Often Neglected: K.I.S.S.

​Keep it simple stupid!
This is something we may have heard throughout our life, but it could not be more applicable to your fitness journey. How many of you have walked into a gym and notice individuals who are in just average shape trying to replicate something from the exorcist?
It’s common to see somebody only feet away from the dumbbell rack doing kettlebell bicep curls on a bosu ball or somebody trying to duplicate a single arm row by standing on 2 boxes and taking up the entire smith machine. Gyms now are plagued by individuals trying to reinvent the wheel with some complex variation of an exercise that they saw on Instagram. What these individuals do not understand, is that oftentimes the exercises that have been tried and proven throughout history to deliver results are still around for a reason.
The same thing goes for dieting and supplements. Individuals are looking for that magical new method of dieting, or that new revolutionary supplement that promises 20 lbs. of muscle in a week. I hate to burst your bubble, but nothing beats just plain old effort and applying it to what will give you the biggest return. It is crucial to determine in your fitness journey what will give you the greatest return for your investment. For example, say you are trying to develop your lower body and want it to grow overall. You can take the approach of just doing isolation exercises for each individual muscle in your lower body, or you can maximize your effort and do compound exercises like squats and leg presses and hit all these muscles at once. Same thing goes for dieting, if you are constantly focusing on hitting your macros, or shoving large amounts of food in you within a magical 6 or 8 hour window, you might be neglecting the more important aspects of your nutrition. Instead you could be focusing this energy on eating high quality nutrient dense foods every 3 hours and maximizing your anabolism.
This is not to say that these other methods that have come throughout the last few years are bad, but you must not let them distract you from the more important things that you should be aiming to maximize. The things that have worked for bodybuilders and physique sculptors for over the last century still continue to be relevant today. Although you must find the specific things that work for you, you can use these standards as a guide to model your plan of attack from it. Not only can this be applied to your fitness journey, but it can be applied to any aspect of your life. When you begin to analyze a situation and see where your biggest effort will be reciprocated, you will begin to become more successful at the goals you set out for yourself.
So next time you see some new revolutionary exercise that requires 3 benches in the gym and half of the dumbbell rack, ask yourself: what is the purpose of doing it this way?
If you can find a legitimate answer that equals better results for you, then it does not hurt to try it. But, if you can yield the same if not better results with what has been tried and proven, then keep it simple stupid! The simpler you keep things, the less room for error there will be.
Keep working relentlessly towards achieving your goals, and focus on the main objective, do not get lost in the details!