When it comes to Quality vs Quantity, I think quality is far more valuable than quantity.
Actually, in relation to exercise and a healthy lifestyle, it’s something I’m obsessed with.
When it comes to life, would you rather live better or live longer?
Obviously it’s going to be a little of column A and a little of column B, but which would you want more of?
I’m sure most people want to keep living, even if life is shit. We see it with sickness and disease, we see it even with imprisonment. People have a fight to live longer and survive.
However, if they could have a better situation, no doubt they would want it.
Most of the time the fight is to find better. It’s to get out of that shitty situation and get back to normal life. It’s to get out of the state of survival and get to a state of thriving.
For me personally, one of my drivers of living a healthy life is because I want to live fully for ALL of my years. I want to die in my 90’s because I’m still doing crazy shit, vs dying in my 70’s (physically) and then still living until my 90’s. My last 10-20+ years WILL NOT be subpar, mediocre, or spent just surviving.
I want to thrive!
So I search for quality. I want a better life. I want to have more experiences, more enjoyment, and more fun. Part of the necessity to have that is having a healthy body. If I want to go hike the mountains of Peru for example, I want to be able to do it with vigor and excitement. Not just barely making it, completely out of breath.
I never want my physical body to hold me back from doing what I want to do. I want physics, laws, and technology to hold me back. But with my body, I want to thrive.
So if we bring that back to HOW I get to have that actionable body, then I need to still look at quality over quantity.
When I train my body, I need to train my body in a way that it will thrive, not just survive. I need to train in a way that will give me higher performance out of my body, but will also allow me to sustain that performance for the rest of my life.
If I take the mountain climbing example; what i want is to climb mountains for the rest of my life. I want to sustain this ability, not just climb one mountain as quickly and agressively as possible.
It’s the marathon approach vs the sprint approach.
It’s Quality vs Quantity.
Therefore, my trining needs to reflect that goal.
When most people exercise, they take the sprint approach. They only look at one mountain, not climbing mountains forever.
They want to reach their goal in 90 days, not in a year. Or to lose 30 lbs. NOW!
All of the focus is on some sort of quantity, no matter the cost or what happens next.
This leads to training that pushes their body beyond its capacity. It means jumping to a high level of intensity vs progressively building themselves up. It even means doing movements that their body probably isn’t ready for because it’s more intense or burns more calories.
But all of this is a quick path to getting injured, getting disappointed, or worse: reaching the goal but then having no reason to keep going.
Training with quality however means that you’re training for the long term.
Your training to do this thing well, now and forever.
You will put in reps that you can handle, so you can come back again the next day. You will move your body in ways that are good for it and strengthen it, so that you can come back tomorrow. To ensure that you can continue your training, it’s key to avoid injuries and setbacks.
We want a higher level of performance, but in a way that we can enjoy it and sustain it.
If you get a sense of what I’m saying, quality can actually lead to more quantity.
When you move well, you can continue to move longer.
When you move quickly but poorly, you set yourself up for a failure that could reduce the amount of time you can sustain it.
So actually applying this to your training means focusing on your movements and not just your time, your reps, or your calories burned.
Always focus on Quality vs Quantity.
Focus on your technique, your range of motion, and your consistency in that motion.
In the end, this quality will lead to better training, better results, and a more sustainable level of being fit so that you can fully enjoy your life!