The Apple School of Fitness

More than half of all U.S. households own one of their products.

They are one of the most valuable companies in the world.

If you would have bought 2,000 shares at $10 apiece 10 years ago, you would now be a millionaire.

I’ve got a confession to make: I’m a bit of an Apple geek.

I’m not too insane about them, but I think I still make it into the “fanboy” category.

I don’t have an iPad (and am not really sold on them) and I’m never one of those people queuing up outside of the stores on product release days, but I do have an iPhone and a MacBook Air.

And I’m 100% confident that these are the best phones and laptops on the market.

But there’s also a lot that you can learn from this humble technology company when it comes to health and fitness.

Welcome to the Apple School of Fitness.

Here are your five lessons:

1. You Don’t Necessarily Need to Be #1

Sure, everyone knows that the iPhone is one of the world’s best-selling cell phones, and the iPad is the industry leader in tablet computers (can you even name one competing product?).

But there’s one area where Apple has been #2 for a long time: its Macs.

Although the Macintosh was a revolutionary product when it was released in 1984, it wound up playing second fiddle to Microsoft after their Windows operating system took the world by storm in the 90s.

The Mac would never again be king of the PC mountain.

So did Apple send its flagship product off into the scrap bin? Hell, no! The Mac lives on today in a wide variety of laptops and desktops running the Mac Operating System.

And instead of Macs becoming second-rate PCs, they have gone on to redefine what personal computers can be.

To devotees, the Mac is superior to the PC in every way. It is cleaner, faster, more powerful, and more user-friendly.

When you’re trying to look and feel better, there’s no shortage of people who are #1 in the fitness department to look up to.

You can find bodybuilders, athletes, and actors with insanely chiseled physiques all over TV, the internet, and the covers of books and magazines.

It’s easy to think that you need to look just like them in order to really reap the benefits of being in shape.

But in order to look like a bodybuilder, athlete, or actor, you need to be prepared to dedicate your life to it entirely.

All due respect to the people who decide to pursue those passions, but most of us really aren’t interested. And we shouldn’t feel bad if we never get mistaken for the shirtless guy on the cover of this month’s issue of Men’s Health.

Achieving a high level of fitness is doable for anyone. It will make you more attractive, it will improve others’s perception of you, you will live a longer life, and you will minimize illness and injury while achieving energy levels that will allow you to follow your bliss in life.

And you don’t need to let fitness take over your life in order to get there.

2. Focus On Simplicity

When the iPhone was introduced in 2007, it was a revolution in simple design.

At that time, the industry leader in smartphones was RIM’s Blackberry. It contained a tiny screen and a full keyboard that needed to be reduced to microscopic size. (Hell, I’ve even seen people who needed to use tiny styluses to use them!)

When Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone, most people scoffed. Instead of a keyboard, it only had one home button and utilized a touch screen.

Sure, it looked good, but could you actually use the thing?

The market proved the naysayers wrong, and the iPhone quickly became the best-selling phone in the world. And it’s still going strong five years later.

Instead of the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink attitude most hardware companies take with their products, Apple goes against the grain in trying to make their products as simple as possible.

When it comes to taking control of your health, you should do the same.

Instead of worrying about complex supplements, you should focus on getting your nutrition from real food. And rather than fretting over making your food from complex recipes, you should have a few basic go-to meals that you rely on for most of your food.

And instead of chasing every new exercise fad, you should instead focus on the few exercises that give you the most bang for your buck.

3. Focus On Power

The half-assed workout has been the dominant paradigm since gym culture really went mainstream.

Instead of doing powerful compound movements, we do light isolation exercises. Instead of doing fierce workouts that incorporate the entire body, we focus on just a few muscle groups and call it a day. And instead of giving their all during intense exercise, we plod along slowly on the treadmill and catch up on CNN.

Part of the reason that most people think they need to live in the gym if they want to really get in shape is the culture of half-assing it that has led people to turn the gym into a place to hang out rather than a place to get down to business.

When you’re working out, be there completely. Nothing wrong with listening to music or keeping the TV on for noise, but don’t let that steer your focus away from why you’re there.

Similarly, make sure you push yourself as close to the edge as possible during your workouts without compromising your form.

4. Focus On User-Friendliness

In contrast with PCs, which are notorious for needing a hefty chunk of time to get up and running, Macs are famous for being ready to go right out of the box.

Their instruction manuals make Ikea’s look like a Physical Chemistry textbook. Compare this to the prototypical experience of being on hold for hours with customer service as you try to troubleshoot your PC.

Walk into most gyms these days and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number and types of equipment available.

Crazy cardio machines. Strength training equipment straight out of Drago’s lair from Rocky IV. An endless variety of classes from spin to yoga.

Where does the madness end?

Now more than ever, it’s possible to spend your life in the gym and have little to show for it. By falling prey to the “shiny object syndrome” that keeps you from mastering a small amount of exercises, you can get bogged down in the minutiae of constantly switching up your routine.

It’s far better to stick with a small number of exercises that are well-suited for the human body.

Walk, jog, and sprint. Squat, push up, and pull up. Deadlift, clean, and press. And not much else.

5. Do Everything As Well As You Possibly Can

Apple wasn’t first to market with an mp3 player, smartphone, or tablet computer.

They lagged behind everyone else in all these departments. And when they did release the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, people thought they were too simple, too basic, and not powerful enough for serious use.

Apple defied the critics and showed that their products could be both simple and powerful.

They did this by not half-assing anything, and only selling products that were as close to perfection as possible.

You might take this the wrong way and think that you need to figure out the perfect diet or exercise routine before you take action (you shouldn’t).

Instead, you should take this to mean that you should perform every exercise and cook every meal to the best of your ability.

The iPod, iPhone, and iPad weren’t perfect with their first models, but became more and more so with each release. What they were was as perfect as they could make them at the time.

Every time you work out, you shouldn’t try to lift as much weight as you can, but to take yourself as close to the edge as possible without compromising your form.

Every time you cook a meal, you shouldn’t try to make a dish that will get you into the next season of MasterChef as a contender, but rather make something tasty as quickly as possible without botching it.

By making things as simple and effective as possible, you can take the lessons learned from Apple to take your health and fitness to the next level.

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