Recently, I created a video talking about six overrated tools in fitness. It created a lot of discussion topics on Instagram and Pinterest. It created a space to have discussion on the effects on using these tools as a crutch. Social media, as a whole, has overcomplicated fitness! It has overcomplicated the methods needed to improve your physical health. These are some of the things I wish I knew earlier on instead of five to six years in. Today, I’m sharing five fitness tools that I believe are a waste of time so I can save you years to focus on the best methods. Bookmark and share this post for fitness inspiration!
High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
A lot of people think that High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is cardio training. This is miscommunicated and misused in the industry for years.
HIIT is a form of anaerobic training due to its intensity and shorter duration. Strength training, circuit training, pilates, yoga etc. fall into this category. Anaerobic training are exercises that break down glucose in the body without using oxygen. Whereas regular cardio is a form of aerobic training as it is not as intense as the former and longer duration. Swimming, running, cycling, Zumba etc. fall into this category. Aerobic training are exercises that produce energy with the use of oxygen.
HIIT can be seen as an overrated tool and a waste of time because it is not used correctly. It does have a place in fitness but it is not cardio training. If you are trying to improve your cardiovascular (heart) health and you’re using HIIT as your cardio method, you are wasting time. If you are trying to get stronger or faster, with more muscle mass, then anaerobic training is the tool to use.
Meal Plans
Let’s separate the two before we start. Meal planning can improve your health, reduce food waste, and save you time and money. Buying meal plans can be a waste of time. It has its place in the fitness and health industry but it is misused frequently, especially by those who don’t know how to use it.
I’m not a registered dietician but a nutrition student. In all my years of being in this industry, I would not write a meal plan. Most people do not take meal plans with a grain of salt, but follow them as a literal template. If they deviate from that template, they feel like they have fallen off their programme and they have failed. This is completely wrong. Not all fitness coaches have a background or the credentials in nutrition to be providing meal plans despite how useful they can be.
For any health goal, you need to have the right mindset. To have that mindset, you need to understand what you are putting in your body, and how it affects the other realms of health. You need to understand that meal plans are tools for you to make progress, by learning more about macronutrients (macros). If you have the wrong mindset and use meal plans as a literal template, it may not be the best tool for you.
Branched-Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs)
If there is one fitness tool out of this list that is completely useless, it will be branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs). I was caught in this trap for the first three years into fitness.
Amino acids are the building blocks that make up protein. Our body puts them together in order to build muscle. While our bodies can create some amino acids from scratch, they need to obtain the other nine (essential) amino acids from foods or supplements. Three of these nine amino acids can be found in BCAAs. However, they cannot work in isolation to build muscle.
Most people drink BCAAs like it’s the only fountain in the desert. The problem with that is that people are creating an excess of these amino acids in the body. It’s just sitting there with no benefits. The other 6 amino acids are lacking in the body which means that you will not experience any new muscle growth by drinking BCAAs. If you want to get all nine essential amino acids to see significant muscle growth, you need to be eating complete protein sources such as meat, fish, dairy products and eggs. If you are vegetarian, vegan or sensitive to dairy products, there are ways to create complete protein sources that have all nine essential amino acids.
Intermittent Fasting
A lot of people do intermittent fasting (IF). IF is an eating strategy that focuses on having a ‘fasting window’ and an ‘eating window’. The ‘fasting window’ is a period of time where you don’t eat anything except for drinking water and zero calorie drinks. The ‘eating window’ is a period of time where you eat total food intake for the day. IF is a sustainable eating strategy when used correctly. Unfortunately, in a majority of cases, it is not.
Most people use it as means to lose fat and eat whatever they want during the ‘fasting window’. That defeats the purpose of the strategy. The ‘fasting window’ works well as the feeding window has restrictions. Therefore forcing people to eat less which leads to a calorific deficit and fat loss.
The second reason is that muscle loss is an issue. Most people that do IF incorrectly lose a significant amount of muscle mass because they are not using the ‘eating window’ strategically.
Banded Pull Ups
We all want to be able to pull our bodyweight up and do multiple drills to get that first pull up. Variations of banded pull ups are great to use but viewed as overrated tools.
When I say overrated, I simply mean that: A) people rely on the bands too much that it become a crutch and B) the band does not give you assistance throughout the entire movement.
If you want to get your first pull up, there are more effective drills that you can do such as eccentric pull ups, the lat-pulldown machine, dead hangs and scapular holds. Using bands for pull ups are a great tool for those looking to use assistance to achieve their first pull up without assistance.
There you have it! Five fitness tools can be a waste of time depending on their use. I hope that this post will save you time with your health and fitness journey. Check out the initial video on Instagram, Pinterest and Tiktok. If you really want to know the best and underrated methods, check out and bookmark this blog post.
Until next time,
Folakemi
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