Strength Basics

Getting stronger, fitter, and healthier by sticking to the basics. It's not rocket science, it's doing the simple stuff the right way. Strength-Basics updates every Monday, plus extra posts during the week.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Your Choice of Workouts, Part I

If I could promise to train you and offer you this choice, which would you take?

A) A hard workout every session, that leaves you thrashed, trashed, and tired. You'll go home feeling like you worked, certain that you couldn't have put in more effort every day.

B) A measured workout every session, that leaves you worked but not too tired. You'll go home knowing that yeah, you could have worked harder today, you kept some in the tank.

Which do you take now? And why?

What if I could promise you better results with workouts more like B than A, but you wouldn't feel like you'd done as much? How long could you stand it, even if the weights kept going up, the fat kept coming off, the goals kept falling like dominoes?

It's a tough question. In my head, I know approach B is the one to use. Measured workouts that build on each other successively to get a desired result. But A feels good, feels like you worked. Is the immediate satisfaction of "I worked hard!" so seductive we can't see the benefits in a steady approach?

I'll discuss this more tomorrow, but this question has been stuck in my head and I wanted to get it out there.
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2 comments:

  1. I know what you mean. A is more satisfying, but like anything else, sometimes patience is the right way. Perhaps save the A workouts for now and then to see what you've got?

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  2. That's a good approach, I agree. Sometimes you really do want to keep going until you can't go anymore. But if you only ever do that, only ever work until you're tired, you end up shorting yourself in the long run.

    At least, I think so. The tricky part is, how do you set up B so you know it's enough? How do you convince someone used to "A" style workouts to stick it out until B shows them the results they want?

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