One of the biggest mistakes I think I’ve made in my career is believing that I would be able to leverage all of my knowledge all the time. In other words, early on, I assumed that if I learned something and wanted to apply it with my clients/athletes, it would be as simple as writing it into a strength and conditioning program (or nutrition plan).

This assumption (like most assumptions) was, of course, very flawed. You see, the concept of adherence was something I learned about through experience with a lot of people. Just because folks know that they should do something doesn’t guarantee that they will do something. And, just because I was “Type A” and was always motivated to train regularly and eat right didn’t mean that others were, too.

Adherence is a reason people hire personal trainers, recruit workout partners, make bets with their buddies, enter “Biggest Loser” competitions, participate on online forums, hire hypnotists, and employ a host of other strategies. They know eating right and exercising are important facets of their lives, but they need outside influences to help make these things essential priorities.

Enhancing adherence became a central strategy to the Cressey Performance business model, too; we wanted to make our facility an experience, not just a gym. We wanted folks to not just be accountable to their training partners and our coaches, but also be so damn excited to train that they wanted to kick the door to the gym down.

To that end, when I learned about Fitocracy, I became immediately intrigued at their approach to enhancing exercise and nutrition adherence.

They didn’t just create an online social support network for exercisers of all ages and experience levels; they made tracking workouts fun and competitive (you earn points based on how challenging your workouts are). It is like a combination of:

1. Facebook (social support)

2. Twitter’s (you pick what’s applicable to you)

3. Words with Friends (compete against your friends)

4. Individual sports like powerlifting, distance running, etc. (compete against yourself)

5. Beer League Softball (bust your buddy’s balls)

Now, here comes the full disclosure: I liked this company and the adherence advantage it provides so much that I invested in it. Likewise, there are loads of well-known fitness professionals with strong presences at Fitocracy (even if they aren’t investors). And, I think that you’ll like it, too, so I wanted to encourage you to check it out – especially since it’s free.

In addition to what you see now (be sure to check out the iPhone app), there will be some cool stuff new coming in the months to come. For instance, I plan to start doing some live Q&A with followers on the site, and we’ll be “bulking up” the exercise selection library.

To learn more, head on over to Fitocracy through this link (if you sign up through this link, it will automatically make you one of my followers so that you’ll hit the ground running). I’d also love to hear your thoughts on the site and your experiences with it in the comments section below.