“Entertrainment” and Why Such Training Won’t Help You

“Entertrainment” is a fast-growing fitness trend that engages things like group exercises, dance, disco, and other unique activities to get people to exercise. (NOTE: If “entertrainment” gets someone who is sedentary up and moving because they find the activity fun, then that is great. I’m all for encouraging people to move.)

However, to get the best fitness results, there are actions you’re going to hate in order to get where you want. In other words: No Pain, No Gain. “Entertrainment” alone will not help you reach your fitness goals.

The Research

Three psychologists explain in their 1993 paper, “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” that talent is derived from hard work and years of dedication. To have an expertise, a person must deliberately practice for years with the intent of improving a skill. They practice for performance rather than for pleasure or rewards. According to this research, it requires a substantial mental effort in order to develop skills.

What Does that Mean for You?

What that means for you is you must focus during practice or training (whatever your craft may be) with the intent to get better. An athlete does not enjoy hammering heavy weights in the gym; he does so knowing it will make him stronger and faster. Handstand training is really fun, but times come up when it is brutal to your mind and you don’t want to train at all.

Psychologists have tightly linked expectations with happiness. If you have high expectations to gain ten kilos of muscle in one year but only achieve five, you may be unhappy about the result. If you want to come first in a competition but get second, you will be dissatisfied. A lot of Olympians are so stoked at having achieved Olympian status that anything else becomes secondary.

I am not deterring you from aiming big when it comes to fitness goals because large goals are more motivating than tiny things the common man or woman seeks. However, when we have expectations that are more (I’ll call “realistic,”)  your strength journey will not be easy but you establish resilience that can be used for when you hit a barrier. Your expectations set you up for happiness, or rather the willingness to persist and work.

Do this Today:

Write down one challenge you see coming over the next few months in your health. Visualize your experience of the challenge in all its difficulty as if it were real now. Expect the situation to be hard and you will begin to equip yourself to deal with what awaits. It’s amazing how one brain hack can be the difference between achievement and complacency.