Tips to Make the Gym Trip Easier

I have noticed obvious frustration on the faces of gym-goers due to the larger crowd the last couple days and I wanted to share some dieas to make your trip to the gym easier:

1. Gym too crowded? Ask the desk worker when the least busy time is during the day. Chances are you can get in the gym when it is less of a fight to get everything you need to get done accomplished.
2. Define what makes you miss the gym- Do you leave work and stop by your house with intentions to go to the gym, and then end up staying at home. Make it your goal to go straight to the gym after work. When you go home, things come up and distratctions are there. Pack a snack to eat at work to hold you over until dinner after your workout. Pack your workout clothes and change at the gym.
3. Surround yourself with go-getters- If you really want to transform your body and improve your health, find some friends and/or family that want to do the same. Pick people that stick to goals. You will fail at attaining your present goals if your workout partner is the one trying to get you to skip the workout.

If you are just starting to workout again then it is a large enough of a task to break your bad dietary habits and sedentary lifestyle, use these tips to make the transition to a healthier you as easy as possible.

Training partners... is there a magic number?

I have trained solo and been in training packs groups up to four meatheads. I have some thoughts to bounce around in your head when you start training and people want to piggy-back on to your routine.

If you have that one guy that helps you stay motivated and focused on the task at hand, can spot correctly, and has a rough guesstimate of what weight you use on everything... get him to marry your sister and keep him around. Those are incredibly hard to find. If you have said fellow, adding too many others can water down your workouts. You get talkitive tim going on about the weekend and how bad his life sucks. You glance up at the clock and just your three-man rotation has been in the gym for 2 1/2 hours and you are only half done.

You have to keep the pace moving. If you have a newb that needs more one-on-one instruction about just learning the lifts, point him out to a good source like Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore or the latest NSCA Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning book. If you have time to invest in him/her, then pull them aside at a non-training time so you can focus on perfecting their form.

Training solo can blow on any pressing and/or leg day. If you need a spotter, you need a training partner. Trying for the lottery on spotters usually gives you the guy who touches the bar through your entire range of motion or the guy who lets you die and just screams,"YOU GOT IT! YOU GOT IT! PUSH!!!!" while you die under the weight. Both of these can be extremely frustrating and leave your record of reps completely inaccurate. You also wonder, well, how much did GUY help me? Can I really bench 315 for 10 reps with him and only 205 by myself?

Read as much info as you can from knowledgeable people and focus on perfecting your own form. Your strength will increase over time and you will have gym rat experience. Sometimes you will come across times to share your knowledge and people will probably want to jump in on your training days. Figure out how much time you can spend in the gym and how many people you like having in your training posse.

Getting better at being better

New Rob and Old Rob met this morning at the bathroom mirror and the convo went something like this:

O.R.,"Man, what's your body fat %? Did you eat somebody?"
N.R.,"18%, but I have a plan to lower it and not take away from my 5 days of resistance training."
O.R., "What you got for me?"

I decided to quit my security job--- due to lack of sleep, killing or completely omitting my 5th workout a week, and wanting to focus more on training and family--- and get some specific strength gains this year. I also want to get back to 10-12% bodyfat, because after my weighted vest experiment i realized that it was creeping up and I don't want to look like a slob and 1/2.

My split now is:
Monday: Deadlift and back
Tuesday : early= sprints, plyos, olympic lifts like snatch, clean for speed
later= chest, triceps, and straight arm shoulders
Wednesday: legs
Thursday: early= olympic lifts like those above and sled push/pulls
Late= back and biceps
Friday: Shoulders, triceps, and a straight arm chest movement

Today was the first day of olympic lifts and explosive cardio:
5 minute jog to warm up on treadmill

snatch
2 warmups, 3 workings sets of three reps

clean from floor
pretty warm already--- 3x3, really trying to focus on the catch

sled push/pull- distance 20 yards each way
180lbs on sled- three trips back and forth, rest while training partners completes his trip (roughly 25 seconds)

legs were destroyed from my leg workout yesterday, I posted it at www.straighttothebar.com

I foam rolled afterwards and feel good to hit back and biceps in about an hour

Look'n back... what would you see?

I saw this video...



If some one took a video of all you did last year, would it be worth watching? Who would you let watch it with you? Would any of it be embarassing? motivating? jaw-dropping?

Going through the motions of a routine day is monotonous and isn't really living. It's already January 3, I know you have the focus to be working on your goals that you want to achieve, but what will your video show in December.

GOALS GOALS GOALS

Alright alright alright, I preach about goals... setting them, writing down a descriptive plan on how you are to achieve those goals, and what you should do once said goals ARE attained.

If you don't know where you are going,
you'll end up somewhere else.
- Yogi Berra

You know you need to be realistic. Take sombody that has been working out consistently for two years and is benching 135lbs in January can't realistically set a May goal of 225lbs for sets. Eventually, for sure 225 is a sweet goal, but you have to push yourself yet have an idea of what is conceivable in the amount of time you are considering. Set checkpoints... where you expect to be at certain points and have both long and short term goals.



Writing down your goals keeps you accountable and you also have a visual reminder of what you set out to do. Writing them down should serve as a motivational boost every time you see that sheet of paper. It helps keep you focused on what you set your mind to achieve.


You have heard or maybe even YOU have set a goal, achieved it and became complacent, and then drifted away from it. If your goal was fitness oriented, once you achieved it did you maintain that level of fitness or drop off dramatically. We all have ups and downs but to get your body fat percentage to a certain level while pushing around a certain amount of weight and then letting it drop doesn't make sense.

Why achieve a goal just to have to get back to it at the same time next year? Goals should be progressive... you should constantly be focused on becoming better. Share some of your current fitness goals with me in the comment section!