Have you heard of former race car driver Richard Petty?

Before you start to wonder, no, this isn’t an article devoted to my passion for the racing career of the weird hat wearing man referred to as “The King”.

The guy did happen to win 200 races however and is considered the most famous race car driver of all time.

His niche was racing cars.

He practiced in a race car and raced in a race car.

He did it often and he did it well.

You want to know what he didn’t do?

Practice or race in a monster truck.

But why wouldn’t he do some practicing in a monster truck?

They are fast, have lots of power, require hand eye coordination, control, and have many other similarities to race cars.

You could easily assume that doing some driving in a monster truck could in some way aid his race car skills.

But then you take two seconds to think about how the two of them are COMPLETELY different and the amount of valuable carryover is next to nothing.

Which leads us to our next point.

Are you trying to be successful at driving a race car yet are practicing in a monster truck?

We all have a primary goal we want to accomplish with our health and fitness.

For some of us it is building muscle.

For others it may be running marathons.

Some may be looking to be power lifters.

While there are those of us that just want to feel good and be capable of doing life.

Sure there may be some crossover between goals, but generally most of us have one primary vision.

Fortunately, there are specific ways to train for each individual goal to maximize results for that specific area.

Sounds great, right?

The problem is, the vast majority of us are too busy driving the monster truck when we need to be focusing on the race car.

Take a woman who wants to build some muscle to shape her butt and shoulders, drop some body fat, and feel stronger.

She should lock into a proper nutrition program specific to her and begin strength training. The above goals can be accomplish with no wasted time with this plan.

The problem is, it RARELY goes down that way.

Nine times out of ten a woman who has the goals outlined above may do some strength training, but mainly slaves away doing cardio.

This is counter productive to what she is looking to do. She wants to build muscle and lose fat, which 98 percent of the time can be solved with proper nutrition and strength training.

Not only is the cardio wasting her time, it is hindering her muscle gains.

Have you ever seen an olympic marathon runner? They aren’t exactly winning any physique contests. No offense to them, that is their thing.

Let the nutrition take care of the caloric end and the weights take care of the training side. No cardio needed.

But wait, we have to flip the same coin.

The person training to be a marathoner has a goal too and it is to be AWESOME at their specific sport.

What should they focus on primarily? Exactly that. Their running.

That isn’t to say that strength training of some type in addition to their running does not have merit, but it certainly should not be the forefront of their protocol.

Strength training to the marathoner is like Richard Petty taking out the monster truck. Sure it has him behind the wheel driving something powerful, but it definitely is not the bread and butter of his training.

Or what about the 70 year old woman who wants to feel capable of day to day activity, have some strength, and be healthy.

An overall program of sound nutrition, strength training, and cardiovascular conditioning would be a great for her.

Conversely, busting out advanced level crossfit 5 days per week, not so much.

Have you been wasting your time on certain activities with hopes that they are helping you when they might not be?

It’s very common so don’t feel bad if this might be you.

Now, please understand that driving the monster truck is NOT a bad thing. In fact it can be really darn fun. It gets your mind off of your primary training and is a nice change on occasion.

Just remember that it is not the main tool that will get you to your goal. It should be seen as a supplement and not as the primary driver of your progress.

At the end of the day, if you want to build muscle/prevent losing muscle as well as get strong, strength train.

If you want to get awesome at running, mountain biking, or swimming, do those activities.

If you want to just feel good all around, do a little bit of it all.

Just know that your training should always have a primary focus if you have a specific goal.

Do you have any questions about your training? Think you might be spinning your wheels?

Let me know! I am happy to help and I answer all emails!

Email me at: JwaltersPT@gmail.com

AND

Check out my website at:

JonWalters.co