and unpredictable time frame some of these benefits but it usually does not.

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