Creeping Incrementalism in lifting, cardio and nutrition
1 November 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
It’s easy to tell someone to be perfect. Lift perfectly, perform perfect cardio, eat perfectly – right from day one – sink or swim! Then when the individual goes off the rails and does not act perfectly the perfection coach says, “Well I guess this is just another endless example of someone who just doesn’t want it bad enough!” I’ve heard that coaching/personal trainer response a thousand times if I’ve heard it once. Every time I hear it, I think to myself, to the contrary, perhaps this is an example of bad coaching. I believe you can sneak up on perfection. Torque down the perfection screws, gradually, slightly, relentlessly…nudging the body towards where it should be one inch at a time. Ever improving the work ethic, the discipline, over time, not all at once! There are very few people in this world that can go from doing everything wrong (physically) to doing everything right in one fell swoop. I think those who profess perfection from day one don’t give requisite heed to the psychological aspects of the art & science of physical renovation. My way is called Creeping Incrementalism. CI is my very own made up catch-phrase. Incrementalism is not even a real word. It’s a word made up by me. However these two words together form a phrase the captures the core and essence of an idea: the idea being that you can creep towards perfection in a series of small logical progressive steps that eventually deposits you at the optimal, ultimate destination. We can creep towards perfection in weight training, aerobic training and nutrition, the three interrelated fitness disciplines used to leverage physical progress. Creeping towards improved results requires we move slowly, patiently and methodically over a protracted period of time. Tiny steps compounded add up to significant gains over time.
Incremental stepping as a viable athletic enhancement was first ritualized and institutionalized in Olympic Weightlifting. Back in the sixties the Communist Sports Machine formalized weightlifting coaching on a national level. By throwing government money and resources into producing superior athletes (that would exemplify the advantages of socialism) the concept of Periodization was born. Periodization in the broadest sense requires the athlete start with a realistic athletic goal then reverse-engineers a logical training program: one that systematically stair-steps weekly training increases. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! Progress is not a spigot that once turned on runs as long as the tap is left open. Physical progress eventually subsides; that’s a physiological fact. If progress were a single unbroken upward line, men would bench press 5,000 pounds. Progress comes in bits and spurts. The first truism of transformation is the human body is resistant to physical change. The goal of our efforts is elemental and fundamental: we want to cause new muscle mass to grow and we want to mobilize and oxidize stored body fat. The body does not want to build more muscle nor does it want give up its precious stored body fat. Certain training and eating procedures need be followed religiously for a protracted period of months if gains are to be had. Hard, difficult training (the only kind that triggers hypertrophy) need be juxtaposed with precision nutrition: the end result is the body that is forced to build muscle and forced to burn stored body fat. Sound nutrition must underpin hard training: hard training and starvation is a recipe for physiological disaster.
Catabolism is a stress hormone and when released into the system allows the body to cannibalize muscle tissue in order to deal with caloric shortfalls bought on by starvation eating. If insufficient nutrients are available to aid in muscle recovery, muscle regeneration and muscle growth, the body will strip muscles tissue for the amino content in order to survive. Weight train hard enough to trigger hypertrophy: perform cardio hard enough to accelerate the metabolism (and burn off stored body fat) and eat with purpose and precision. Creeping Incrementalism depends on benchmarks. The trainee need log lifting, cardio and nutrition. Once benchmarks are established systematically improve upon them. The process is tightened up ever so slightly, ever so gradually, over a protracted period of time. At the end of 12-weeks of continual, ever-tighter discipline, a larger, more muscular, leaner physique is acquired. Establish comfortable, realistic, safe initial benchmarks. Each subsequent week seek to improve by inching up the benchmarks. Move them slightly upward in some manner or fashion. Creep ever upwards in a barely perceptible manner. Bank on the long term compound interest to produce spectacular cumulative results. If you were to add a scant 5-pounds per week to a 100×8-rep initial bench press benchmark, at the end of 12-weeks the individual would be benching 160×8! This represents a 60% increase! Imagine the concurrent muscle size increases that would accompany adding 60% to a lift capability? Add 10-pounds a week to a squat or deadlift and by cycle’s end you handle 120-pounds more than your initial benchmark poundage. Each week grow stronger and eat more of the right foods at the right time. Seek to up cardio benchmarks in some fashion and become leaner as a direct result. Be sure and get plenty of regenerative sleep. Hard training builds the body and eating and resting heals the body thereby completing the growth cycle.
Periodization is the game plan of Creeping Incrementalism. Always have a plan, regardless the discipline. In some way the lifting is easy! Add poundage or reps in a long slow, ever-upward glide path. Cardio incrementalism manifests by finishing the jog path faster than yesterday or by going a little further. Dietary creeping incrementalism is equally easy: incrementally clean up the food selections. Creep up the lean protein intake or decrease overall caloric intake. Perhaps increase calories or reduce starch intake…the Periodization possibilities are endless. Too many fitness adherents just sort of mosey into the gym, have a nonchalant, casual, social workout then nonchalantly leave. And they wonder why they never ever change. If the human body radically reconfigured itself in response to half-ass workouts we’d ALL look like Arnold! Unless you grit you teeth and push or pull with all your might, nothing of any real significance is going to happen. Ditto cardio: unless you go hard and long and often, don’t expect cardio miracles. Incrementally tighten up that eating; until you do, nothing of any real significance is going to happen. On the other hand it doesn’t all have to happen at once. For a person never before subjected to serious weight training, training three times a week for 30-minutes will grow that individual muscle – for a while. When three times a week for 30-minutes peters out then the individual might have to kick it up: perhaps three 45-minute workouts or perhaps four weekly 30-minute sessions. A 15-minute power-walk done five times a week might yield great results for the untrained person in an initial period. Sooner or later the need would be to kick up the volume in some manner or fashion – tweak the duration, tweak the intensity, tweak the frequency. Ditto nutrition: play with nutritional supplements, alter nutrient balances or clean up food selections over time. Do you have a plan? If you don’t you should. Do you practice creeping incrementalism? If you don’t you should.
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