Why I Love & Hate Pinterest - Part 3

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest

Following on from last week's third installment of Why I Love & Hate Pinterest, in which we focused on the how Pinterest could promote Warped Goals/Ideas, this post will have the 1st part of our second topic...

Poor Understanding of Realistic Attainment

Welcome to part 4 of the Why I Love & Hate Pinterest series, in which I’ll spend some time pondering some pins I’ve seen lately that either enraged, encouraged, or exasperated me.

“[X Amount of Time] for [adjective] [body part] –
i.e. 15 Minutes to Sexy Legs!”

So here’s one I see all the time, a really short amount of time that is claimed to give some miraculous returns on a selected body part (usually the legs or butt).
Here’s one example (for the sake of not being a douche and calling out another professional I’ve edited the name from the bottom and the picture will not link to the pin):

 Here’s another example (and again, I will not link to the pin or show the name of the pinner):

 This one is a particularly bad example, not only does it say 10 minutes on here, but the link itself said 5 minutes.

So, I hear you ask, what’s the problem?
Well, the problem lies in both what is being said, and what isn’t.
You see, the reason things like this get so massively ‘repinned’ is because, with modern life as hectic and full as it is, time is at an absolute premium, and if someone can say “you will look immensely better in 10 minutes” then people will want it to work. Now what these pins are essentially saying is that you can get a 10 minute workout that will aid in x fitness goal (x being toned legs, firm butt, flat stomach, etc), and that’s fine.
For a while.
You see, one massive thing these workouts all lack is something called the ‘overload principle’, more commonly known as ‘progressive overload’. Essentially, the body is incredibly proficient at adapting to training when the main variables (load, volume, time) are kept at a constant, meaning that if nothing in a workout changes it will get easier as your body adapts to it.
I think everyone knew that, if they didn’t know why they knew it, so let’s carry on.
Let’s say someone was to have a go at one of these workouts, and they were in a semi-untrained state – they would probably find them pretty hard! And because of that, I’m sure they would feel they will work. But what about 4 weeks down the line, when initial adaptation to exercise has commenced and ‘beginner gainz’ are in full-effect? The cardio-respiratory strength, cardiovascular strength, and muscular endurance of the individual will most likely have increased to a point where the workout is loads easier. Therefore, the body will get less response to the stimulus (the workout) as it’s less taxing than it was previously. Furthermore, if the workout continues on in the same manner then it will get easier and easier, and result in less and less returns for the effort. And this is what I meant when I said there’s also an issue of what it isn’t saying – there is no mention of progression, which your body needs, so this will only work for a short amount of time.
While I think of it, if you’re in any kind of trained state, you probably won’t get anything from a 10 minute (or 5 minute) workout. Unless it’s a crazy intense crossfit type thing where you actively try to do it as quickly as possible (such as Fran), in which the progression is denoted by the time in which you do it in (see above: training variables), then the workout probably won’t meet the needs of your body.
Finally, one thing that really irks me about these things is that they never state anything other than some random objectively-defined term, such as ‘toned’ or ‘firm’, as the training goal. What do those words mean to the person writing it? Is it the same as the person reading it?
And this isn’t just a case of using the most-common word which everyone knows to mean one thing, it’s deliberately vague because they know you can’t pin it down as a definite and therefore judge the workout on it. For instance, if they put ‘leg hypertrophy’ you know exactly what you’re going to get – hypertrophic response (read: muscle-building) in the legs. I have no idea, personally, what ‘toned’ constitutes.
Lower fat percentage? Well, they can’t guarantee that will happen in the area of the body the workout is for, so they can’t promise toned legs.
Muscle-building? If so, they can’t promise that will happen either because all the rep/time ranges are monstrously geared toward endurance, which is not the most likely range to build muscle.
Strength gains? Even less likely than muscle being built, because the rep ranges are even further from where they need to be.
I’ll move on, because I think I’ve made my point…

So this is another good point to take a break, as I'm not keen on these posts becoming too long.

Come back next week for the 2nd and 3rd example of Pinterest's poor understanding or realistic attainment...