The KEY to Making Progress: Failure
They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing yet expecting a different result. Here’s how you can avoid being insane.
Assuming you want your body to progress, you have to challenge it! You have to push it to its’ limit (like the girl to the right) and give it a reason to adapt.
While this may seem like common sense, one of the most common mistakes trainees make is not training hard enough. That’s a sure-fire way to become stagnant and to NOT make progress. If you are already physically perfect, then that’s fine. If not, read on.
Let’s say that you lie out in the sun for 60 minutes, 2 days per week, but you want to get darker. How would you go about achieving a darker tan? You would either lie out 3 days per week, or you would lie out for 75 minutes or so each time (or maybe a combination thereof).
Weight training is no different. If you want to get more strength and/or endurance, then you either have to use more weight or do more repetitions. Continuing to do the same weight and same number of repetitions week in and week out when your goal is to progress is… well, it’s insane!
With the exception of your warm-up sets, each set that you do should be a challenge. You should not be able to do more than 1 or 2 additional repetitions. Otherwise, you are not giving your body enough of a stimulus or challenge to force it to adapt.
Sure you should always use good, safe form on each and every repetition. However, this is not an excuse to use half-ass effort! Do use good form on each and every repetition of each and every set, however, push yourself to the limit!
The human body does not like to change. And it especially does not prefer to build lean muscle, because it is very metabolically active and requires many additional calories to support it. Therefore, the body perceives having more lean muscle as inefficient. That’s why you can’t ask your body to grow, you have to force it to grow!
As a general rule, he who applies the most effort will make the most progress. (Again, this is a general rule.)
I may even go so far as to say that you could put maximum effort into a mediocre training routine that you got out of a fitness magazine and get more results out of it than you would a world-class program that I personally designed for you, if you only half-heartedly did the routine that I designed for you.
But, when you apply good, solid effort to a properly designed weight-training routine, you will achieve maximum results in minimal time!
Enough talking. Go get mentally prepared to have a kick-ass, results-producing workout the next time you train!
Yours in health,
Dr Clay
