Is moderation a good idea?

Everyone in the world has heard the maxim, ‘everything in moderation.’ What I want to ask today is moderation a sensible idea in all contexts? When you are trying to achieve a goal, is moderation the fastest way to get there? Will moderation ever get you there? These are some questions that I will try to answer today and give you my perspective on moderation.

We can look at this idea in multiple contexts. Today we will look at it in regards to achieving training goals, body composition, athletic pursuits and excellence in any field of life.

When we look at training goals, a trainee can want to gain muscle, increase strength, lose fat, increase agility, learn the Olympic lifts, compete in kettlebells, learn to do the splits and a thousand others. What you can’t do however is achieve them all at the SAME time. The human body only has a limited capacity for adaption and cannot fully adapt to multiple stimuli and achieve excellence in all of them. This is one of the issues there is with crossfit. Crossfit is a great system if you want to have general all over fitness and as a general rule, crossfitters are a lot stronger than the general public. However if you want to excel in any training goal, you cannot perform that activity in moderation. You must dedicate yourself to that goal 100%. No one has ever reached elite level in powerlifting or master of sport in kettlebells lifting by training in every system. They focus on one system and achieve greatness in that area. Moderation is a total roadblock to achieving specific training goals.

When we apply moderation to body recomposition goals, we can see the benefits of moderation. Having a well balanced diet is something that I think everyone can agree on as being essential to health. However, no bodybuilder, figure athlete or model has gotten into stage or photo worthy shape by being moderate. I am not condoning some of the practices that are used to get into that shape (drugs, diuretics, tape worms!) but however, there are many people who have gotten into the best shape of their life by being dedicated to one overarching goal. For example it is hard to gain 10 kilograms of muscle while eating a moderate amount of food. It is also hard to get to 6% bodyfat by eating a moderate diet. You need to follow a plan that is anything but moderate.

Athletic pursuits are another area where moderation does not allow for greatness. There have been very few athletes who have excelled in more than one sport. One idea that backs this theory up is the 10 000 hour rule put forth by Malcolm Gladwell in his fantastic book Outliers. The central premise of this book is that to achieve mastery in any field is that you need at least 10 000 hours of practice to become great. When we look at some of the greatest athletes of all time, we can see that they have being single minded in their pursuit of greatness in one sport. Tiger Woods played golf from the age of 3, Sir Donald Bradman spent hours playing cricket in the backyard and Michael Jordan spent countless hours on the basketball court, being the first to show up to practice and the last to leave. Athletic greatness requires a single point of focus, and to achieve greatness moderation is again, an obstacle and not an ally.

Excellence in any field of life requires dedication, single mindedness, determination and will power. When we analyze the great achievers in any field, we will see that moderation was not a word in their vocabulary.

So what do we do from here? It is really quite simple. If you want to achieve greatness in a training pursuit, make that your training! If you want to be a powerlifter, train like one! Pick one goal and focus on that and do not stop until you achieve it. Until you achieve that goal do not start on a new goal. This means you will have to avoid useless training fads, training ADD and influence from well meaning observers. Pick a goal, g for it and forget moderation!