Pareto Principle, 80/20 Rule And The Law Of Diminishing Returns In Fitness
Pareto Principle, 80/20 Rule And The Law Of Diminishing Returns In Fitness
Are you working hard and still not seeing the results you want?
Are you burned out of trying to make the fitness thing work for you?
Are you trying to understand how everyone makes great transformations while you barely make it through week 1 of dieting?
I’ve faced these issues myself and I always ended up right where I started despite working harder and harder every time.
What should you do next if you’re in this situation?
Why is this happening in the first place?
Should you just work harder?
What if I told you that you can get better results with lesser effort?
Brainwashed By Internet Culture
Think about the return on investment (ROI) you have had with your attempts of physique transformation in the past.
Think about how hard you worked and if the results were satisfactory and in line with what you expected.
If you’re like the most of us, you would have felt that your results should have been a lot better.
Here’s my question?
What did you base that feeling off?
The countless transformations on the internet?
So you learn a lesson for the next time, and thanks to internet culture, the lesson is
“being average is bad and you need to work harder”.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for pushing people out of their comfort zones.
But the truth is that getting to look “average” by fitness standards is actually better than what the majority of the world’s population looks like.
What is considered “average” in fitness?
An average lean and fit person is around 12%-15% body fat for men (add around 10% for women) with enough strength to comfortably move their bodyweight through space using bodyweight movements.
Now you can argue all you want, but if being “average” was so easy, we wouldn’t be having a worldwide obesity epidemic.
But what if you don’t want to be “average”?
Well, if you are “below average” and have goals of becoming “above average”, you have to understand that becoming “average” is a part of the journey.
You aren’t going to go from 20% body fat to 10% body fat without crossing all the remaining numbers that are considered “average”.
Funny enough, most people trying to overcomplicate the process haven’t even reached “average” yet, but the work they are putting in might be a lot more than what is expected of an “average” individual.
If you’ve struggled with diet and exercise, you know what I’m talking about.
You might blame your genetics, but have you wondered if you directed your effort towards the right things in the first place?
What if you could cut down your effort and get better results?
Sounds too good to be true?
While most things that sound too good to be true in the fitness niche online aren’t true, this is not one of them.
Let me present to you my take on the Pareto Principle and the 80/20 Rule in fitness and why I think that this can be a great option for individuals who want to look good while staying sane.
What Is The Pareto Principle And The 80/20 Rule?
To keep it simple, here’s the definition from Wikipedia;
““The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.””
The Pareto principle has been further popularized in the works of Brian Tracy and can be applied to almost any event.
But how does it apply to fitness?
How does it apply to transforming your physique to look good?
According to the Pareto principle, 80% of your transformation results come from 20% of the things you do.
We can further break it down for better understanding;
80% of your nutrition results come from 20% of the variables affecting your diet.
80% of your training results come from 20% of the variables affecting your workouts.
80% of your cardio results come from 20% of the variables affecting your cardio.
While these numbers aren’t set in stone, they certainly aren’t off by a wide margin either.
The main take away is that if you find out what the 20% of the things that bring 80% of the results in fitness are and you direct your effort towards dialing them in consistently, you will reach your fitness goals in a much more enjoyable and relaxed way.
Of course, if 20% of the things bring 80% of the results, getting to 100% wouldn’t be that hard, right?
Sadly, it doesn’t scale that way.
The Law Of Diminishing Returns
A quick definition from Wikipedia;
““In economics, diminishing returns is the decrease in the marginal output of a production process as the amount of a single factor of production is incrementally increased, while the amounts of all other factors of production stay constant.””
If that sounds too complicated, here’s the simple way of thinking about it while talking about fitness.
Every unit of extra effort you put in fine-tuning the process will bring a less drastic increase in results when compared to the time and effort invested.
For the recreational lifter, this matters.
If you’re anyone like me, you don’t care about being the biggest bodybuilder on stage or being the strongest powerlifter at a meet.
You want to be fit, healthy, and look good, all while enjoying your life.
This means you have to find the point where you are able to achieve your goals without sacrificing too much of your lifestyle.
In the case of fitness for the recreational lifter, that point is doing 20% of things that bring 80% of the results.
Before I tell you what the 20% of the things you need to be doing are, let’s talk about the benefits of applying the Pareto principle so you can have a better idea if it is right for you.
Benefit Of Applying The Pareto Principle To Fitness
1. Fitness Doesn’t Take Over Your Life
Getting in shape will require you to revamp your lifestyle, at least to a certain extent.
That’s actually great.
It only becomes a problem when it starts taking over your life.
The goal of fitness is to enhance your life, not take over it.
If you have been feeling miserable because of your fitness approach, I can almost be certain while saying that it isn’t the right one for you and that you will have a hard time trying to sustain it.
The benefit of applying the 80/20 rule is that it leaves you more than enough wiggle room to do what you love doing, all while reaching your goals.
2. Freedom And A Better Mental State
This builds on the previous point.
When you have the flexibility in your approach, it gives you a sense of freedom.
On the contrary, general fitness advice is based on restriction.
By simply giving yourself the space you need, you can improve your results and have a better mental state.
Think about it.
You don’t need to eliminate food groups.
You don’t need to skip social gatherings because of your diet.
You don’t need to spend every day at the gym.
And you can still reach your goals while doing so!
3. Have Time For Other Things
One of the main benefits of applying the Pareto principle in fitness is that it leaves you time for other things.
In fact, none of the fitness influencers talk about this.
Why?
Because this is their job.
You see, a fitness influencer or a bodybuilder has different priorities from you and me.
Now, of course, if your livelihood and career depended on fitness, you would be willing to invest a lot more time into it.
But for most of us, this isn’t the case.
Think about it rationally?
Would you expect someone who plays soccer as a hobby to devote just as much time and effort to his diet and training as a pro-level soccer player?
Sadly, unlike other sports, fitness culture makes it seem like the only way to get anywhere with your physique is to devote your life to training and nutrition.
Proponents of this argument would argue that this is just to “motivate” people to work harder.
But in my years of talking to people, I’ve come to realize that the pressure of not working “hard enough” actually demotivates people, and in some cases, also leads them to feel burned out.
If your goal is to be fit and look good recreationally, following the 80/20 rule will be more than enough to get you there.
What Is The 20% That Brings 80% Of The Results?
The three main factors you need to manage are your nutrition, training, and cardio.
But you already know that.
The question is what is it about these things that will give you the greatest return for time and effort invested?
You can complicate these factors as much as you want, and while there will be an incremental return to every time you fine-tune the process, it’s impact on your physique will be a lot lesser than what you would get from doing the 20% that brings 80% of the results (which goes back to the law of diminishing returns).
So what exactly should you focus your effort on?
Nutrition
For nutrition, focusing your effort on hitting your calorie and protein target will give you the greatest ROI.
As long as you eat a balanced diet, these two variables will be the major determinant of your results from the nutrition side of things.
Training
For training, 3-5 progressive resistance training sessions per week are all you need.
Any sort of resistance training will suffice, be it bodyweight or free-weight, with the condition being that the stimulus from exercise should be progressive.
Cardio
Cardio will be the least important out of the three, but that doesn’t mean it can’t help speed up the process.
For this reason, 30-60 minutes of low-intensity cardio a couple of times a week will be more than enough to balance out the effort you put in for the ROI.
Does Everything Else Not Matter?
NO.
Everything matters.
The question is when does it matter?
Fine-tuning makes a difference when you want to take things to the next level.
But if you haven’t even dialed in the 20% first, you won’t see results despite working hard on the 80%.
How many people do you know who try to get in shape?
How many have tried HIIT training and Low Carb Diets only to end up at the same place a few months down the lane?
This is a much more common problem than you can imagine.
It isn’t that these things don’t work.
It’s just that if you don’t have the 20% dialed in, you’re wasting your energy on things that make marginal changes.
But when you have already achieved what’s considered average, you can take things to the next level.
Get to an “average” ripped body (again, don’t be fooled by social media as this looks better than most people you see around you) in the most simplest and sustainable way first, and then do what you want from there.
You Can’t Escape Hard Work
Just because I ask you to focus on the 20% doesn’t mean you don’t have to work hard.
You still have to try to give your 100% to the 20% of things I’m asking you to do.
Don’t make the mistake of linking hard work to the amount time you invest.
You can work hard and make better progress in 2 sessions a week than someone who isn’t working hard but training 2 times a day daily.
You can get leaner eating chocolate every day if you work hard while the person on an extreme diet could be stuck in the same place.
But hard work by itself won’t get you far.
It’s hard work with effort directed to what brings the greatest return on investment that makes the most sustainable transformation.
What You Should Be Expecting?
This is going to be a very slow process and you can’t expect to go from fat to ripped over a few weeks.
You should manage your expectations.
Accepting that it is a slow process will allow you to enjoy the journey.
If you’re new to tracking calories and working out consistently, be prepared to give yourself time to learn.
For example, most people think they will look completely different in 8 weeks while in reality someone new to tracking would take that long just to get accustomed to the process.
The sooner you accept how long the process will be, the sooner you’ll start making progress.
Conclusion
This was my take on about the Pareto Principle in fitness.
If you feel you’re tired of trying to put in the work and not seeing results, it’s time to change your approach.
Focus on the 20 that brings in the 80.
Get comfortable at dialing those factors in consistently.
For as average as “average” sounds, the results will blow you away.
Remember to direct your hard work and effort to the things that bring you the greatest return.
Over time, your efforts will compound and you will end up with a physique you’re proud of.
That’s all for now.
If you have any questions, drop them down below!
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