So you want to know the way to answer all of your trainer's questions in exactly the right way to shut down further discussion, that painful diet talk, and going up in weight on reps (or keeping the weight where it is?)? Here is your cheat sheet! Have this handy for when you want to wriggle out of tough questions designed to actually increase your results.
Trainer questions are in Italics, answers in quotes.
What did you have for breakfast?
"Some lean protein - leftover chicken breast I prepared on Sunday - some steamed mixed vegetables, some steel-cut oats, and a glass of water."
No fats?
"Just my fish oil and a few slivered almonds."
How much food?
"I try to keep it to 20% of my calories per day since I'm eating five times a day."
How did that weight feel?
"Challenging."
Could you go up?
(If you want to) "Yes, no problem."
(If you don't) "I think I should stick with that another set because it caught up to me at the end of the set."
How many more reps did you have in the tank?
or
Could you have done more reps?
"One or two."
Have you been doing your cardio at home?
"Yes, and I'm parking further from the door at work and taking the stairs, too."
Have you been stretching?
"Yes."
Have you been sneaking in extra biceps curls and doing (name crazy workout) on days when you're supposed to rest?
"No, I've been prioritizing recovery."
How are you feeling today?
"Good. I'm ready to go."
And the kicker:
Are you going to make it all three sessions next week?
"Without a doubt."
Cancel by text, it'll save time for both of you.
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.
Showing posts with label you can't just.... Show all posts
Showing posts with label you can't just.... Show all posts
Monday, May 15, 2017
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
The Onion on the problems of eating healthy
The mock-newspaper The Onion put up an amusing article called "
Superfoods - Myth vs. Fact."
For example:
"M[yth]: Kale is a delicious way to meet your body’s iron needs
F[act]: Kale is a way to meet your body’s iron needs"
or
"M[yth]: Adding acai berries to your morning smoothie provides a huge antioxidant kick
F[act]: Chances are, if “your morning smoothie” is a recognizable part of your routine, everything’s going to turn out just fine in your life anyway"
Like all good, painful jokes on The Onion, it's rooted in reality.
Walnuts - and other healthy foods - can be expensive.
If you aren't used to eating certain foods (kale, for example), they aren't automatically interesting and delicious.
You have to actually consume flax seeds to benefit from them, which means buying and preparing them.
You need to have a habit of healthy eating before you can tweak those healthy habits to be even better.
You also need money and/or access to healthy foods, as discussed in this article on Precision Nutrition.
I've argued before that it's pretty easy to know what's good and what's bad. A shopping cart full of veggies and raw meats will beat one full of packaged snacks made with veggie powder and processed meats. But if you've got time-poverty, live in a food desert, or actually live in poverty, knowing the first beats the second is only part of the answer. Knowing is half the battle, as they used to say on G.I. Joe, but actually solving it isn't always trivial. It's a painful reminder that the playing field isn't level. Healthy eating something we all need, and something we can all strive towards. But it's not as trivial as just throwing in some "superfoods" to your diet.
Superfoods - Myth vs. Fact."
For example:
"M[yth]: Kale is a delicious way to meet your body’s iron needs
F[act]: Kale is a way to meet your body’s iron needs"
or
"M[yth]: Adding acai berries to your morning smoothie provides a huge antioxidant kick
F[act]: Chances are, if “your morning smoothie” is a recognizable part of your routine, everything’s going to turn out just fine in your life anyway"
Like all good, painful jokes on The Onion, it's rooted in reality.
Walnuts - and other healthy foods - can be expensive.
If you aren't used to eating certain foods (kale, for example), they aren't automatically interesting and delicious.
You have to actually consume flax seeds to benefit from them, which means buying and preparing them.
You need to have a habit of healthy eating before you can tweak those healthy habits to be even better.
You also need money and/or access to healthy foods, as discussed in this article on Precision Nutrition.
I've argued before that it's pretty easy to know what's good and what's bad. A shopping cart full of veggies and raw meats will beat one full of packaged snacks made with veggie powder and processed meats. But if you've got time-poverty, live in a food desert, or actually live in poverty, knowing the first beats the second is only part of the answer. Knowing is half the battle, as they used to say on G.I. Joe, but actually solving it isn't always trivial. It's a painful reminder that the playing field isn't level. Healthy eating something we all need, and something we can all strive towards. But it's not as trivial as just throwing in some "superfoods" to your diet.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Recovery is filling the hole
One of my favorite training quotes is about recovery, and it's from John Meadows (who runs Mountain Dog Diet).
As far as I know, I first came across it here:
"Training is like digging a ditch. Recovery is about filling that ditch, and adding a little bit more." - John Meadows, quoted by Jim Wendler in 2012 in Review.
I've heard a few variations of it. Usually it gets simplified to "Training is digging a hole, recovery is filling it."
It's a fantastic way to look at training, especially as you look older.
You need to build your recovery into your workouts. Not in the "rest between sets" sense but in the "rest in your workout schedule" sense.
It's a slow-and-steady approach, at heart. Don't do anything you can't recover from. If you push extra-hard, leave in some extra space to recover.
What I like about the metaphor is that it also tells you that minimal work with maximal recovery isn't going to cut it. You have to work. But you can't crush yourself day in, day out, and expect results over the long haul. You just aren't spending any time filling that hole.
I use this metaphor a lot with clients these days. I keep it mind myself. Work, get your training in, make some progress toward your goal. Then rest and recover. Don't mistake digging for filling and vice-versa, and make sure you do enough of both - in balance.
As far as I know, I first came across it here:
"Training is like digging a ditch. Recovery is about filling that ditch, and adding a little bit more." - John Meadows, quoted by Jim Wendler in 2012 in Review.
I've heard a few variations of it. Usually it gets simplified to "Training is digging a hole, recovery is filling it."
It's a fantastic way to look at training, especially as you look older.
You need to build your recovery into your workouts. Not in the "rest between sets" sense but in the "rest in your workout schedule" sense.
It's a slow-and-steady approach, at heart. Don't do anything you can't recover from. If you push extra-hard, leave in some extra space to recover.
What I like about the metaphor is that it also tells you that minimal work with maximal recovery isn't going to cut it. You have to work. But you can't crush yourself day in, day out, and expect results over the long haul. You just aren't spending any time filling that hole.
I use this metaphor a lot with clients these days. I keep it mind myself. Work, get your training in, make some progress toward your goal. Then rest and recover. Don't mistake digging for filling and vice-versa, and make sure you do enough of both - in balance.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
5 Reasons I Hate Calorie Counting
I hate calorie counting.
Don't get me wrong - I think calories count. The total amount of food you eat matters.
But counting calories to manage your food and exercise?
I hate it.
Here are five reasons why.
#1: It creates a false equivalency.
Counting calories lets you pretend that a calorie is just a calorie. It tells you all calories are equal. 300 calories of pizza, 300 calories of chicken, 300 calories of beans, 300 calories of soda - it's all 300 calories, right?
Yes.
But they have completely different effects on your body. 300 calories of nutrient-dense, protein-filled food beats 300 calories of soda with a stick.
They aren't the same.
We know this.
Yet the calorie count tells us common sense is wrong, it's all the same.
We don't do this with exercise - we don't swap out 30 reps of pushups with 30 reps of biceps curls and say it's the same. We don't equate 10 sets of 10 with 100 pounds (10,000 pounds) with 5 sets of 5 with 400 (also 10,000 pounds.)
(Okay, people do tell me that they skipped squats but it's okay because they did the treadmill for 20 minutes.)
Calorie counting does that.
It even does it in reverse - 300 calories worth of biking negates 300 calories of beer, right? That hurts just to read, doesn't it? Your body isn't running a daily account total and deals with the net/net at the end of the day. It takes each stimulus (300 calories of energy burning doing bike sprints, 300 calories of beer) and applies both to you.
Even if you stay aware of this, it's hard not to fall into the "300 of X is equal to 300 of Y" trap.
#2: Calorie counts don't measure food value.
A calorie is a measurement of heat. They're calculated for food by incinerating it in what's called a bomb calorimeter to see how much heat the food gives off.
So right there, we have an issue - your body isn't a bomb calorimeter. It doesn't incinerate your food and reduce it all to its component energy. It doesn't always digest everything you eat. You might eat 300 calories of food and digest most of it, some of it, or almost none of it. Probably most, but you can't be sure.
Even so, how useful that food is to your body isn't measured. Your body uses macronutrients (which have calories, and provide fuel) and micronutrients (which don't, and provided needed chemicals.)
Your body seeks macronutrients and micronutrients, not just a sum total of calories.
You can get thinner just eating twinkies, and improve your blood work by dropping excess pounds. But that's not a sustainable model for health. Any diet with insufficient food will get you thinner - they don't get you healthy.
#3: Calorie counts and needs aren't accurate.
You know those calculators that estimate your calorie needs? They're based on formula put together based on studies. Different formulas will give you different calorie counts.
All of them are estimates. They're expanded from the original sample groups. Even there, if they come within 10% or so of your actual needs, they're doing really well. Twice that is more common. After all, it's an estimate based on an average.
That's even assuming you correctly estimated your activity, measured your weight, and so on.
So are the calorie listings on food labels.
They're based on a small sample of those foods. The those results are rounded off to whole numbers (not a lot of food with 173 calories, but 170 and 175, sure.) They can vary widely each way - plus or minus 25% according to some estimates.
And that's assuming you measure the foods right when you count. If not, you are:
- estimating your needs.
- estimating the caloric value of food.
- and estimating the amount you ate.
Those estimates aren't negating each other, they're compounding each other.
#4: It's easier with processed foods.
Ever track your calories with an app or a website?
It's vastly easier to find the calories for processed junk than for complex but healthy dishes.
Had a piece of name-brand frozen pizza? No problem, calories are on the box.
Made a salad with three kinds of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, celery, cucumber, olives, and topped it with spices and extra virgin olive oil? That's at least seven ingredients to measure, weigh, look up, and add in. If you estimate and eyeball it, you're adding your own inaccuracy on top of the estimates. That's even assuming you find the right calorie count for the food you chose.
#5: It's difficult.
Finally, it's just hard.
You have to know exactly how much of what you ate, just to cut down from three points of estimation to two. You have weight foods. You have to mind the calories from everything, healthy or not.
It's all the hard work of tracking your food and planning your meals, plus math based on inaccurate numbers.
And that's if you plan.
If you don't plan your meals, you end up with those late-night "got to get in 500 more calories!" moments. Or "I'm starving and I only have 100 calories left for today!" Neither is conducive to a stress-free eating experience.
For those five reasons, I hate calorie counting.
So, calorie counting doesn't work?
It can work, but I find it usually doesn't, based on the five reasons above.
If you can manage it, and find the downsides are outweighed by the upsides - by all means, count away!
What's the alternative?
I prefer people to just go for portion control. I point people to Precision Nutrition's hand/fist/thumb approach, because the approach is easy enough. It's a good starting point. Where we go from there - and foods, and meal count, and so on - is more individualized. But we don't go with calories . . . and now you know why.
Agree? Disagree? Have a different spin on this post? Feel free to comment below!
Don't get me wrong - I think calories count. The total amount of food you eat matters.
But counting calories to manage your food and exercise?
I hate it.
Here are five reasons why.
#1: It creates a false equivalency.
Counting calories lets you pretend that a calorie is just a calorie. It tells you all calories are equal. 300 calories of pizza, 300 calories of chicken, 300 calories of beans, 300 calories of soda - it's all 300 calories, right?
Yes.
But they have completely different effects on your body. 300 calories of nutrient-dense, protein-filled food beats 300 calories of soda with a stick.
They aren't the same.
We know this.
Yet the calorie count tells us common sense is wrong, it's all the same.
We don't do this with exercise - we don't swap out 30 reps of pushups with 30 reps of biceps curls and say it's the same. We don't equate 10 sets of 10 with 100 pounds (10,000 pounds) with 5 sets of 5 with 400 (also 10,000 pounds.)
(Okay, people do tell me that they skipped squats but it's okay because they did the treadmill for 20 minutes.)
Calorie counting does that.
It even does it in reverse - 300 calories worth of biking negates 300 calories of beer, right? That hurts just to read, doesn't it? Your body isn't running a daily account total and deals with the net/net at the end of the day. It takes each stimulus (300 calories of energy burning doing bike sprints, 300 calories of beer) and applies both to you.
Even if you stay aware of this, it's hard not to fall into the "300 of X is equal to 300 of Y" trap.
#2: Calorie counts don't measure food value.
A calorie is a measurement of heat. They're calculated for food by incinerating it in what's called a bomb calorimeter to see how much heat the food gives off.
So right there, we have an issue - your body isn't a bomb calorimeter. It doesn't incinerate your food and reduce it all to its component energy. It doesn't always digest everything you eat. You might eat 300 calories of food and digest most of it, some of it, or almost none of it. Probably most, but you can't be sure.
Even so, how useful that food is to your body isn't measured. Your body uses macronutrients (which have calories, and provide fuel) and micronutrients (which don't, and provided needed chemicals.)
Your body seeks macronutrients and micronutrients, not just a sum total of calories.
You can get thinner just eating twinkies, and improve your blood work by dropping excess pounds. But that's not a sustainable model for health. Any diet with insufficient food will get you thinner - they don't get you healthy.
#3: Calorie counts and needs aren't accurate.
You know those calculators that estimate your calorie needs? They're based on formula put together based on studies. Different formulas will give you different calorie counts.
All of them are estimates. They're expanded from the original sample groups. Even there, if they come within 10% or so of your actual needs, they're doing really well. Twice that is more common. After all, it's an estimate based on an average.
That's even assuming you correctly estimated your activity, measured your weight, and so on.
So are the calorie listings on food labels.
They're based on a small sample of those foods. The those results are rounded off to whole numbers (not a lot of food with 173 calories, but 170 and 175, sure.) They can vary widely each way - plus or minus 25% according to some estimates.
And that's assuming you measure the foods right when you count. If not, you are:
- estimating your needs.
- estimating the caloric value of food.
- and estimating the amount you ate.
Those estimates aren't negating each other, they're compounding each other.
#4: It's easier with processed foods.
Ever track your calories with an app or a website?
It's vastly easier to find the calories for processed junk than for complex but healthy dishes.
Had a piece of name-brand frozen pizza? No problem, calories are on the box.
Made a salad with three kinds of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, celery, cucumber, olives, and topped it with spices and extra virgin olive oil? That's at least seven ingredients to measure, weigh, look up, and add in. If you estimate and eyeball it, you're adding your own inaccuracy on top of the estimates. That's even assuming you find the right calorie count for the food you chose.
#5: It's difficult.
Finally, it's just hard.
You have to know exactly how much of what you ate, just to cut down from three points of estimation to two. You have weight foods. You have to mind the calories from everything, healthy or not.
It's all the hard work of tracking your food and planning your meals, plus math based on inaccurate numbers.
And that's if you plan.
If you don't plan your meals, you end up with those late-night "got to get in 500 more calories!" moments. Or "I'm starving and I only have 100 calories left for today!" Neither is conducive to a stress-free eating experience.
For those five reasons, I hate calorie counting.
So, calorie counting doesn't work?
It can work, but I find it usually doesn't, based on the five reasons above.
If you can manage it, and find the downsides are outweighed by the upsides - by all means, count away!
What's the alternative?
I prefer people to just go for portion control. I point people to Precision Nutrition's hand/fist/thumb approach, because the approach is easy enough. It's a good starting point. Where we go from there - and foods, and meal count, and so on - is more individualized. But we don't go with calories . . . and now you know why.
Agree? Disagree? Have a different spin on this post? Feel free to comment below!
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
One Approach Beats Two Approaches
One of my friends, training partners, and occasional training clients and I were talking last night.
One thing that came up was mixing two approaches.
It really applies widely to diet and fitness.
I can't count how many times I've been told someone is doing Program X plus Program Y.
"I'm do P90X! And Couch to 5k!"
"I'm doing Starting Strength, plus my marathon prep."
"I'm doing 5/3/1, with Crossfit on my off days."
"I'm training with you twice a week, and I'll do two or three randomly chosen classes a week at my local fitness club!"
And back to diet:
"I'm cutting out meat and I'm cutting out gluten and starchy carbs."
"I'm counting calories and I'm trying to eat until 80% full."
Or a combo:
"I'm doing a mass gain program and cutting my diet to lose weight."
In a lot of cases, the goals don't overlap. In others, they do (or at least don't conflict.) Some might work fantastically together . . . if you were already doing one, and started to add on the other to your existing routine little by little.
The temptation to double is is great - you want to double your progress! Why do one diet and lose a few pounds of fat when you can do two and lose twice as many? Why not add the core elements of one program to another program with competing core elements and let them fight it out while you reap the benefits?
You get two big problems.
Overload - You're trying to do two things before you've mastered one. If you could more easily pick up habits two at a time than one at a time, people would adapt to new things in pairs all the time. It's twice as much information to process. It's twice as much calculation to do. It's at least twice as many chances to have more things to do than time to do them.
Conflicting Demands - Generally each eating approach or training approach assumes that is the only approach you are using. Or at least, assumes you are meshing it with something that doesn't interfere with your main program. Programs might demand you go heavy on Tuesday and light on Wednesday, yet your other program has you ramping up intensity regularly in weekly waves. Now you're going hard on Tuesday and hard on Wednesday and hard again on the days after. Something is going to give out, and it's either your compliance or your body.
If you really want to do both programs, or both diets, consider doing them sequentially. Do one for a while (a cycle, two months, six months, whatever) and see how the results are. Go do the other and compare. Doubling up doesn't multiply your progress, it probably halves it. You are better off committing 100% to a program that is less than all of what you want than committing 50/50 to two programs that are everything you want.
Or sit down, by yourself or with a trainer, and find a way to make them play well together. Don't be surprised if two approaches developed in isolation from each other don't work well together. You can't always make them play well together.
Just keep this guideline in mind: doing two approaches for one solution is halving your progress.
One thing that came up was mixing two approaches.
It really applies widely to diet and fitness.
I can't count how many times I've been told someone is doing Program X plus Program Y.
"I'm do P90X! And Couch to 5k!"
"I'm doing Starting Strength, plus my marathon prep."
"I'm doing 5/3/1, with Crossfit on my off days."
"I'm training with you twice a week, and I'll do two or three randomly chosen classes a week at my local fitness club!"
And back to diet:
"I'm cutting out meat and I'm cutting out gluten and starchy carbs."
"I'm counting calories and I'm trying to eat until 80% full."
Or a combo:
"I'm doing a mass gain program and cutting my diet to lose weight."
In a lot of cases, the goals don't overlap. In others, they do (or at least don't conflict.) Some might work fantastically together . . . if you were already doing one, and started to add on the other to your existing routine little by little.
The temptation to double is is great - you want to double your progress! Why do one diet and lose a few pounds of fat when you can do two and lose twice as many? Why not add the core elements of one program to another program with competing core elements and let them fight it out while you reap the benefits?
You get two big problems.
Overload - You're trying to do two things before you've mastered one. If you could more easily pick up habits two at a time than one at a time, people would adapt to new things in pairs all the time. It's twice as much information to process. It's twice as much calculation to do. It's at least twice as many chances to have more things to do than time to do them.
Conflicting Demands - Generally each eating approach or training approach assumes that is the only approach you are using. Or at least, assumes you are meshing it with something that doesn't interfere with your main program. Programs might demand you go heavy on Tuesday and light on Wednesday, yet your other program has you ramping up intensity regularly in weekly waves. Now you're going hard on Tuesday and hard on Wednesday and hard again on the days after. Something is going to give out, and it's either your compliance or your body.
If you really want to do both programs, or both diets, consider doing them sequentially. Do one for a while (a cycle, two months, six months, whatever) and see how the results are. Go do the other and compare. Doubling up doesn't multiply your progress, it probably halves it. You are better off committing 100% to a program that is less than all of what you want than committing 50/50 to two programs that are everything you want.
Or sit down, by yourself or with a trainer, and find a way to make them play well together. Don't be surprised if two approaches developed in isolation from each other don't work well together. You can't always make them play well together.
Just keep this guideline in mind: doing two approaches for one solution is halving your progress.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Scale Weight is Misleading.
I'm not a big fan of scale weight goals. When it comes to body composition changes, it's not my go-to metric.
Why?
Simply put, weight is misleading.
Scale weight is your total physical weight at the moment you step on the scale. Muscle, bone, tendons, body fat, clothes (if you're weighing yourself clothed), water, food, waste products, etc. Everything. It's all there.
Checking your scale weight is like adding together all of your monetary assets and your debts into one number. Have a $200,000 house and $40,000 in the bank, and owe nothing? Great! $240,000. Have a $100,000 house and $140,000 in debt? Great, also $240,000!
Scale weight is exactly like that.
Take two people:
Mr. Muscle Head weighs 200 pounds and is 10% body fat. That's 180 pounds of lean mass and 20 pounds of fat.
Mr. Muffin Top weighs 200 pounds and is 35% body fat. That's 130 pounds of lean mass and 70 pounds of fat.
The scale, for both, reads 200.
It's deceptive. It's a nice number to know ("What is the sum total of my assets and liabilities?") and it can be important for practical reasons.* But it's not the end-all be-all of anything. It's one metric.
I prefer that people either track weight and other metrics - body fat, waist measurement, and hip measurement at a minimum - or only track those others. Tracking just weight? It just tells you the total, not if the proportions are moving towards the good or the bad. If your weight went up but your waist measurement went down, hip measurement stay the same, and body fat went down, would this be good or bad?
Scale weight as a measure of progress says, "Good!"
Reason says, "Bad!"
I'll go with reason here.
Take away point? Don't only track scale weight. It's helpful but it's misleading. Confirm what it's telling you with other measurements.
* I competed in two related weight-class sports (amateur MMA, and submission grappling.) How much I weighed in skimpy underwear for a few seconds one morning or afternoon was the focus of months of exercise and eating.
Why?
Simply put, weight is misleading.
Scale weight is your total physical weight at the moment you step on the scale. Muscle, bone, tendons, body fat, clothes (if you're weighing yourself clothed), water, food, waste products, etc. Everything. It's all there.
Checking your scale weight is like adding together all of your monetary assets and your debts into one number. Have a $200,000 house and $40,000 in the bank, and owe nothing? Great! $240,000. Have a $100,000 house and $140,000 in debt? Great, also $240,000!
Scale weight is exactly like that.
Take two people:
Mr. Muscle Head weighs 200 pounds and is 10% body fat. That's 180 pounds of lean mass and 20 pounds of fat.
Mr. Muffin Top weighs 200 pounds and is 35% body fat. That's 130 pounds of lean mass and 70 pounds of fat.
The scale, for both, reads 200.
It's deceptive. It's a nice number to know ("What is the sum total of my assets and liabilities?") and it can be important for practical reasons.* But it's not the end-all be-all of anything. It's one metric.
I prefer that people either track weight and other metrics - body fat, waist measurement, and hip measurement at a minimum - or only track those others. Tracking just weight? It just tells you the total, not if the proportions are moving towards the good or the bad. If your weight went up but your waist measurement went down, hip measurement stay the same, and body fat went down, would this be good or bad?
Scale weight as a measure of progress says, "Good!"
Reason says, "Bad!"
I'll go with reason here.
Take away point? Don't only track scale weight. It's helpful but it's misleading. Confirm what it's telling you with other measurements.
* I competed in two related weight-class sports (amateur MMA, and submission grappling.) How much I weighed in skimpy underwear for a few seconds one morning or afternoon was the focus of months of exercise and eating.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Workout vs. Training vs. Practice
Do you refer to what you do in the gym as "working out," as "training," and "as practice," in your mind or when you speak about it?
I think it really matters how you think about it.
Here is how I see them.
The goal of Working Out is what? The goal of working out is getting tired. Getting drain. Working hard.
If you think of your time in the gym as "working out" you predispose yourself to aiming to get tired. Your main goal is, make sure I work hard. If form and technique break down a little bit, or a lot, but you get tired and put in serious effort, you have achieved the goal of "working out."
The goal of Training is to improve yourself at a task or to reach a goal. You will accept some mild form breakdown if it means that you get in a little more training for your eventual activity or to get you closer to your goal. Work, and feeling like you worked, is secondary to getting things done that will improve you within a structured approach to your goal. If you check off the boxes you have planned for the day, you will move on and it doesn't matter much how hard or not-hard it seemed.
The goal of Practice is to improve your skill. You don't keep practicing until you are tired. You keep practicing until you aren't adding any value to your skill any longer. Once your reps stop getting better, you are done. Once you aren't able to keep focused on the task at hand and get better, you stop. You are practicing, and practice makes permanent, so you stop once things get bad. Also, you think about each and every rep not as something to get done but something to get you better.
Short version? You work out to get exercise, you train to achieve a goal, you practice to learn a skill.
Now I know these terms can be used differently in other contexts. All too often sports practice is working out by a different name - think repeats and gassers and laps and squat-thrusts, here. But as many much greater coaches than I am have said, anyone can get you tired, but a good coach can get you better. If you don't walk out of practice either better or primed to be better next time, you are pushing too hard or too much or working harder not smarter.
And it's important to realize that strength is a skill. You can practice being stronger. It's not about annihilating your muscles until they respond and get stronger, but giving them practice lifting heavier weights. They'll respond and so will you.
If you end the gym thinking, "I need to practice my lifts, and practice being healthier and fitter" I think you will have better results. You will also categorically have different results - each time is a way to improve, not work.
This is a mindset I have to cultivate in myself - it doesn't come naturally. I'm very good at pushing hard. But I've achieved my best gains when I think of my sessions in the gym as practice. I'm practicing skills. I'm practicing being strong. I'm practicing being mobile. I'm practicing being a healthy, functional human being.
That practice beats working out. I think you might find the same.
I think it really matters how you think about it.
Here is how I see them.
The goal of Working Out is what? The goal of working out is getting tired. Getting drain. Working hard.
If you think of your time in the gym as "working out" you predispose yourself to aiming to get tired. Your main goal is, make sure I work hard. If form and technique break down a little bit, or a lot, but you get tired and put in serious effort, you have achieved the goal of "working out."
The goal of Training is to improve yourself at a task or to reach a goal. You will accept some mild form breakdown if it means that you get in a little more training for your eventual activity or to get you closer to your goal. Work, and feeling like you worked, is secondary to getting things done that will improve you within a structured approach to your goal. If you check off the boxes you have planned for the day, you will move on and it doesn't matter much how hard or not-hard it seemed.
The goal of Practice is to improve your skill. You don't keep practicing until you are tired. You keep practicing until you aren't adding any value to your skill any longer. Once your reps stop getting better, you are done. Once you aren't able to keep focused on the task at hand and get better, you stop. You are practicing, and practice makes permanent, so you stop once things get bad. Also, you think about each and every rep not as something to get done but something to get you better.
Short version? You work out to get exercise, you train to achieve a goal, you practice to learn a skill.
Now I know these terms can be used differently in other contexts. All too often sports practice is working out by a different name - think repeats and gassers and laps and squat-thrusts, here. But as many much greater coaches than I am have said, anyone can get you tired, but a good coach can get you better. If you don't walk out of practice either better or primed to be better next time, you are pushing too hard or too much or working harder not smarter.
And it's important to realize that strength is a skill. You can practice being stronger. It's not about annihilating your muscles until they respond and get stronger, but giving them practice lifting heavier weights. They'll respond and so will you.
If you end the gym thinking, "I need to practice my lifts, and practice being healthier and fitter" I think you will have better results. You will also categorically have different results - each time is a way to improve, not work.
This is a mindset I have to cultivate in myself - it doesn't come naturally. I'm very good at pushing hard. But I've achieved my best gains when I think of my sessions in the gym as practice. I'm practicing skills. I'm practicing being strong. I'm practicing being mobile. I'm practicing being a healthy, functional human being.
That practice beats working out. I think you might find the same.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
My 5/3/1 Experience
Over on gym-talk, there is an excellent look at Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 program.
I've reviewed it, I've done it (or pieces or it, or variations of it, as needed). I've posted many times on it. I've run clients through variations of it many times.
Back in 2010 I posted some reflections on it:
5/3/1 observations
Those points still stand. But here are a few more, or reinforcements of those.
Autoregulation is hard, AMRAP is easy. Autoregulation is pretty much changing your workout volume and intensity based on your physical condition the day you lift. It can be hard for people to do this - it's not easy to just know that today you have 80% in you but not 85%, or have 50 less pounds on your big lift, or need to dial back the cardio.
But it's easy to do AMRAP. Especially early in the cycles, it is quite easy to get your goal reps. How many extras you have? That's basically unknown. And as long as you hit your goal reps (the 5 in 5+, 3 in 3, 1 in 1+) you get to keep progressing. All the extra reps are bonus - valuable, gain-inducing, worth getting - but bonus.
As a coach, it's easy, too - you know the trainee will get the weight, and it's just a question of how many times. You or your client can cut it short as soon as they do a rep that isn't as good or better than the previous one. It's not pass/fail, it's a curve - how much can you win by rather than can you win?
It's Simple. The setup is quite simple. It's easy to grasp, it's easy to implement, and it puts the focus squarely on lifts you will gain strength on. You don't need to manipulate things.
It works. Plain and simple, a gradual approach with built-in progression, built-in recovery weeks, and built-in tweaks for when it slows down - all of which work for building strength.
There are some things you need to watch out for:
Rest-Pause. Remember that AMRAP is meant to leave a few reps in the tank. And it's one set. It's not "keep coming back to the bar and do reps until you can't get one more." I've seen people do 10 reps on their 5+ day followed by 10 singles done 30 seconds to a minute apart. It would have been better to stop at 10 in the first place.
Overreach. It's tempting to set your Training Max at your actual max. You can bench 225 for 1? Okay, Training Max is 225!
That just won't work. You aren't giving yourself enough time lifting weights that will make you stronger and going too hard after the ones that test your limits.
Impatience. This is also the "I need to reset my max" approach. Go out, do 10+ on your 1+ day and say, I need to raise my training max. This is often coupled with using a 1 Rep Max calculator to determine what 10 reps at X weight "is" for your 1-rep max. Then you go ahead and make that your training max.
This is another mistake. Again, like Overreach, you're attempting to jump ahead to the "test my limits" weights instead of the "make me stronger" reps. I never let people I'm training, in person or remotely, re-set their Training Max up. Too low? Enjoy the cruise weeks as you get stronger. Maybe you can up the training max by 10 pounds this month instead of 5. 15 if it's something crazy like getting 20+ easy reps on 1+ day. But even then . . . I err on the side of "don't recalculate up." Get perfect reps on those "easy" weights, get lots of them, and reap the benefits when you blow past your old limits. Don't try to jump ahead to the finish line. It won't work.
Major in the Minors. This is worrying more about the assistance lifts than the main lifts. Sometimes folks will focus on the accessories and not the main lifts. If your main lifts are going up, you are improving along the goal line of the program - you are getting stronger, and it's a program for getting stronger. If they're motoring along at the minimums or stalling, and your assistance lifts are going up - you're not really stronger.
It's a program that could function without the accessories (there is even a template called "I'm Not Doing Jack" which does just that), but the accessories can't function without the main lifts.
As long as you stick to the basic tenants of the program and watch out for those pitfalls.
I've reviewed it, I've done it (or pieces or it, or variations of it, as needed). I've posted many times on it. I've run clients through variations of it many times.
Back in 2010 I posted some reflections on it:
5/3/1 observations
Those points still stand. But here are a few more, or reinforcements of those.
Autoregulation is hard, AMRAP is easy. Autoregulation is pretty much changing your workout volume and intensity based on your physical condition the day you lift. It can be hard for people to do this - it's not easy to just know that today you have 80% in you but not 85%, or have 50 less pounds on your big lift, or need to dial back the cardio.
But it's easy to do AMRAP. Especially early in the cycles, it is quite easy to get your goal reps. How many extras you have? That's basically unknown. And as long as you hit your goal reps (the 5 in 5+, 3 in 3, 1 in 1+) you get to keep progressing. All the extra reps are bonus - valuable, gain-inducing, worth getting - but bonus.
As a coach, it's easy, too - you know the trainee will get the weight, and it's just a question of how many times. You or your client can cut it short as soon as they do a rep that isn't as good or better than the previous one. It's not pass/fail, it's a curve - how much can you win by rather than can you win?
It's Simple. The setup is quite simple. It's easy to grasp, it's easy to implement, and it puts the focus squarely on lifts you will gain strength on. You don't need to manipulate things.
It works. Plain and simple, a gradual approach with built-in progression, built-in recovery weeks, and built-in tweaks for when it slows down - all of which work for building strength.
There are some things you need to watch out for:
Rest-Pause. Remember that AMRAP is meant to leave a few reps in the tank. And it's one set. It's not "keep coming back to the bar and do reps until you can't get one more." I've seen people do 10 reps on their 5+ day followed by 10 singles done 30 seconds to a minute apart. It would have been better to stop at 10 in the first place.
Overreach. It's tempting to set your Training Max at your actual max. You can bench 225 for 1? Okay, Training Max is 225!
That just won't work. You aren't giving yourself enough time lifting weights that will make you stronger and going too hard after the ones that test your limits.
Impatience. This is also the "I need to reset my max" approach. Go out, do 10+ on your 1+ day and say, I need to raise my training max. This is often coupled with using a 1 Rep Max calculator to determine what 10 reps at X weight "is" for your 1-rep max. Then you go ahead and make that your training max.
This is another mistake. Again, like Overreach, you're attempting to jump ahead to the "test my limits" weights instead of the "make me stronger" reps. I never let people I'm training, in person or remotely, re-set their Training Max up. Too low? Enjoy the cruise weeks as you get stronger. Maybe you can up the training max by 10 pounds this month instead of 5. 15 if it's something crazy like getting 20+ easy reps on 1+ day. But even then . . . I err on the side of "don't recalculate up." Get perfect reps on those "easy" weights, get lots of them, and reap the benefits when you blow past your old limits. Don't try to jump ahead to the finish line. It won't work.
Major in the Minors. This is worrying more about the assistance lifts than the main lifts. Sometimes folks will focus on the accessories and not the main lifts. If your main lifts are going up, you are improving along the goal line of the program - you are getting stronger, and it's a program for getting stronger. If they're motoring along at the minimums or stalling, and your assistance lifts are going up - you're not really stronger.
It's a program that could function without the accessories (there is even a template called "I'm Not Doing Jack" which does just that), but the accessories can't function without the main lifts.
As long as you stick to the basic tenants of the program and watch out for those pitfalls.
Monday, September 21, 2015
Joe DeFranco: 10 Ways to Spot a Bad Personal Trainer
I found this really amusing, but also a pretty good guide to knowing if your trainer knows his or her stuff or not.
Industrial Strength Show Podcast Episode #29: 10 Ways to Spot a Bad Personal Trainer
The only one of those I sort-of do is tell people how long my day is. But not to complain - just conversational. My one late-night client knows I also work early, early that morning. So does he. We're both hopping out of bed for work at the same time. I'm not complaining - working long hours at something I love to to is a privilege not a burden.
The rest? I'm good. Progressive programming, regressions and progressions, writing things down (I do carry a clipboard, no khakis, though), I count reps but I watch form constantly, I don't check my phone (except for emergencies), and so on.
I do love the line about how your client's session with you is their first of the day. That's something to remember, even if I do put in my best already. It's a good way to view it - whether they love to train or hate to train or wherever in between, it's their first session of the day with you. It's got to good, you have to be sharp, you have to be on target. You might put in 10-12 sessions a day but they each put in one.
I've seen some of the bad.
I actually had a very good trainer who didn't write down what I did - but he knew my 1-rep max for everything. Plus, he knew I went home and wrote everything down and posted it online. He used my notes as his notes. I was okay with that. But someone needs to be writing it down - at least one of you.
I've seen trainers on their phones during sessions. I've seen rep-counters. I've seen "push through the pain" as if "pain" was a sign of mental weakness and not the body signaling a problem.
I enjoyed the podcast a lot. If you only have one trainer, how do you know he or she is good? Well, now you have some criteria.
Industrial Strength Show Podcast Episode #29: 10 Ways to Spot a Bad Personal Trainer
The only one of those I sort-of do is tell people how long my day is. But not to complain - just conversational. My one late-night client knows I also work early, early that morning. So does he. We're both hopping out of bed for work at the same time. I'm not complaining - working long hours at something I love to to is a privilege not a burden.
The rest? I'm good. Progressive programming, regressions and progressions, writing things down (I do carry a clipboard, no khakis, though), I count reps but I watch form constantly, I don't check my phone (except for emergencies), and so on.
I do love the line about how your client's session with you is their first of the day. That's something to remember, even if I do put in my best already. It's a good way to view it - whether they love to train or hate to train or wherever in between, it's their first session of the day with you. It's got to good, you have to be sharp, you have to be on target. You might put in 10-12 sessions a day but they each put in one.
I've seen some of the bad.
I actually had a very good trainer who didn't write down what I did - but he knew my 1-rep max for everything. Plus, he knew I went home and wrote everything down and posted it online. He used my notes as his notes. I was okay with that. But someone needs to be writing it down - at least one of you.
I've seen trainers on their phones during sessions. I've seen rep-counters. I've seen "push through the pain" as if "pain" was a sign of mental weakness and not the body signaling a problem.
I enjoyed the podcast a lot. If you only have one trainer, how do you know he or she is good? Well, now you have some criteria.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Hard Exercise is Fundamentally Different than Moderate Exercise
If you've done both hard exercising - using truly challenging weights, pushing hard when doing cardio exercises, sprinting, dragging or pushing heavy sleds - you know this already.
But a recent study showed that on a molecular level, hard exercise creates different reactions within the body. The study is discussed here, on Gretchen Reynold's excellent blog on the New York Times website:
For Fitness, Push Yourself
Basically, if you push your body hard enough, it will create different, deeper, and more lasting changes to your body than if you don't.
This also reinforces the high-low approach that I like to have people use - push very hard on some days, interspersed with days of light, low-intensity exercise. No middle ground - either hard enough to trigger this kind of molecular reaction, or just some energy-burning exercise that gets your heart rate up a bit but not too much. Sprint, then walk, then sprint again the day after, instead of run-run-run. The science showing that there is a fundamental split between hard enough to trigger molecular changes and not hard enough would help explain why that approach is so effective.
But a recent study showed that on a molecular level, hard exercise creates different reactions within the body. The study is discussed here, on Gretchen Reynold's excellent blog on the New York Times website:
For Fitness, Push Yourself
Basically, if you push your body hard enough, it will create different, deeper, and more lasting changes to your body than if you don't.
This also reinforces the high-low approach that I like to have people use - push very hard on some days, interspersed with days of light, low-intensity exercise. No middle ground - either hard enough to trigger this kind of molecular reaction, or just some energy-burning exercise that gets your heart rate up a bit but not too much. Sprint, then walk, then sprint again the day after, instead of run-run-run. The science showing that there is a fundamental split between hard enough to trigger molecular changes and not hard enough would help explain why that approach is so effective.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Basics: Don't Load Incorrect Movement
This is part of a series of posts I'm doing on what I consider my core understanding of how the body works and how to strengthen it.
You Can't Fix A Problem By Loading It
Occasionally people take the approach that heavy weights iron out problems. The idea is, if you have weaknesses, loading will demonstrate those weaknesses and fix them. Weak arms holding back your pullups? Pullups will show that and fix that. Weak core holding back your plank? Planks will show it and fix it.
This can be done consciously, or unconsciously - your running is weak, so you run more. Your bench press fails at 225, so you do 225 until you succeed. Your squat hurts your knees, so you figure you must squat more until you've got it down. It's the "no pain, no gain, so pain must mean eventual gain" approach.
I disagree.
My feeling is that loading reveals problems. It shows you where the weak point is. But then, it gives you a chance to deal with that weakness in another way. Pain, weakness, and failure are your body showing you that something is wrong that must be addressed. But you can't address it with more of an incorrect movement pattern.
Loading has a value in strengthening good movement, and in revealing where you are compensating to create the illusion of correct movement.
Corollary: Fix, then Strengthen - with any movement pattern, from a squat to standing up straight, you want to practice correct movement. If your movement pattern is incorrect and you load it and train it, you will train in that movement. You will cement in that incorrect movement pattern, with compensatory movements included to allow you to perform something close to that movement.
The goal is correct, healthy, and strong movement. First, you must get the body moving correctly. Then you load that movement. If the movement begins to break down, you must analyze why (weakness overall, weakness in a specific area, injury, etc.) and then start to address that weakness. You can't just plug away at the limited movement with heavier and heavier loads (or longer and longer loads) and wait for it to correct. Only repeated correct movement will be successful in getting you stronger and healthier for the long run.
In other words, you can't get better and stronger at something before you can do it right. Once you can do it right, you load it to the point where you can still do it correctly, and then get stronger from there.
You Can't Fix A Problem By Loading It
Occasionally people take the approach that heavy weights iron out problems. The idea is, if you have weaknesses, loading will demonstrate those weaknesses and fix them. Weak arms holding back your pullups? Pullups will show that and fix that. Weak core holding back your plank? Planks will show it and fix it.
This can be done consciously, or unconsciously - your running is weak, so you run more. Your bench press fails at 225, so you do 225 until you succeed. Your squat hurts your knees, so you figure you must squat more until you've got it down. It's the "no pain, no gain, so pain must mean eventual gain" approach.
I disagree.
My feeling is that loading reveals problems. It shows you where the weak point is. But then, it gives you a chance to deal with that weakness in another way. Pain, weakness, and failure are your body showing you that something is wrong that must be addressed. But you can't address it with more of an incorrect movement pattern.
Loading has a value in strengthening good movement, and in revealing where you are compensating to create the illusion of correct movement.
Corollary: Fix, then Strengthen - with any movement pattern, from a squat to standing up straight, you want to practice correct movement. If your movement pattern is incorrect and you load it and train it, you will train in that movement. You will cement in that incorrect movement pattern, with compensatory movements included to allow you to perform something close to that movement.
The goal is correct, healthy, and strong movement. First, you must get the body moving correctly. Then you load that movement. If the movement begins to break down, you must analyze why (weakness overall, weakness in a specific area, injury, etc.) and then start to address that weakness. You can't just plug away at the limited movement with heavier and heavier loads (or longer and longer loads) and wait for it to correct. Only repeated correct movement will be successful in getting you stronger and healthier for the long run.
In other words, you can't get better and stronger at something before you can do it right. Once you can do it right, you load it to the point where you can still do it correctly, and then get stronger from there.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Exercise vs. Training, Immediate vs. the Goal
It's worth breaking out workouts into ones that lead to long term goals, and ones that have an immediate effect you like.
In this article by Mark Rippetoe on T-Nation, discussing Crossfit, is a great little distinction. According to Rippetoe:
"Exercise is fun today. Well, it may not be fun, but you've convinced yourself to do it today because you perceive that the effect you produce today is of benefit to you today. You "smashed" or "crushed" or "smoked" that workout... today. Same as the kids in front of the dumbbell rack at the gym catching an arm pump, the workout was about how it made you feel, good or bad, today."
In contrast, Training is about the process you undertake to generate a specific result later, maybe much later, the workouts of which are merely the constituents of the process. Training may even involve a light day that you perceive to be a waste of time if you only consider today."
This is an extremely common problem in exercise (and in diets for any kind of goal.) People want both the long-term effects of training (the six-pack abs, the big biceps, the crushingly huge deadlift, the ability to jump and run and swim with ease) but focus on how the day's workout felt.
Focusing on the immediate results isn't very productive, but it's easy and it's hard to focus on long-term goals when you don't have the knowledge and expertise to know it is working and making you better.
I've done workouts that left me smashed but didn't make me better. I've done workouts that were puzzlingly easy, but which demonstrably made me better in the long run (HICT springs to mind, driving down my resting heart rate and driving up my recovery rate.)
But in general, you want a long-term plan that will get you where are going. You don't want to focus on how the workouts make you feel but how they add up.
Naturally you can go too far the other way - focusing so much on the goal that you miss being in the here-and-now and reacting to what is needed here and now. But in general, for training, your workouts should build towards some long-term goal. That long-term goal can be progressive gains, improved health, massive strength, or just maintaining what you have without incurring injuries. The idea of "Training" as "What can I do today to get me the end result I want?" vs. "Exercise" as "What can I do to entertain myself now?" is a nice distinction. It's possible to quibble over the terms, but Long Term Results vs. Short Term Results is a legitimate distinction to make. I think the distinction Mark Rippetoe made is useful and worth keeping in mind when you think about your exercise routine and its long-term effects.
In this article by Mark Rippetoe on T-Nation, discussing Crossfit, is a great little distinction. According to Rippetoe:
"Exercise is fun today. Well, it may not be fun, but you've convinced yourself to do it today because you perceive that the effect you produce today is of benefit to you today. You "smashed" or "crushed" or "smoked" that workout... today. Same as the kids in front of the dumbbell rack at the gym catching an arm pump, the workout was about how it made you feel, good or bad, today."
In contrast, Training is about the process you undertake to generate a specific result later, maybe much later, the workouts of which are merely the constituents of the process. Training may even involve a light day that you perceive to be a waste of time if you only consider today."
This is an extremely common problem in exercise (and in diets for any kind of goal.) People want both the long-term effects of training (the six-pack abs, the big biceps, the crushingly huge deadlift, the ability to jump and run and swim with ease) but focus on how the day's workout felt.
Focusing on the immediate results isn't very productive, but it's easy and it's hard to focus on long-term goals when you don't have the knowledge and expertise to know it is working and making you better.
I've done workouts that left me smashed but didn't make me better. I've done workouts that were puzzlingly easy, but which demonstrably made me better in the long run (HICT springs to mind, driving down my resting heart rate and driving up my recovery rate.)
But in general, you want a long-term plan that will get you where are going. You don't want to focus on how the workouts make you feel but how they add up.
Naturally you can go too far the other way - focusing so much on the goal that you miss being in the here-and-now and reacting to what is needed here and now. But in general, for training, your workouts should build towards some long-term goal. That long-term goal can be progressive gains, improved health, massive strength, or just maintaining what you have without incurring injuries. The idea of "Training" as "What can I do today to get me the end result I want?" vs. "Exercise" as "What can I do to entertain myself now?" is a nice distinction. It's possible to quibble over the terms, but Long Term Results vs. Short Term Results is a legitimate distinction to make. I think the distinction Mark Rippetoe made is useful and worth keeping in mind when you think about your exercise routine and its long-term effects.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Minimum Effective Dose vs. Maximum Effective Dose
Broadly speaking, people make two errors when training - doing too little to be effective (ranging from nothing to not enough), or do too much to really benefit (ranging from too much to recover from to too much to do without getting injured).
But the goal of exercise is to hit that sweet spot in the middle, where you are doing enough to get to where you want to go, but not so much you can't recover from the workouts.
To borrow a term from medicine, the goal of exercise is the minimum effective dose. That is, just enough exercise to get the results you want.
If 3 sets of a weight is enough to get you to your goal, you want to do 3 sets. Two isn't enough, and if you don't need to do 4 to get there, why do four? It's like accelerating towards a red light that'll still be red when you get there - it wastes gas and doesn't get you to your destination any faster.
How to tell can be hard, and means you need to track your workouts and track your progress. But although it can be hard to identify, it doesn't change that fact - the goal is to do just enough to get the most progress towards your goal and not any more or less than that.
This isn't easy.
It's very easy to get caught up in trying for the maximum effective dose. That's the most exercise you can do while still getting some benefit from it. It's doing so much exercise that you're reached the end point of utility but are still getting something from it.
Past that, and you get to ineffective exercise.
The bodybuilding great Lee Haney famously said, "Stimulate, don't annihilate." It's very easy to push past stimulation and head towards annihilation. If 3 sets are good, 6 sets much be great, and 9 sets much be amazing! The more your body screams at you to stop, the more benefit you're getting from the workout. After all, pain is weakness leaving the body.
Except it isn't. Like Lee Haney said, the goal is to stimulate growth. Pain isn't weakness leaving the body - discomfort and exertion is weakness leaving the body. Pain is a warning sign of injury and unacceptable levels of stress entering the body. It won't respond by getting stronger, but by breaking down - because you're not leaving it the resources (time off to regain and super-compensate) to do so.
If this wasn't the case, if pain was really the sign of a good workout and pushing until you literally can't continue was the basis of progress, then every MMA fighter out there would be an endurance god. Every teen to twenty-something male would have 25" biceps. Every jogger would knock off marathons like warmups.
Notably Dave Tate once wrote about fixing someone's bench press, and saying the first thing he does is get people to stop doing extra triceps exercises for a few weeks. That's the first fix - see if they're doing too much. Give them some extra recovery and less stress on the muscles involved and see what happens.
Psychologically this can be hard - no one (including myself) wants to go home leaving an opportunity to progress towards the goal behind. You don't want to "bag" a workout or slack off, and it's easy to mistake hard work (or just more work) with more progress.
But it's worth reminding yourself, the goal isn't to do the most and still make progress. The goal isn't even to do the most to make the most progress. The goal is to do the minimum you need to do to make the most progress. And if you can't figure out where "enough" and "too much" are, it's better to err on the "not quite enough" side - it's easier to add a bit later than to get extra sleep, extra recovery, and to heal up injuries faster.
So never push to or past your limits?
Not at all. You always need to be pushing past your limits to grow. You need to be striving, even if only striving to keep what you've got. What you just can't do is push past your ability to recover from and benefit from the workouts all the time. You grow during the time between workouts, and you always need sufficient recovery time to balance out the workouts - you can't beat your body into extra recovery by increasing demand.
This isn't to say that occasionally over-reaching isn't productive. Sometimes it is - in the same way that someone on a fat loss diet may have a higher-calorie or "cheat" day can benefit from a sudden spike in calories followed by a return to normal eating patterns. It's the disruption of the body's homeostasis - its attempts to keep everything the same unless forced to change - that makes that work. But in order for it to be useful it must be coupled with plenty of days where you are eating less than you need to take in to maintain, thus getting you to your goal.
You can't get very far with cheat days every day, or by overreaching every day. It works when you overreach your body's recovery and then give it extra recovery (spike the workout, spike the recovery).
But what about (Boot camp/Soviet-era Olympic camps/SEAL training/whatever)?
Don't mistake a selection process for a training process. A lot of famously effective programs for weeding out the unfit for the task are just that - programs for weeding out the unfit for the task. They're not programs meant to build up the participants but winnow out anyone who isn't ideally suited for a specific task that only needs doing by a very small group of people. Those processes can be nothing but overreaching on a daily basis to see if you break down. It can do nothing but annihilate instead of stimulate. The goal isn't improving but selecting for survivability and willpower (or for Soviet-era Olympic camps, the most perfectly adapted to the needs of that specific sport). And even then, once you make it in to the military or onto the team, they start to program in a lot of recovery to balance out the training - and use every tool in the world at their disposal to get you the minimum effective dose for the optimum benefit from training.
Keep this in mind while you train - are you doing as much as your body can take, or as much as your body needs to get to reach your goals?
Related Post:
Demonstrating vs. Training Strength
But the goal of exercise is to hit that sweet spot in the middle, where you are doing enough to get to where you want to go, but not so much you can't recover from the workouts.
To borrow a term from medicine, the goal of exercise is the minimum effective dose. That is, just enough exercise to get the results you want.
If 3 sets of a weight is enough to get you to your goal, you want to do 3 sets. Two isn't enough, and if you don't need to do 4 to get there, why do four? It's like accelerating towards a red light that'll still be red when you get there - it wastes gas and doesn't get you to your destination any faster.
How to tell can be hard, and means you need to track your workouts and track your progress. But although it can be hard to identify, it doesn't change that fact - the goal is to do just enough to get the most progress towards your goal and not any more or less than that.
This isn't easy.
It's very easy to get caught up in trying for the maximum effective dose. That's the most exercise you can do while still getting some benefit from it. It's doing so much exercise that you're reached the end point of utility but are still getting something from it.
Past that, and you get to ineffective exercise.
The bodybuilding great Lee Haney famously said, "Stimulate, don't annihilate." It's very easy to push past stimulation and head towards annihilation. If 3 sets are good, 6 sets much be great, and 9 sets much be amazing! The more your body screams at you to stop, the more benefit you're getting from the workout. After all, pain is weakness leaving the body.
Except it isn't. Like Lee Haney said, the goal is to stimulate growth. Pain isn't weakness leaving the body - discomfort and exertion is weakness leaving the body. Pain is a warning sign of injury and unacceptable levels of stress entering the body. It won't respond by getting stronger, but by breaking down - because you're not leaving it the resources (time off to regain and super-compensate) to do so.
If this wasn't the case, if pain was really the sign of a good workout and pushing until you literally can't continue was the basis of progress, then every MMA fighter out there would be an endurance god. Every teen to twenty-something male would have 25" biceps. Every jogger would knock off marathons like warmups.
Notably Dave Tate once wrote about fixing someone's bench press, and saying the first thing he does is get people to stop doing extra triceps exercises for a few weeks. That's the first fix - see if they're doing too much. Give them some extra recovery and less stress on the muscles involved and see what happens.
Psychologically this can be hard - no one (including myself) wants to go home leaving an opportunity to progress towards the goal behind. You don't want to "bag" a workout or slack off, and it's easy to mistake hard work (or just more work) with more progress.
But it's worth reminding yourself, the goal isn't to do the most and still make progress. The goal isn't even to do the most to make the most progress. The goal is to do the minimum you need to do to make the most progress. And if you can't figure out where "enough" and "too much" are, it's better to err on the "not quite enough" side - it's easier to add a bit later than to get extra sleep, extra recovery, and to heal up injuries faster.
So never push to or past your limits?
Not at all. You always need to be pushing past your limits to grow. You need to be striving, even if only striving to keep what you've got. What you just can't do is push past your ability to recover from and benefit from the workouts all the time. You grow during the time between workouts, and you always need sufficient recovery time to balance out the workouts - you can't beat your body into extra recovery by increasing demand.
This isn't to say that occasionally over-reaching isn't productive. Sometimes it is - in the same way that someone on a fat loss diet may have a higher-calorie or "cheat" day can benefit from a sudden spike in calories followed by a return to normal eating patterns. It's the disruption of the body's homeostasis - its attempts to keep everything the same unless forced to change - that makes that work. But in order for it to be useful it must be coupled with plenty of days where you are eating less than you need to take in to maintain, thus getting you to your goal.
You can't get very far with cheat days every day, or by overreaching every day. It works when you overreach your body's recovery and then give it extra recovery (spike the workout, spike the recovery).
But what about (Boot camp/Soviet-era Olympic camps/SEAL training/whatever)?
Don't mistake a selection process for a training process. A lot of famously effective programs for weeding out the unfit for the task are just that - programs for weeding out the unfit for the task. They're not programs meant to build up the participants but winnow out anyone who isn't ideally suited for a specific task that only needs doing by a very small group of people. Those processes can be nothing but overreaching on a daily basis to see if you break down. It can do nothing but annihilate instead of stimulate. The goal isn't improving but selecting for survivability and willpower (or for Soviet-era Olympic camps, the most perfectly adapted to the needs of that specific sport). And even then, once you make it in to the military or onto the team, they start to program in a lot of recovery to balance out the training - and use every tool in the world at their disposal to get you the minimum effective dose for the optimum benefit from training.
Keep this in mind while you train - are you doing as much as your body can take, or as much as your body needs to get to reach your goals?
Related Post:
Demonstrating vs. Training Strength
Friday, May 24, 2013
Article Review: 5 tips for fitness success
This article appeared in the Miami Herald.
Fitness Success: 5 Great Ways to make fitness and weight loss easier
I've never heard of the author before now, but he's spot on.
The article shows five solid ways to take "willpower" out of the diet and exercise equation.
Each of the five ways boils down to preparation. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. Simply by planning ahead - and having both emergency backup food choices and emergency backup workout choices smooths the path to success. It makes choosing the long-term beneficial exercise or food easier than choosing the bad stuff.
Smoothing the path to success makes it harder to fail. I highly endorse all of these tips.
Fitness Success: 5 Great Ways to make fitness and weight loss easier
I've never heard of the author before now, but he's spot on.
The article shows five solid ways to take "willpower" out of the diet and exercise equation.
Each of the five ways boils down to preparation. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. Simply by planning ahead - and having both emergency backup food choices and emergency backup workout choices smooths the path to success. It makes choosing the long-term beneficial exercise or food easier than choosing the bad stuff.
Smoothing the path to success makes it harder to fail. I highly endorse all of these tips.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Is this the right program for you?
Again, on Changing the Program.
Why do you want to change the program?
This question is critical. If you want to change a program, you need to know why - why you chose the program, and why you want to make the change.
First, ask yourself this question:
Is the program the right program for you?
Ask yourself if the goals and approach of the program match your goals and your ability to approach it. In other words, can I do this and will it get me where I want to go?
Don't select a squat-based program if you cannot squat, or choose an endurance program involving running if you can't run, or choose a 4-days-a-week program if you can't train more than 3 times a week.
Don't select a program just because you like the name, like the trainer who wrote it, or like the exercises in it. Select it because it meets those two criteria - you can do the program, and it will get you to your goal.
Choosing a program that accomplishes A and B when you want result C is like buying limes and trying to make lemonade out of them. It doesn't matter how good the limes look or how inexpensive they are, they won't get you the lemonade you wanted.
Once you have the program you need, you may feel like it needs some tweaks or changes to get you exactly what you want. So ask yourself:
What does changing it accomplish?
What do you intend to accomplish by making this change? Is it changing for change's sake, changing to add in extra exercises you think you need, or to avoid doing something difficult?
If you are adding in extra, take a hard look at what is there already - is the program really lacking that aspect of training? If so, is there a reason for it?
For example, Starting Strength lacks conditioning work. This is on purpose, because its creator has you squatting three times a week and feels that conditioning work will interfere with your gains.
Or perhaps the program just appears to lack that aspect. Many of my programs contain unilateral training, many standing exercises, and exercises while kneeling tall. They may, at first glance, lack direct ab exercises. But your abs are working on all three of those areas, which comprise almost 90% of the workout. So you might look at the program and say, it needs abs, but in fact, it's mostly abs already.
And so on.
If you make a change, it has to be to address a specific need the program doesn't address, and which won't undermine the intent of the program. If it violates either of those, you are better off finding a different program.
The trick is not finding the "best" program, but finding the program that is the best for you and your goals right now. If you like a program, and you'd like to try it, save it for when it is in line with your goals. Exercise is a lifelong activity; you have plenty of time to do that program when it aligns with your goals.
Why do you want to change the program?
This question is critical. If you want to change a program, you need to know why - why you chose the program, and why you want to make the change.
First, ask yourself this question:
Is the program the right program for you?
Ask yourself if the goals and approach of the program match your goals and your ability to approach it. In other words, can I do this and will it get me where I want to go?
Don't select a squat-based program if you cannot squat, or choose an endurance program involving running if you can't run, or choose a 4-days-a-week program if you can't train more than 3 times a week.
Don't select a program just because you like the name, like the trainer who wrote it, or like the exercises in it. Select it because it meets those two criteria - you can do the program, and it will get you to your goal.
Choosing a program that accomplishes A and B when you want result C is like buying limes and trying to make lemonade out of them. It doesn't matter how good the limes look or how inexpensive they are, they won't get you the lemonade you wanted.
Once you have the program you need, you may feel like it needs some tweaks or changes to get you exactly what you want. So ask yourself:
What does changing it accomplish?
What do you intend to accomplish by making this change? Is it changing for change's sake, changing to add in extra exercises you think you need, or to avoid doing something difficult?
If you are adding in extra, take a hard look at what is there already - is the program really lacking that aspect of training? If so, is there a reason for it?
For example, Starting Strength lacks conditioning work. This is on purpose, because its creator has you squatting three times a week and feels that conditioning work will interfere with your gains.
Or perhaps the program just appears to lack that aspect. Many of my programs contain unilateral training, many standing exercises, and exercises while kneeling tall. They may, at first glance, lack direct ab exercises. But your abs are working on all three of those areas, which comprise almost 90% of the workout. So you might look at the program and say, it needs abs, but in fact, it's mostly abs already.
And so on.
If you make a change, it has to be to address a specific need the program doesn't address, and which won't undermine the intent of the program. If it violates either of those, you are better off finding a different program.
The trick is not finding the "best" program, but finding the program that is the best for you and your goals right now. If you like a program, and you'd like to try it, save it for when it is in line with your goals. Exercise is a lifelong activity; you have plenty of time to do that program when it aligns with your goals.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
"Can I change the program?"
The first thing that many people do when confronted by a pre-written program, whether in book form or written for them by a trainer or found on the web, is to ask, "Can I change the program?"
No. But also, yes.
No, you can't.
Why not?
It isn't the same program if you change it. If the program is really the right program for your goals and situation, changing it will reduce its effectiveness. The more precisely the program matches your needs, the more changing it is counterproductive.
You might lack the knowledge of the program maker. This seems harsh, but it is often true. If you seeking to take advantage of someone else's knowledge of programming and training, it is probably because you need some kind of guidance in training. You might even know a lot about training, but need an outside perspective on what approach you need. They may have specific experience in doing a specific type of training - powerlifting, strongman, endurance, marathon running, etc. If you need to seek outside help in this specific area, it makes sense to take the advice in whole instead of in part.
Yes, you can.
Of course you can.
It's your workout. You have to do the lifts, run the miles, and take the rest days. You know yourself, and a generic program just makes assumptions about the trainee. If you can't do a specific exercise and have to make a substitution, of course you can do it.
Nothing is truly graven in stone. Even the person who wrote the program would make changes for trainees who have different needs and different levels of ability. Changes might change the effectiveness of the program but it can and is done.
An Important Caveat: If you have to ask, you probably shouldn't change the program. If you know enough about your training to know what can be changed and what cannot, you know enough that you don't need to ask.
However, if you change it, you own it. It is no longer "Starting Strength" or "Westside" or "NROL," it is your program. It's success or failure is your success or failure, not that of the program. Accept this, and own this.
No. But also, yes.
No, you can't.
Why not?
It isn't the same program if you change it. If the program is really the right program for your goals and situation, changing it will reduce its effectiveness. The more precisely the program matches your needs, the more changing it is counterproductive.
You might lack the knowledge of the program maker. This seems harsh, but it is often true. If you seeking to take advantage of someone else's knowledge of programming and training, it is probably because you need some kind of guidance in training. You might even know a lot about training, but need an outside perspective on what approach you need. They may have specific experience in doing a specific type of training - powerlifting, strongman, endurance, marathon running, etc. If you need to seek outside help in this specific area, it makes sense to take the advice in whole instead of in part.
Yes, you can.
Of course you can.
It's your workout. You have to do the lifts, run the miles, and take the rest days. You know yourself, and a generic program just makes assumptions about the trainee. If you can't do a specific exercise and have to make a substitution, of course you can do it.
Nothing is truly graven in stone. Even the person who wrote the program would make changes for trainees who have different needs and different levels of ability. Changes might change the effectiveness of the program but it can and is done.
An Important Caveat: If you have to ask, you probably shouldn't change the program. If you know enough about your training to know what can be changed and what cannot, you know enough that you don't need to ask.
However, if you change it, you own it. It is no longer "Starting Strength" or "Westside" or "NROL," it is your program. It's success or failure is your success or failure, not that of the program. Accept this, and own this.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
On Tricking the Body
Joel Jamieson of 8 Weeks Out was recently interviewed on the Dangerously Hardcore podcast.
The whole interview is interesting, especially since it's looking at conditioning and heart rate-based training with an eye to bodybuilding. That's an unusual angle, since bodybuilding and figure modeling isn't something you might immediately associated with endurance and conditioning.
During part 2 of the interview, around 22:45 in, Joel rather eloquently points out that the goal of the human body is survival - mostly immediate survival. Building muscle, increasing endurance, decreasing body fat, etc. - the body isn't as concerned with that as you. He then says you need to trick the body into doing these things.
I disagree with the wording in that one part. I don't think "trick" is the right word.
In my opinion, you can't really "trick" the body. Whatever stimulus you think you're giving it, the body understands on a level that you do not what the sum total of stimulus it's getting, the sum total of support your giving it in terms of recovery, food, sleep, etc. You can't trick it, because it "knows" the game and the rules and what's happening in play beyond a level that you consciously do.
Rather, you have to convince it to change. Your body will respond to your demands - I want bigger muscles, I want to lose body fat, I want to run faster for longer. However, it won't do so in the absence of measured, consistent, and appropriate stimulus. Faced with continued stress, it will adapt to it. Your goal is to give it the stress it would need to adapt in that manner.
To get bigger muscles, you need to give your body enough exercise of the right type to provoke a need for larger muscles. You need to feed it enough, and rest it enough, to let that adaptation happen.
However you can't overpower your need for survival. If you simply lift heavy every single day, never resting, your body will eventually break down, not give in and get bigger. But if you lift heavy when you're ready to do so, eat appropriately, and rest sufficiently, and repeat this often, your body will respond. It has to - it will adapt.
I think the term "trick" makes it sound like your can fool your body into doing something. You can't, you just have to give it the need to adapt (training stimulus) and the tools to do so (food, sleep, time off).
But remember what Joel Jamieson says there about survival - your body's goals aren't so easily disregarded, and if you push too hard without recovering, it's going to act in self-preservation. That self-preservation isn't going to get you where you want to go.
Oh, if you're wondering (this comes up on the podcast) - Yuri Gagarin was the first human being in space.
The whole interview is interesting, especially since it's looking at conditioning and heart rate-based training with an eye to bodybuilding. That's an unusual angle, since bodybuilding and figure modeling isn't something you might immediately associated with endurance and conditioning.
During part 2 of the interview, around 22:45 in, Joel rather eloquently points out that the goal of the human body is survival - mostly immediate survival. Building muscle, increasing endurance, decreasing body fat, etc. - the body isn't as concerned with that as you. He then says you need to trick the body into doing these things.
I disagree with the wording in that one part. I don't think "trick" is the right word.
In my opinion, you can't really "trick" the body. Whatever stimulus you think you're giving it, the body understands on a level that you do not what the sum total of stimulus it's getting, the sum total of support your giving it in terms of recovery, food, sleep, etc. You can't trick it, because it "knows" the game and the rules and what's happening in play beyond a level that you consciously do.
Rather, you have to convince it to change. Your body will respond to your demands - I want bigger muscles, I want to lose body fat, I want to run faster for longer. However, it won't do so in the absence of measured, consistent, and appropriate stimulus. Faced with continued stress, it will adapt to it. Your goal is to give it the stress it would need to adapt in that manner.
To get bigger muscles, you need to give your body enough exercise of the right type to provoke a need for larger muscles. You need to feed it enough, and rest it enough, to let that adaptation happen.
However you can't overpower your need for survival. If you simply lift heavy every single day, never resting, your body will eventually break down, not give in and get bigger. But if you lift heavy when you're ready to do so, eat appropriately, and rest sufficiently, and repeat this often, your body will respond. It has to - it will adapt.
I think the term "trick" makes it sound like your can fool your body into doing something. You can't, you just have to give it the need to adapt (training stimulus) and the tools to do so (food, sleep, time off).
But remember what Joel Jamieson says there about survival - your body's goals aren't so easily disregarded, and if you push too hard without recovering, it's going to act in self-preservation. That self-preservation isn't going to get you where you want to go.
Oh, if you're wondering (this comes up on the podcast) - Yuri Gagarin was the first human being in space.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Focus on Results, not Time
The gym I work at sells personal training in 50-minute sessions. Most workouts I write take between 45 and 60 minutes to complete, depending on rest and the rep count (3 sets of 6 or 8 takes less time than 3 sets of 10 or 12, given similar rest).
I like to tell people "I sell results, not time." This is true - if you lose weight/gain muscle/get stronger/look better as a result of the workouts, I'm doing my job. If you merely spend 50 minutes with me two or three times a week but don't get them, it doesn't matter that I gave you exactly the time you paid for.
As a client and a trainee, don't focus on your length of workout. The important thing is, was this workout the training you needed today for optimally reaching your goals? If that means a short, hard workout, great, it's short. If it means going a bit longer, great.
As a trainee, it's extremely easy to pad out a workout with extras you don't need because you expect the workout to go 60 minutes. Or to cut it short and remove exercises you need to do because you only budgeted an hour. Remember the focus is on results, not on the length of time it takes to get them.
I like to tell people "I sell results, not time." This is true - if you lose weight/gain muscle/get stronger/look better as a result of the workouts, I'm doing my job. If you merely spend 50 minutes with me two or three times a week but don't get them, it doesn't matter that I gave you exactly the time you paid for.
As a client and a trainee, don't focus on your length of workout. The important thing is, was this workout the training you needed today for optimally reaching your goals? If that means a short, hard workout, great, it's short. If it means going a bit longer, great.
As a trainee, it's extremely easy to pad out a workout with extras you don't need because you expect the workout to go 60 minutes. Or to cut it short and remove exercises you need to do because you only budgeted an hour. Remember the focus is on results, not on the length of time it takes to get them.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Your Diet is One Piece
Dan John has often said "The body is one piece". Less eloquently, your body is a single unit and you have to treat it as such when you train.
Your diet is one piece, too.
You can't just change one part of your diet without affecting the others.
"I'll just eat more (fill in: protein/fiber/carbs/fat)" Sure, and this will raise your total calories, so you're not just changing one part of your diet. The ratios of macronutrients will change, too, which means whatever you eat more of will be a larger proportion of your diet.
. . . and less (fill in usually one of carbs or fat." This will skew your ratios of protein:fat:carbs even more, as one goes up and another goes down. Unless you're counting calories and counting grams of protein:fat:carbs, you're not necessarily going to eat the same amount of calories.
"I'll just do this crash diet, lose some weight, and then go back to eating the way I do now and maintain the new weight." That has a terrible success record - because your "diet" and your "eating the way I do now" are both parts of the same cumulative process of body transformation. They aren't really diet A and diet B, they're all Your Diet, with just varying periods of intake levels. You haven't really changed anything, you've just changed one small part.
If the body is one piece, so is the total food supply you provide it.
Your diet is one piece, too.
You can't just change one part of your diet without affecting the others.
"I'll just eat more (fill in: protein/fiber/carbs/fat)" Sure, and this will raise your total calories, so you're not just changing one part of your diet. The ratios of macronutrients will change, too, which means whatever you eat more of will be a larger proportion of your diet.
. . . and less (fill in usually one of carbs or fat." This will skew your ratios of protein:fat:carbs even more, as one goes up and another goes down. Unless you're counting calories and counting grams of protein:fat:carbs, you're not necessarily going to eat the same amount of calories.
"I'll just do this crash diet, lose some weight, and then go back to eating the way I do now and maintain the new weight." That has a terrible success record - because your "diet" and your "eating the way I do now" are both parts of the same cumulative process of body transformation. They aren't really diet A and diet B, they're all Your Diet, with just varying periods of intake levels. You haven't really changed anything, you've just changed one small part.
If the body is one piece, so is the total food supply you provide it.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Who manages your training?
It's a simple question with deep repercussions - who manages your training overall?
Are you in overall command, sub-contracting out to a nutritionist for diet, a personal trainer for weight training, your cardio class instructor for cardio, your running coach for running?
Is your trainer in overall command, determining your diet, workouts, sports training, etc? This is rare outside of sports, but it's how, for example, the Precision Nutrition fat loss program works - you get a coach who tells you what to eat, when and how to train, and what to read or to do to reinforce your process.
This is an idea discussed in Muscle Medicine - the idea that you either find someone to manage your injury, or you manage it and contract out parts of it to different specialists.
This is something I think all trainers and trainees need to consider.
Considering just diet, skill training, and strength training:
As a trainer, your overall ability to impact your client's goals are limited by how much you control about your client's overall approach. If you control only their strength training, you have a limited ability to affect their results. If you control strength training and skill training (for sports or games), you have a larger ability to affect their results. If you control those two plus diet, you have the most ability.
As a trainee, the more coordinated your approaches are, the better results you'll get. Think of an old-era Soviet athlete in training - dieticians coordinate with the cooks for their food; coaches prescribe and supervise their skill training; their strength coach coordinates with all of the above to ensure their strength training matches their needs. It's all coordinated - nothing is lost in the gaps. If you're training yourself, you need to ensure nothing falls between those gaps.
A corollary to this is, as a trainee you are responsible for what you control. You are also responsible for selecting your expert help, and ensuring they communicate and coordinate with each other. If you take diet out of the hands of your trainer and you want to lose weight, you're going to limit your results. But equally, if you train hard with your personal trainer and then train hard with your yoga instructor and then train hard on your own, you're likely to find yourself grinding down.
It's one to think about - what have you taken control of? Can you better coordinate your various aspects of training, eating, and recovering? Is everyone on the same page, or more importantly, are you ensuring they are on the right page?
Are you in overall command, sub-contracting out to a nutritionist for diet, a personal trainer for weight training, your cardio class instructor for cardio, your running coach for running?
Is your trainer in overall command, determining your diet, workouts, sports training, etc? This is rare outside of sports, but it's how, for example, the Precision Nutrition fat loss program works - you get a coach who tells you what to eat, when and how to train, and what to read or to do to reinforce your process.
This is an idea discussed in Muscle Medicine - the idea that you either find someone to manage your injury, or you manage it and contract out parts of it to different specialists.
This is something I think all trainers and trainees need to consider.
Considering just diet, skill training, and strength training:
As a trainer, your overall ability to impact your client's goals are limited by how much you control about your client's overall approach. If you control only their strength training, you have a limited ability to affect their results. If you control strength training and skill training (for sports or games), you have a larger ability to affect their results. If you control those two plus diet, you have the most ability.
As a trainee, the more coordinated your approaches are, the better results you'll get. Think of an old-era Soviet athlete in training - dieticians coordinate with the cooks for their food; coaches prescribe and supervise their skill training; their strength coach coordinates with all of the above to ensure their strength training matches their needs. It's all coordinated - nothing is lost in the gaps. If you're training yourself, you need to ensure nothing falls between those gaps.
A corollary to this is, as a trainee you are responsible for what you control. You are also responsible for selecting your expert help, and ensuring they communicate and coordinate with each other. If you take diet out of the hands of your trainer and you want to lose weight, you're going to limit your results. But equally, if you train hard with your personal trainer and then train hard with your yoga instructor and then train hard on your own, you're likely to find yourself grinding down.
It's one to think about - what have you taken control of? Can you better coordinate your various aspects of training, eating, and recovering? Is everyone on the same page, or more importantly, are you ensuring they are on the right page?
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