Fitness mistakes: Part I
14 April 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
The name of the game in fitness is physical transformation. To achieve this Herculean goal requires a smart game plan and lots of pure physical effort. Changing the composition of the human body, sculpting and reshaping it, takes continual unceasing effort, hard work in the gym. If you do it right, often times you will feel as if you’re Hercules cleaning the Aegean Stables. Better train hard than smart: I’ve said this before but it bears repeating; I’ve seen great results derived from horrific training strategies and I’ve seen incredibly complex and sophisticated game plans rendered impotent through a lack of training effort. In training intensity trumps all other traits. When it comes to triggering results, intensity, the amount of pure effort generated in the workout, is the single biggest determination in who succeeds and who fails. Better to use a stupid plan while exerting great effort then use a sophisticated plan full of subtlety and nuance but rendered ineffectual on account of yawning sub-maximal effort. One of the Herd asked me “What’s the biggest mistake you see made on a regularly reoccurring basis?” I got to thinking and came up with a slew of variations on a theme…
Fuzzy goals: Be clear on the ultimate prize: in fitness we settle for nothing less than utter and complete physical renovation. How do you define success: lowered body fat percentile and increased lean muscle mass. These are the irreducible twin goals of a fitness program. Real simple, the goal is to reduce body fat and increase muscle mass. That’s the bottom, bottom line. Three interrelated and inter-connected disciplines are used simultaneously (the three legs of the Purposefully Primitive Triad are resistance training, cardiovascular training and nutrition) to acquire the twin goals. Other goals exist within each of the three legs of the Purposefully Primitive fitness Triad. The goal of resistance training is to increase muscle mass, the Big Goal. The little goal is to increase power and strength. Resistance training done correctly increases strength and increased strength always results in increased muscle size. The cardio goal Big Goal is to improve endurance. Better endurance means longer and harder training. Another cardio goal, a little goal, is the mobilization and oxidation of stored body fat. Cardio and nutrition need be coordinated to accelerate fat burning. The Big Goal is twofold: accelerate the acquisition of muscle mass, simultaneously oxidize stored body fat. Nutritionally we need eat enough food to fuel growth and speed up workout recovery time. However too many calories of the wrong type and the excess is shuttled into fat storage depots. We need clear thinking about major and minor fitness goals. The fitness devotee need avoid confusion on motives. Our goal is to transform our physique. There are three tools to help accomplish this, resistance and cardio training plus nutrition. In each leg of the PP Fitness Triad there are sub-goals. We are clear on the Big Goals and clear on the little goals.
Unwillingness to enter the Pain Zone: In the world of physical transformation the training effort need continually equal or exceed current limits. Results will be compromised and less than optimal if we loaf. Sub-maximal training yields sub-maximal results. Most folks go through the training motions but lack the willpower needed to purposefully train to the point of physical discomfort. They might be doing all the right exercises and utilizing a rock-solid training plan but unless the training pedal is figuratively mashed to the floor, results will be disappointing. Ease and comfort is the enemy of physical progress. Most are unwilling to push into the “pain” zone, where the big gains lie. Actually the pain zone might more accurately be labeled the “momentary discomfort zone.” The unwillingness to train past the point where discomfort first arises ensures results will be minimal at best. Do you need to set a new personal record in every exercise in every workout? No, of course not, that would be impossible. What is possible is to work up to “momentary capacity” on the top set of an exercise in some manner or fashion. A limit can come in a variety of forms. If on the day’s training menu you perform 3 sets of 10-reps in the narrow grip underhand lat pulldown, work up to the rep or poundage limit for that particular day and time. For example, suppose your best was 100×10 in the under-grip lat pulldown. Today you feel a bit off, sick, less than 100%. So you take 80-pounds instead of 100, a 20% poundage reduction. You then rep with 80-pounds, past discomfort, you pull until you cannot pull another rep. Maybe you fail on rep 12 or rep 14…perhaps you make 15-reps with 80. It is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you have repped until you cannot do another rep. You’ve worked up to your absolute capacity at that particular moment on that particular exercise. Does capacity on this day match or exceed all-time best? Doesn’t matter! As long as you push or pull until you can push or pull no more you’ve trained hard enough to throw the hypertrophy switch. Same with cardio: push the envelope – if your best time for a particular walk or jog path is 45-minutes, try and do it in 44-minutes. Perhaps on this day you won’t make it – that’s okay because you gave it all you had. Lollygagging along at 60% of capacity, yawning through an exercise routine is a worthless waste of time and good only as a maintenance regimen.
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