November 2025

Proper Form Gives the Best Return on Investment

One should view Total Results exercise as an investment. Not only is it a financial investment, but you are also committing significant physical and mental resources toward self-improvement. Since you are undertaking this challenge, naturally you will want to achieve the best possible outcome. This will require you to adopt a learning mindset that should be maintained even as you start to experience physical improvements from your training. A major difference between the Total Results exercise philosophy and many other fitness methodologies is the attention to detail that goes with our standard of proper form. It is proper form that will give you the best return on your investment.

The financial and investment industries are actually good metaphors for exercise in this case. Investors look at trends and market conditions; this is how you should approach exercise. If your progress is stagnating (like a stock that is underperforming), take a closer look. Are you eating properly? Are you sleeping seven to nine hours per night and waking up refreshed? If you are progressing steadily, keep doing what you are doing. The trend is your friend. Doug Casey and Warren Buffett are two of the most successful speculators/investors of the last hundred years. Their success did not happen by chance; they take the time to learn about commodities and companies before they put their money into them. This is what you should do when it comes to your body and exercise. If you put resources into something, you want to see growth in your investment. No intelligent person will invest in an entity that they believe will be unsuccessful. The stock market can be a gamble, but your body should not be. You have control over the process and the outcome when it comes to your body.

Our standard for proper form entails raising and lowering the weight in 10 seconds on every repetition of each exercise. Anything between 8 and 12 seconds in each direction is acceptable, but we strive for as close to 10 seconds as possible so that we can track your time under load (TUL) accurately. We want smooth turnarounds (change of direction) without firing out of the stretch position or bouncing the weight stack. The client will continue in this fashion until they are no longer capable of completing another repetition in proper form, at which time they will continue to push or pull for an additional ten seconds. All of this is done so that we can eliminate momentum, which makes the exercise safer but also enables a continuous loading of the muscles. Proper form allows us to systematically and sequentially recruit and fatigue muscle fibers as we progress through each exercise. This creates the stimulus that the body needs to make physiological improvements. This is the essence of exercise.

There are modifications and teaching points that we use to assist clients in their quest for perfect form. On the Leg Press, we cue trainees to keep their butt down in the seat and push primarily through their heels. This helps them to engage the hip structures more effectively. When it comes to the Chest Press, we instruct clients to depress their scapulae (shoulder blades) and keep their elbows squarely behind their wrists, so that they can achieve greater loading of the pectoralis (chest) muscles. Seat setting adjustments can be made on all exercises on an as-needed basis. Remember that even the most neurologically efficient trainees commit form discrepancies from time to time, but the instructor's watchful eye helps them stay on track.

Ultimately, the main objective of exercise is a thorough inroad. We want to create a stimulus so that the body can adapt. Don't be the same person that you were yesterday, be better! If you are putting forth this type of effort, don't you want to maximize your opportunity? Make the investment in yourself with Total Results and start seeing dividends.