Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Consistency is Key

The Key to consistent progress is being consistent 

 

This seems to be too obvious to most, but is commonly a problem when many do not see the result they are after, or feel they should be attaining.

When someone comes to me regarding their progress, there are a few common questions I ALWAYS ask-

 

Did you hit your macro/calorie goal (within +/- 5g) 95% of the time over the last month?

Where is your food log?

What did you HONESTLY eat yesterday?

How many training sessions have you missed?

Where is your training journal?

 

Too often people do not have the answers to these questions. This is exactly why you are not where you want to be.

Everyone has different goals and motivation levels. Not everyone is going to count their macros and follow a strict regimen, and that is ok. Regardless, you have you have some kind of measureable benchmarks in your eating routine AND training. Let’s think about this, if your food is all over the place, and every day you have different amounts of fats, carbs, and protein, how in the world are you supposed to know what needs to change to so you see change? The same goes for your training. Working hard is great, but just because you are working hard does not mean you are actually accomplishing more, or even being conducive you what you are trying to attain.

 

For those that may be busy and/or for whatever reason will not be logging daily into a log such as my fitnesspal, you can still have success. Something others as well as myself have done in the past is to first have a common ~5 meals you will be eating on a daily basis. (Note, some initial math is involved) Based on the size/macros your meals should be, you can ballpark them to all be close in P/C/F and cal, so you know that by the end of the day after having your 5 meals, you are going to be very close to where you need to be. This will take some stress away and take less time so you can put the extra time and energy in to other things.

 

As far as training goes, unless you have a REALLY good memory, you should be recording your sessions somehow. Without getting into any specific programming, how can you judge what you need to do to get your bench up when you can go back and reflect on all of your max effort days, see how your accessory training has progressed and really look at your overall volume?  While I still have my first 2 actually paper journals going back to 2004 floating around, most find it more convenient to keep an electronic journal. There are apps, or you can even just save the notes. There is no reason not to be keeping some kind of notes. Regardless if you are bodybuilding, powerlifting, training for a specific sport, of just trying to get in really good shape, being able to analyze your training, see trends, and make adjustments is not just a good idea, it is ESSENTIAL for consistent progress to intelligently build upon your session week to week, and to know when you need to take some time off..

 

Lastly, being able to go back and look at these old records is a great way to remember how far you have come. We see ourselves in the mirror every day, and often we may not realize how dramatic some of the changes we have made are. There nothing like going back in a journal and seeing the notes you wrote about how happy you were when you first squatted 225!

 

 

 Paul Emmick                                                                                                                                                       

 

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