Fun vs Results - February 12th 2019

Your “Y” determines how often you should be sprinkling fun new exercises into your program.

Did anyone catch the wrong form of “here” used in the 4^th sentence of the 1^st paragraph? Pay attention kids.

I know people get bored easily and I also know that many people view their time at the gym as their “Me” time of the day. I cannot tell you how much I love my full grown humans who would rather use their free time lifting heavy stuff and listening to 90s gangster rap in my gym than stuffing their faces with happy hour bar food. It tickles me. If you don’t have any serious goals or achievements in mind, there is nothing wrong with changing your workout up as frequently as you want. If adding new exercises and techniques regularly will keep you engaged and in the gym, I am all for it.

If, however, you wish to conquer a goal, you might have to sacrifice entertainment for small jumps of progress on the basics.

If you want to deadlift 500lbs, you better be ready for a steady diet of deadlifts and a handful of assistance exercises. The goal of this program is to make progress on a few key exercises for 12 months. You wont see a powerlifter performing some leg blast workout they saw on an app in the middle of their year-long training plan. For these men and women, it isn’t about entertainment, its about accomplishing a goal.

If your goal is to shed bodyfat, you need to get on a nutritional program that creates a caloric deficit and allows you some freedom in food choices. Then, you need to stick with that program. No exceptions. Don’t try something for a week, jump to something else for a week and then something else the week after that. Stick with it for 6 months to a year and focus on making small jumps in progress each week.

I like to balance entertainment and progress by adding a new exercise variation into the mix every month with my clients.

All of my programs focus on the basics, exercises like hip thrusts, squats, deadlifts, single leg squat and deadlifts, rows, pullups, bodyweight rows, pushups, shoulder presses and dumbbell presses, sprints, throws and sled work. Some months we will focus on heavier weights and lower reps, some months we focus on lighter weights and higher reps. Our goal is to consistently add weight or reps on the basic movements.

I will also swap in an exercise or two per month that get my people moving a little differently. It might be a sled push variation where we start and stop every 5 yards or a pushup variation where we place the feet on furniture sliders and perform 3 pushups before dragging your body forward 5 yards and performing 3 more pushups. Small, monthly tweaks like this allow variation without distorting the big picture.

Base your decisions in the gym around your “Y”.  Variation can be fun, but the basics will always lead you to greater results!