Monday, September 12, 2011

Chess and Hard Abs

You know I love analogies, so bear with me:

A guy comes to you and says he wants to be the baddest ass Chess player on the planet. He is going to work his tail off every afternoon with the goal of becoming a great Chess player. He decides to tell you about the program he’s following:

On Monday he played chess. On Wednesday he played checkers. On Friday he played backgammon. Saturday morning he woke up and had a solid round of Scrabble.

Now I ask you, after one week, is he any better of a chess player? No, of course he isn’t.

Is he an idiot? Probably, yeah.

Obviously, he’s not going to get better at chess unless he plays a lot of CHESS, and does other activities that support that goal, like reading books about chess or watching chess experts play games. Playing chess once per week while doing other things that have nothing to do with chess the rest of the week isn’t going to help, and I don’t think anybody would disagree with me on that.

But I’ve found that the overwhelming majority of exercisers, and sadly exercise professionals, still insist on constant variance in workouts similar to the aforementioned learning impaired chess player. But unlike the chess player who we all agree is going nowhere, it’s perfectly acceptable in the exercise world to “mix things up”.

If I’ve learned one thing over the last couple of years, it’s this: Constantly performing different workouts will not get you results. Designing a program and sticking with it will.

Jesus, even those jackasses that do P90X get results because it’s a 90 day program to which they adhere. Of course, the sore knees and weak asses are a result of shitty programming, not the exercisers fault.

I just recently read The Talent Code, which was a great and insightful read. One of the important take home points is that no one ever became great at something doing it a couple of times half assed. Also, no one became great at anything by doing the activity often, but poorly.
People in all walks of life get results by deliberately repeating a sequence over and over while paying close attention to the mistakes they make along the way. Then they stop, correct the mistakes, and do it again. This is repeated until the task can be performed almost automatically and mistake free.

When you make a mistake in one activity, then go on to another activity and make a mistake there, then try a different activity and make a mistake there, you’re only assuring yourself of one thing: You won't be good at any of them.

It’s the same with exercise: if you do workout “A” on Monday, then workout “B” on Wednesday, then workout “C” on Friday you’re only cementing the fact you’ll suck at all of them, because you’ll never see, learn from, and correct your mistakes.

If you want to be lean and strong you need to follow a program that’s designed for maintenance of muscle tissue and loss of body fat. Then you need to repeat that program over, and over, and over, etc…

That doesn’t mean don’t adjust the program as you go. It means follow the program. It can and will always be made more difficult as you improve. Even a program as simple as pushups, pull-ups and body weight squats can be progressed dozens of ways to provide more of a challenge as you progress from your previous workouts.

At The Training Rim, our small group session members follow a three month undulating periodization model. That’s people who workout as a GROUP, have a template to follow ensuring they’ll get better at key exercises that promote total body strength and caloric expenditure, without wasting their time on something that they’ll never do or see again. (It’s funny to think that many personal trainers can’t or won’t do that for their personal training clients. If you know a trainer like that, it’s time to get a new trainer.) And if you're curious about whether or not TR members get bored without "mixing it up" (insert eye roll), they responded "It's fun" overwhelmingly as the number one answer when asked why they stay at the TR.

If you want to be great at chess, play chess. Backgammon and checkers won’t help.

If you want to be lean and strong, get a simple plan and follow it deliberately and relentlessly. Don’t worry: hard glutes await you at the end.



Thursday, September 1, 2011

23 Hours Per Day

I was in Rhode Island this summer for a seminar where I listened to the leaders of my industry discuss my profession for three days. It really was super cool - I learned tons of new things. But perhaps more importantly I was reminded of the significance of things I already knew, but maybe haven’t been reinforcing enough with all of you.

For example, one of the things we all know is there are three aspects to being lean, strong and healthy:

1. Efficient exercise.
2. Recovering from exercise (and your daily routine).
3. Nutrition.

And in spite of what many people think, number one is the LEAST important of the three.

Least important doesn’t mean unnecessary, because exercise is mandatory whether you like it or not. It’s just lower on the food chain than the other two. And its impact on your health related goals drops significantly if the other two are not addressed relentlessly.

Think about it: the hardest core of the hard core members in my facility get in here 4-5 times per week to workout. Average is about 2-3 times per week. So even the most dedicated client spend less than 3% of their time in our facility with supervised workouts – most are supervised about 1% of the time. (2 hours per week here = 166 hours per week elsewhere = .012%)

Now I’m not real good at math, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say the other 97-99% of the time during the week without the TR plays a pretty big factor in your success with regards to your fitness regimen. (On a side note, did you notice I wrote “regimen”, not “regiment”? Drives me insane when people say “regiment” when they mean “regimen”. ‘Hey Jon, can you put me on an exercise regiment?’ Uh, no, I’m not military personnel…thank you…) I digress.

So if you know for sure you’re exercising efficiently, and you’re not getting the results you like, you may be neglecting the other two aspects of your regimen: recovery and nutrition.

Don’t worry; today we have some advice for you to address the needs of the other 23 hours of the day as well as your exercise needs:

How to improve your recovery:

· Sleep: do your best to get it. I know you don’t have ultimate control over this but do your best.
· Tissue recovery: get a foam roller and use it.
· Stress: don’t have it. Stress affects you physically too. Make sure you’re not sweating the small stuff.

How to improve your nutrition:

· Drink water: a lot.
· Cut the crap: eat healthy foods.
· Don’t over eat: if you have one more calorie than your body needs it will be stored.
Probably in an unsightly place.
· Don’t under eat: if you’re exercising consistently your body has a lot of rebuilding and re-fueling to do. Make sure you eat soon after your workout and in small portions consistently throughout the day.

Remember, if you’re exercising efficiently that is awesome, you should be proud of yourself. But you need to remember there are another 23 hours or so per day that are going to affect whether or not you get results. Be efficient those 23 hours too!