Kaizen on a treadmill

It can be very tempting to confuse efficiency (speeding things up) with effectiveness (optimizing your results). 

It’s easy enough to measure speed, to beguile ourselves with the notion that better equals faster. But what of all the other, often neglected, incremental changes you can make to improve your results?

Take kaizen. A Japanese concept which stresses the continual improvement of a system by consistently eliminating inefficiencies. Small improvements added up make for a big impact.

Consider, for example, something as simple walking (or running) on a treadmill.

It’s function is to get your heart rate up.

If you want to get your cardio in, sure, you can increase the speed. A lot of people do.

But you can also increase the incline…

Make sure that your foot is at sufficient enough angle when it takes the forward step, so that your leg strikes the ground with your heel and rolls through to the toe (which works your whole leg). You should feel it in your calves.

Make sure your back step is also sufficient. Try taking a micro-second more, so that you increase the width of your stride. This also helps work more muscle.

Stand up straight. Shoulders back.

Make sure you're breathing at a consistent pace through your nose.

You can even do a few hundred meters on the rowing machine if you really want to get your heart pumping.

Alas, there are a lot of other (better) ways to improve your effectiveness than going at full speed.

Applies to fitness, business and life.