Option paralysis is certainly a thing. That said, some of us have been here a while and the fact that they are always adding is generally seen as a positive. One suggestion would be to try some different workouts and get a general idea of your level, which is probably fairly high given you've started at HIIT Advanced, and what you're interested in doing, whether as far as movements/exercises or parts of your body on which you would like to work.

In addition, I'll tag Damer and Redline for more in-depth and better discussion on this topic.

Welcome to the Hive Nico4nicolas
Maybe if you define some goals for you, eg. what do you want from the workouts: Strength, endurance.. Which parts of your body you want to train. In which frequency... That could narrow it down.
The training plans might help to find a routine. Or leave to choice to sombody else and follow a program again. The best workout ist the one you actually do.
Since this resource is used by a lot of people from different ways of life, ages, fitness levels, genders... believe me: More is better!
Good luck.

Nico4nicolas welcome to The Hive and I am sorry your first experience here has not been more positive. Your comment however is an interesting one and as so often happens with comments like this it provides an opportunity to go a little deeper into how we develop as individuals. Before I go into that however let's get a few practical points out of the way. Schwartz's talk covers the point between psychology and economics where consumer choices intended to provide us with greater degree of freedom and therefore make us happier achieve the exact opposite. Those choices are mistakenly, to some extent, created by for-profit organizations which believe that more choice leads to more sales by covering greater options and desires at the point of purchase. It is also the reason why a handful of companies control most of the brands we buy.

DAREBEE is not a profit-based organization. We are not geared to sell you anything. We are not interested in guiding you towards a purchase decision and we are not fighting to win market share from other fitness providers. The dynamic therefore is different and the comparison is not like-for-like. As a matter of fact you are not our customer. You are our mission. We are interested in making you feel as good as possible and helping you become the best version of you possible. Everything we do then revolves around that mission.

Which brings us to choice, choices and goals. And, obviously, motivation.

There is an adage that says "when you don't know where you're going, all roads look the same." It basically means that without a particular goal in mind there is no way you can choose amongst all choices available because you don't have the criteria to do so. Interestingly, because motivation and decision making work the same in all contexts, even Schwartz, in his Paradox of Choice theory (which is also part of the video you referenced) mentions that the very first thing you need to do in order to enjoy better decision making is to figure out your goals.

Now motivation and goal setting are not the same thing, though there is an overlap. Motivation is emotional (and I discuss it a little more in-depth in this thread here) and goal setting is cognitive in the sense that it is part of executive decision making via which we make conscious decisions that lead us towards our desirable outcomes. In the same thread I linked to above, you will also see that some people use the workout of the day as a daily guide to training within the framework of an informal program, that way it removes from them; the additional cognitive load of having to make decisions on fitness - a subject that is loaded with its own cognitive and emotional loads already, for many people.

That is exactly why the choice we offer, its depth in terms of sheer workout numbers and their variety and its breadth in additional articles on health, nutrition, diets, meditation and happiness, works to remove as many obstacles as possible from exercising. We all know that being fit is good for our brain and body. We know it makes us feel better. Yet many times, most of us will fail because we don't have sufficient help, support, access, means or opportunity. DAREBEE works to actively provide all of this by sweeping away barriers (real and perceived). Each program we release is the result of up to a year's work in terms if design, trial and effort. Each workout we release has had a journey of three months of feedback, re-design, fine-tuning and trialling. Maintaining the flow and making sure we constantly bring out fresh resources is key to overcoming many of the most common obstacles people across the globe face in their effort to get fitter.

Neuroscience tells us that we become overwhelmed when our base criteria for choice is not sufficiently clear. That base criteria however requires us to understand who we are so we can decide who we want to be. That is something we struggle with all our life. The suggestions provided by wjs and Andi64 are great. But perhaps of even more value would be for you to explore The Hive, get to know people here, join some threads, learn how accountability helps us when motivation fails us (and we all fail at some point). How the support of others lifts us, how training should be fun and then without maybe even realising it you will find yourself joining a Daily Dare or doing a Challenge or a Program with others. At that point fitness will have become as effortless as breathing and a lot more enjoyable. At that point you will be on a deeper journey of self-discovery and growth than just a physical one.

I really hope this helps.

Thanks for the tag, wjs!
And welcome to the Hive, Nicolas!
(It so happens we share our nationalities and first names. What were you saying about various options again?)

I can understand your point of view, and of course constructive feedback is always welcome.

First, I completely agree with Andi64 : the best workouts are always the one you actually do. I'm aware that life is short, but I think sometimes we spend too much time trying to optimise things. Instead of thinking "Maybe I could have picked a better workout", don't forget that you still did something, and your body still benefited from it.

Now, there is a point to the large choice Darebee has to offer. First, because a lot of people are glad not to repeat the exact same thing over and over again. Working out is something we should enjoy as much as possible. Removing boredom from the equation is one way of achieving that.

There is also a physiological reason: the more we do the same thing, the more the body adapts to that particular thing, and the less effort it requires. If we want to keep improving after a while, we need to shake things up every now and then. Use different exercises, in a different order, with a different focus. It both allows us to train muscles we might have neglected otherwise, and to reduce the risk of injury induced by overusing the same muscles and tendons.

Still, if that abundance of choice bothers you, choosing a program and sticking to it (as you already did) is definitely the right thing to do. It will yield results without requiring you to plan anything in advance. Which is nice.

(Oh, and it looks like Damer and I posted our answers at the same time. They are complementary, of course.)

Completely Redline so much great practical advice comes from everyone in here I usually focus on the bigger picture, for context for all of us.

Hi all,

Thank you all for very thoughtful and complete replies. A few things I didn't state or did not make clear:
- I very much like the website contents, the first reason I came here were the great illustrations, I stayed because of the quality of the contents.
- I ended picking 2 programs (day 8 so far) to follow so 1/ I made a choice as to what to do 2/ I believe that the offered choices are good.
- I read what others posted on The Hive before posting and was amazed by the exchanges, the great quality of advices and kindness to other working bees.
- I understand that building a workout is not an easy task or a random act, it requires some work (reading, studying, practice...) and I do appreciate part of the work being done by the Darebee team.

In a other words: I like what Darebee has to offer. My experience with Darebee has been a very positive one so far. My criticism was not meant to be a complaint, I meant only to share what a newcomer like me could experience.

You got (at the very least) one thing right: my goals were not clear enough to make the appropriate choice. I understand that Darebee doesn't try to make a profit out of its users (and what a refreshing thing!) but as previously stated, the best workout is the workout one does. I found myself not following any of the numerous proposed workout during days before finally picking up a program. I guess I'm not the only one who comes here without having something specific in mind so I may not be the only one experiencing.

My message was not supposed to be a complaint but only to share my first experience with Darebee which I find very interesting. I'm very sorry if I let anyone think that I'm not happy with what I found here.

Thank you again for your replies,

Be happy bees,
Nicolas

Oh, don't worry, I for one didn't see your post as a complaint, but rather as a well-meaning attempt to provide some feedback. It's absolutely fine. I mostly wanted to point out that even though I can understand this abundance of choice can seem overwhelming at first, it is there for good reason, and ultimately brings more benefits than drawbacks - in my humble opinion, of course.

And I'm very glad to hear your experience with the resource has been mostly positive so far.

I am late to the party, but I would just like to add that choice can be over-rated as well. I have not watched the TED talk you linked, but I have read about the decision paralysis phenomenon and one way that I personally work around that, especially here, is I just pick one. Less thinking and more doing is what I tell myself. If it comes down to 2 or 3 or even 5 that I can't decide, I just pick one and go with it. At the end of the day, it is not the last workout I will ever do and the "perfect" workout doesn't exist. I don't want to derail this thread, but just because we think were are making the best choice does not guarantee it will turn out the best. I like to think of all the "mistakes" I have made that have turned out amazing. Assuming you don't have any injuries and you listen to you body, it would hard to go "wrong" with any workout here. This place has way more stuff to do than I can even imagine so I totally get where you are coming from. My workout/challenge/program "to-do" list on here rivals my reading list, lol!

Good luck!

Nico4nicolas Welcome to the Hive.

Nico4nicolas I too didn't take it as a complaint. Your point was valid and I thought it most probably reflects the experience of many others who are too shy to share the fact that they can't decide on a workout. I took it as an opportunity to explain things which we don't normally get the chance to explain and yet they are important. Thank you for starting this thread and keep us posted with your journey here.

Nico4nicolas Welcome! Bien venidos!

Wow, do I understand your concern. When I first got here it was so overwhelming, I decided just to pick workouts that had themes I liked, so lots of classical warrior and fantasy themes. Since then, I've learned and make use of the filters a lot, usually to supplement a program in service of a goal (right now running faster than a turtle and improving my cardio enough to handle Boxer Prime).

Nico4nicolas Welcome to the Hive

I'm still relatively new here, and after nearly two months I still get overwhelmed by choice and spend (probably too much) time deciding what I'm going to do next. But the import thing is that I/you've/we've made a start and are doing something.

Damer and Redline offer a far more constructive answer than I could. But I just thought I'd offer a welcome and my experience

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