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.
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