Spend five minutes online looking for information about improving health and fitness and you’ll learn that:
- Carbs are the problem.
- Carbs are important.
- You need to train heavy (with low reps).
- You need to do moderately high reps (which necessitate lighter weights).
- Zone 2 cardio is the secret.
- High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is the secret.
It can be frustrating when information seems contradictory and exhausting trying to sort it all out.
And when you find something that sounds valid and “works for everyone”, try it, and struggle to see the same—or any—results, it’s easy to assume that the problem lies with you.
It doesn’t.
But that doesn’t mean that most popular advice is wrong either, just that it’s incomplete.
Broad guidelines vs. specific results
Do you remember this logic/geometric shape recognition statement from grade school?
“A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn’t necessarily a square.”
The statement points out that a specific shape is an example of a general pattern, but also that any random item described by the general pattern doesn’t automatically equate to a specific shape.
That concept also usefully describes popular fitness advice.
Such advice has to be generalized in order to reach a large audience. By definition, that means it won’t necessarily account for your specific training history, injury history, sleep patterns, stress load, preferences, schedule, or personality.
And that means the advice is probably missing components that are necessary for you, specifically, to experience the full picture of success that it touts.
In other words, it might be a perfect starting point, but it’s almost certainly not a perfect solution.
The missing skill
In a prior tip about research-backed Goal Setting Theory, I mentioned that there are two types of goals:
- Performance goals are those that target attaining a desired level of performance.
- Learning goals are those that target learning a desired number of strategies, processes, or procedures for mastering a task.
We can only set true performance goals for something we already know how to do. If we don’t yet know the skills required, we’re in learning territory—even if we’re chasing a specific result.
This is where another challenge with popular fitness advice and each of our specific implementations of it enters the picture.
If we’re adopting new methods to solve a problem—losing 20 pounds, using kettlebells, building up to a pullup—we’re operating in learning mode, even if the outcome itself isn’t new to us.
Learning any new skill requires practice, failure, and experimentation in order to truly get it right and subsequently adapt.
But popular fitness advice rarely offers alternatives and adjustments—which is fine because it’s generalized. The problem is that we often try to blindly follow it. Meaning, we assume that it’s specifically geared toward our individual situation and that we can expertly implement its recommendations even though we’re actually beginners.
When we treat a learning process like a performance test, every imperfect result feels like failure instead of feedback. Since no one enjoys feeling like they’re failing, the common response is to quit—or jump to the next promising solution.
So the real skill that most of us miss—or at least fail to implement—is turning broad recommendations into structured experiments that allow us to practice, fail, adjust, and improve.
From advice to experiment
Experimenting doesn’t need to be complicated. In fact, start with the popular advice.
Then:
- Choose one or two actions you’re actually willing to implement. Not the perfect plan—the realistic one.
- Define what “working” means. More energy? Fewer cravings? Improved reps? Better recovery?
- Anticipate obstacles. Busy week? Travel? Low motivation? Have a simple backup plan.
- Set a timeframe. Two weeks? Four? Long enough to see a signal.
Then implement.
And when the timeframe ends, review:
- If it’s clearly working, continue what you’re doing.
- If it’s not producing the result you expected, adjust one variable—not the entire plan.
- If you’re unsure what to adjust, consider seeking guidance from someone with relevant experience.
Ultimately, experimenting is the only way to take well-meaning but general advice and turn it into a plan that moves your specific needle forward.
Putting it into practice
Think of one piece of health or fitness advice you’ve been considering—or recently tried.
Especially if it hasn’t produced the results you were after, run it through the “experiment loop” above.
With only a tweak or two, you just might find that the general advice that didn’t work before becomes the specific plan that works perfectly for you.