Eight Exercises for One Muscle and None for Common Sense: When Social Media Builds Your Routine

Anyone who coaches clients knows this conversation well: you're explaining a training plan and out comes the famous "but I saw a video," "a friend told me" or "that trainer does eight exercises for chest."

That's when I have to ask a pretty simple question: was that routine designed for you, or did you just like how the person doing it looked?

Because those are two very different things.

As Zardelfitness, my job is to help you move forward from where you are. To do that, I need to see how you train, what you can do, what you struggle with and how you respond. A video can give you ideas. But it isn't watching you lift, it doesn't know your history and it has no idea whether you've been training consistently for months or are still trying to get through a full week.

Copying the routine of someone in a reel doesn't give your body their experience.

More exercises isn't more progress

I understand wanting to do more. When you want to change your body, you want to feel you're making the most of every minute. So you see a plan with a certain number of exercises and think: "If I add four more, I'll progress faster."

But training doesn't follow that convenient math. Eight exercises don't guarantee better results than a shorter, well-executed selection. You have to look at what you're doing in each one, how many sets you're piling up, how hard you're working and whether you can recover afterward to keep progressing.

And let's be clear: eight isn't a cursed number. The problem is adding for the sake of adding, without knowing why and without considering whether you're ready to sustain that workload.

I'd rather see a client learn to control a movement, work with a weight they can handle and improve consistently. That tells me far more than watching them go through every machine in the gym and leave convinced they've pulled off something heroic.

The gym isn't an all-you-can-eat buffet: you don't have to hit every station to justify what you paid.

The foundation comes first

If we're still correcting your posture, your control and the way you perform a lift, that's where the work is. Adding five variations for the same muscle group doesn't automatically fix what you still need to learn in the first one.

There's nothing wrong with being a beginner. We all started without knowing. What complicates the process is trying to skip that stage because on social media it looks like everyone trains like a pro.

An advanced athlete has been building work capacity for years. They know their movements better, have experience handling loads and follow a plan that fits their goals. They may be ready for demands that aren't right for you today. And even so, being advanced doesn't mean they need eight exercises per muscle: they also have to choose, organize and recover.

You see the training that person shows today. You don't necessarily see everything they did to get there.

It's like trying to build the top floor of a building while we're still working on the foundations. Enthusiasm is welcome, but it doesn't replace the base.

Ask me anything

I also want to make something clear: I like it when my clients ask questions. If you saw an exercise, bring it. If something in your plan raises doubts, let's talk. A coach should be able to explain why they prescribe what they prescribe and review the plan when it makes sense. That's why it matters so much to have the right personal trainer.

What doesn't help is turning every session into a mix of yesterday's video, a friend's advice and the routine of someone with a completely different level of preparation. If we change everything every time something new shows up, it becomes much harder to tell what's working for you and what needs adjusting.

My reason for progressing you can't be that you got bored of your routine or that someone on Instagram does twice as much. I need to see how you perform, whether you can progress, whether you keep showing up and how you arrive at the next session. That gives us information about you, and you're the person who matters when I plan your training.

Fatigue isn't the measure

Finishing exhausted can make you feel you did a ton. But fatigue alone doesn't prove you trained better.

I want you to push yourself. I want commitment, drive and responsibility. I also want you to understand that training with good judgment includes respecting where you are right now. Sometimes progress will mean adding load; other times, performing better, completing what was planned or no longer skipping every other day.

My responsibility as a coach is to give you work that makes sense for your goal and your current capacity. Not to stuff your routine so it looks more important.

So before you ask me for eight exercises for a single muscle, show me how you're working the ones you already have. Let's build from there. There will be time to raise the demands when your progress justifies it.

A routine can impress anyone on a screen. Progress has to be built in the gym. And that takes something no reel can do for you: training consistently, with common sense.

Sincerely, @ZardelFitness

If you want to train with a plan designed for you, check out our training programs.