Why Fitness Advice Fails Most Adults
The baseline doesn’t match the average adult
Most fitness advice sounds reasonable on the surface. It’s the type of stuff we’ve heard our whole lives — train a few days a week, lift heavy, add cardio, be consistent, and recover well.
On paper, it all makes sense.
But most fitness advice fails because it starts from a baseline most adults don’t actually have. That baseline assumes capacity that most people are still trying to build.
Fitness advice isn’t written for average adults. Many programs quietly assume you already have the capacity to tolerate frequent training, recover quickly, sleep well, eat enough, and manage stress without it bleeding into your workouts.
They assume your body is already conditioned enough that the workout itself is the only challenge. But for most adults, the workout is just one more stressor stacked on top of an already full life.
This is something I didn’t fully understand early on either. Even through my own certifications — and later through working with everyday adults and building my own endurance over time — it became clear how much baseline fitness and recovery capacity were quietly assumed in most advice.
When the starting point doesn’t match the person, even well-intended advice is almost guaranteed to fail.
“What you can sustain matters more than what you can do once.” — Greg McMillan
If you’re ready to train in a way that fits where you are right now, let’s talk. Book your FREE Discovery Call, and we’ll look at your current baseline, the goal you want to work toward, and whether coaching makes sense for building it sustainably.
The Assumptions Built Into Most Fitness Advice
Most people don’t get into fitness to punish themselves. They start because they want their life to feel better.
Less pain holding them back. More energy for daily life. More strength and confidence to do the things they care about.
That’s where I started, too.
When I first tried to get back into fitness almost a decade ago, my body wasn’t ready for most of what was being recommended. I had chronic injuries, limited mobility, and painful tightness that showed up everywhere. My shoulders were so bad I couldn’t lift either arm overhead.
The advice I kept hearing was to stretch more. Do yoga. Loosen things up.
So I tried. But every “beginner” yoga class I found was still far beyond what my body could handle. Poses hurt. Holds felt impossible. I was always being cued to push deeper or stay longer.
Instead of feeling better, I walked away more frustrated and more beaten up.
That experience is what pushed me toward my first personal training certification. I was tired of advice that sounded good but only worked if your body was already in decent shape.
What surprised me was how rarely this gap was addressed in formal fitness education. The baseline assumption was still that people were mostly healthy, mobile, and strong.
It wasn’t until I later earned my Corrective Exercise Specialist certification that this reality was clearly named. Most adults aren’t starting from ideal conditions at all.
The average adult is dealing with injuries, extra weight, poor sleep, high stress, and limited recovery capacity — bodies shaped by years of sitting, not training.
When advice ignores that starting point, it sets people up to fail before they ever build momentum. That’s where most fitness plans quietly fall apart.
Why Most Plans Ask Too Much, Too Soon
Most plans don’t fail because people stop trying. They fail because the work being asked is above the person’s current capacity.
You see this everywhere with one-size-fits-all programs.
Couch-to-5K plans assume you can already tolerate repeated impact and steady progression.
Drop-in group classes assume you can keep up with the pace being set, where the instructor is often operating at a much higher level than the room — and everyone is expected to meet it.
Even online programs and apps assume you can jump straight into prescribed reps, loads, or time targets without adjusting for how much stress your body can actually handle.
The result is predictable. Workouts feel draining instead of productive, soreness never fully clears, and each session takes more out of the body than it builds back.
When that happens, the body pushes back. Fatigue lasts longer. Pain shows up sooner. Small issues turn into flare-ups and injuries. What gets labeled as “inconsistency” is usually the body saying it can’t absorb the load.
In my case, all the stretching and yoga in the world weren’t going to fix kyphosis (a curved upper back) and shoulder impingement. I didn’t need harder workouts or more variety. I needed work that stayed clearly below my limit and focused on my unique issues.
Basic movement. Simple strength. Foundational work far below what most people would consider a ‘workout’ was what eventually worked for me.
Most plans don’t start there, though. They assume you already move well, recover well, and tolerate volume. So instead of building capacity, people end up managing symptoms — always sore, always tight, always restarting.
That’s why this matters. If a plan doesn’t fit where your body is right now, it won’t stick. And until the work matches your actual capacity, consistency will keep feeling like the problem — even when it isn’t.
Match the Work to Where You Are
There’s no shortage of flashy promises in fitness.
Fast results. Aggressive plans. “Push through it” mindsets that frame effort as the only variable that matters. If you can’t keep up, the problem is you.
Advice is usually written for a theoretical body. One that recovers well, moves cleanly, and tolerates stress without friction. Real bodies don’t work that way. They exist at different stages of readiness, shaped by injuries, stress, sleep, history, and workload outside the gym.
For most people, progress doesn’t come from following the “right” plan — it comes from applying stress that fits the body they have right now, at the stage they’re in.
When training matches what your body can absorb, the work stacks instead of collapsing. You don’t need to brace yourself for every session. You don’t need to recover from training just to train again.
As capacity grows, the work changes naturally. Loads and volume increase over time. Intensity becomes manageable instead of overwhelming.
The real mistake is skipping the stage you’re in and trying to train for the one you haven’t built yet.
Matching the work to where you are is how momentum is built without constant breakdown and restart.
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” — Arthur Ashe
Most fitness advice doesn’t fail because it’s wrong. It fails because it’s applied without regard for timing.
Advice only works when it matches your current capacity. As that capacity grows, your needs change. What felt like too much becomes appropriate. What once felt basic becomes the foundation for harder work.
That’s how progress holds together over time.
This is how I train now, and it’s how I coach. I raise stress when the body can absorb it and lower it when it can’t. Volume, intensity, and frequency move with capacity — not ahead of it — so progress keeps stacking instead of resetting.
Training works when the advice matches your starting point, not when you try to force-fit yourself to advice that doesn’t align with where you are.
What would change if you chose work you could repeat—right now—instead of chasing the version of advice meant for a body you haven’t built yet?