Are You Measuring The Wrong Thing?

One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to get in shape is overstressing a single metric for measuring success along their journey. 

In other words, they get so wrapped up in progressing one measurable variable that they compromise the results they strive to attain. 

Goodhart's law states that progress ceases to be a viable measure of success once it becomes a target. In other words, making the weight on the scale your goal makes your weight a less reliable measure for success in losing body fat once your goal is to “lose weight.” Making a goal to do a single-arm push-up or lift a certain weight ceases to be a reliable measure of your strength once you make that your primary goal. 

It’s not that such metrics are bad; it’s just that they are no longer the most reliable way to measure progress for several reasons:

#1- Compensation. 

This is the most common reason why a single metric may not be viable. It’s very easy to compromise other important variables to falsely pad the numbers of your target metric. You can alter your water weight to change the weight on the scale or even change your diet and exercise habits based on how they influence your weight, even though they aren’t doing anything to your body fat levels.

You can also shorten your range of motion, use an easier technique to lift more weight, or get more reps in an exercise. Your target number may be improving, but you’re also compromising your performance in other areas, so you’re not making that much progress, if any. 

#2- Ignoring other areas of progress. 

Sometimes, you could be making fantastic progress yet hardly notice it because your target metric hasn’t moved much. 

This happens with losing body fat all the time: when someone’s clothes fit looser, they look leaner and feel better than ever; they feel their program isn’t working because the number on the scale isn’t changing much. 

You can also get much stronger by improving your technique, increasing your range of motion, or achieving better tension control, but you don’t notice it because you’re not doing more reps.

The solution isn’t to ignore metrics like weight or reps but to not focus too much on measuring success through a single target. Take a holistic approach where you pay attention to several metrics, all of which are related to your overall goal. The more ways you measure progress, the more you will notice, and you will be less likely to fool yourself into thinking you’re making progress that isn’t there or notice more of the progress you’re making.