Stay motivated or risk losing your gains.

Excuses. It’s a sin that everyone is guilty of making of now and again. You may miss a day in the gym and tell yourself and others that it’s because you’re feeling over worked or that you may becoming down with something or maybe even that you’re just too busy to train. There are tons of ways to excuse lazy behavior and in a way there’s nothing wrong with that. Not the first time anyhow. Maybe not even the second either. The reality is though that once you make two excuses, a third isn’t so hard to come by and that’s when you fall into the trap. All those great gains you’ve worked so hard for begin to fade away and it becomes apparent that you’re getting a bit too lazy.

Many people want to change their lives for the better, eat healthier, become fit and shredded or swole. The problem is that they’re their own worst enemy. Once they allow themselves to become lazy and complacent rather than fix the problem at hand they instead choose to continue to make excuses. It no surprise when an out of shape individual does this as they’re already used to it. But if you find yourself in the gym often then drop the ball then there’s really no excuse.

As a bodybuilder or any other kind of dedicated athlete you often wonder if skipping a day in the gym will see you lose your gains. We all know that one day isn’t going to hurt, but if done with regularity it can become an issue. But even if you were to get out of shape, whether do to lazy or injury, that doesn’t mean you can’t find yourself in that same kind of shape once again. It’s a notion that fitness trainer Drew Manning toyed with in a little experiment.

The fitness coach gained seventy pounds of fat, bloating his once fit and shredded frame into love handles, a beer belly, and excess flab. The transformation was pretty alarming. But once he proved how simple it was to get out of shape, the fitness coach and podcaster showed just how simple it was to get back into shape, though when I say simple I mean in the ideology. It took hard work, dedication, and some handy muscle memory to get Manning back to his impressive form. Just take a documented look at his transformation.

What’s to be learned from this experiment? For starters you can still hold onto your strength for a longer period of time than say your cardiovascular endurance. For those looking to get jacked and build muscle there’s a bit of a silver lining here. Sure, you can still lift heavy and push serious weight, but it’s that cardio that’s going to help you shed those extra pounds of fat. In some cases however it can take a mere two weeks to lose strength and even just a few days to a week where cardio is considered. Pretty much if you want to keep your fitness you better not slack off. But if you were already in shape the likelihood of recovering your same level of fitness relatively fast is a high possibility. It took Manning six months to gain the fat another six to return to his original level of shred.

But besides the obvious physical side effects, the experiment proved that the difference between making gains or staying fat is all in your mentality. If you want to make a serious change then you better have a serious mind for the task. You’re not going to cut it by simply hoping you’ll get into the gym some day, you have to make it happen.

How often do you find yourself making excuses to skip a workout? Let us know in the comments and forums. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.