Realizing you aren't where you think you are...

I had a true confession by a client yesterday. She said that weighing her in last week was one of the best things we have done recently... and not because she saw some super low number. She was motivated by the number because it wasn't where she thought she should be.

To give you a quick background on this particular doc, she met with me last fall and spring semester and got down to 132lbs for a vacation trip she was taking. She was very pleased with how she looked, felt, and how her clothes fit. Between my transition to a full-time job from full-time grad student she worked with another trainer this past summer. She also got into a rut of poor eating habits and a skewed view of her actual weight, mostly from never weighing in.

I wanted her at a certain weight that I know is possible since it is just three pounds less than the previous weight we got her to in the spring. She was squeemish about weighing in. The entire previous month she had gone on trips on weekends and would come to me Monday morning with so-so nutrition stories so I pushed for it and got her on the scale. She was 8 pounds heavier than she had perceived herself to weigh.

At first there was disbelief.
"Is that scale right?" Yes, I calibrated it this summer.

"I don't feel like (insert weight here)." But then came true motivation: Knowing exactly where you are so you can properly go to where you wish to go. She told me after that weekend that she was very strict with her diet and cardio and even thoughing weighing in for her "sucked," as she put it, it was a true marker of exactly where she is.

Now, I am also not for obsessive scale stalking, because weight it just a number in a lot of cases. I would never recommend some one to weigh in more than one every two weeks. You need to stay focused, eat right, be held accountable, and train hard. Everything else will fall into place and you will be knocked out of any rut that you might have fallen into.

Push Through Workout Plateaus

Every one of us has hit one. Your strength keeps climbing, but then you are barely making 5 pound jumps every two, three weeks. You don't want to change your workout (bad idea) because it had given you amazing results. Results that people were noticing. You are logging miles and miles per week and now they are a lot harder, you aren't breaking into any lower time ranges.

The dreaded plateau. You work as hard, if not harder than you have before and you aren't getting anywhere. You might even be getting worse.

You need a change in your workout, especially if you have had the same workout for over 6 weeks. Change it up! Do some research, hire a trainer for a couple sessions to learn some new exercises. If you are tired of pushing yourself and thinking of a new workout, hire a trainer that will kick your butt every time you meet with him/her to push you over the plateau.

Push yourself out of your comfort zone. It is called WORKing out for a reason, it is work. You should sweat, you should need some extra water throughout the workout. When you go to eat that piece of cake, you should think about the uneasy feeling you had in your stomach last time you worked out, with or without a trainer.

Do you deserve that junk you are about to put into your body or do you deserve to be healthier???

I have seen too many people in the gym using it as a social hour. If you are able to read a book while doing any type of cardio you should go home. In all reality you are getting worse, physically. You can tell people you "worked out," but you might as well have stayed in your office. I know for a fact some of the people in one of the gyms I work at can go back to their office, change clothes, and not even look like they left the room. If you are going to go to the gym, make it worth it.

Maintain Consistency... Get Better Results with Deloading

This week is a deload week for myself and my buddy. You do a complete workout for four or five weeks, and then do complete a week of the same workout, but only two-three sets of each exercise. Since we had just focused on strength and hypertrophy we both should be able to add weight and push ourselves per set a little harder because we are doing only half the sets.

The point of a deload week is to tax the system, but let it rebuild because a new workout microcycle is going to start the following week. You want progressive overload, but you also want to stay away from overtraining. If you maintain a high intensity program, whatever the goal, for around eight weeks, you are going to burn out... stop going to the gym, become worse than you were to start with.

There is greater effectiveness to doing less sets for one week, than being hardcare for two straight months and then falling off the bandwagon and quit setting goals.

You need to continue going to the gym, lifting at home, running outside, playing pickup basketball, but about every four-six weeks cut the duration down. It is harder than you think. On the deload weeks I would want to do more sets. My buddy helped me focus on the big picture and I have found out that having a deload week helped my body recover better AND it made me want it more. Want to hit my goals... want to set higher goals... want to better myself. The monday after a deload week I hit the weights with a new intensity because of two reasons: 1) I am starting a new workout: new number of sets, reps, %-age of my max, maybe even new exercises
2) I spent the last week completing half of the workout I usually do

The Monday after a deload week I am hungry to get better

Keep going in the worst conditions

KY weather update... off school two and a half days this week... huge ice storm, freezing rain, snow everywhere... a lot of people have lost power.

Pretty much the best excuses any client could give a trainer to miss. I am encouraged by all of my clients' motivation to keep going, to miss the fewest amount of workouts as possible. The clients i have trained have communicated their dedication to their health through their actions this week.

I think of myself as a fitness professional that gives my clients an ass-kicking when they need it, but also I try to give them as much instruction and guidance for future workouts so that they can eventually go off and push themselves in a workout.
Face it, I won't always be around. People move, schedules change, etc. i want them to have the confidence to workout on their own, but I also want them to fully be able to rely on my services as a personal trainer/strength coach to get them into the best shape I can possibly get them into in the time they generously set aside to work with me.

Some people have plenty of motivation to put a solid workout in by themselves, but they just need their workout to be completely mindless on their part, they just move the weight I give them in the direciton I tell them. It is relieving to know that they are going to get a solid hour workout and they don't have to think about what to do next. Weeks like this, when my clients show their own dedication to improving their health, that makes me pumped to assist them in any way that I can.

MAXED OUT and ready for Thanksgiving

Current max on bench : 335lbs
back squat: 395lbs

My goals for may are 345 on bench and 420 on squat. I am currently doing a body building workout five days a week. Everything is high reps (8-12 reps is high for me) and the rest periods are timed to start your next set right at a minute and fifteen seconds. this short time period crams a ton of volume into an hour and a half workout...
a minute fifteen might sound like a long time.... you are kidding yourself. sip of water, swig of protein drink, spot my lift'n partner, change the weight... HEY, it's my turn to go. try doing that one day for four sets of squat, even by yourself. the time limit really holds you to your workout, you stayed focused

this means you have to stay away from the clown that comes to the gym to get away from his wife and just wants to talk. THIS ISN'T A BAR, IT'S MY OFFICE SON. I'm trying to work and push weight around so I can improve myself. Unlike unhappy, complacement guy I want results. I want to get better. I want to improve. i don't lift bc it's fun. I lift to get stronger.... to get somewhere

Thanksgiving is approaching and I am sore as hell. I'm taking the day off but I will still get my five workouts this week, I'll just have to push a workout to Saturday.

take it easy

Consistency in Daily Workouts + Keeping Heart Rate Elevated = Fat Loss

To lose overall body fat you need those two components… if you are going to work out 3 days a week- GO to the gym three days a week. Get it done. Cash in your thirty minutes… your hour. Whatever you said you were going to do. Pick specific days that you are going to go to the gym. If you say three days a week, but you keep pushing it off, you lose accountability and then it is Friday and you are tired and only have Saturday left to go to the gym and haven’t been yet this week. Hold yourself accountable. Pick specific days that you are going to clock in to the gym, get your work done, and your weight loss will pay for itself.
Having a bad day?
Go to the gym if it is one of the days you are supposed to go. Starting your workout can sometimes be the hardest part of working out. SHOW UP! Do your workout. Breaking a sweat makes you feel better and at the end of the day after you got all your work done at your actual job AND your work done at the gym.. you feel better.

Keep your heart rate elevated above resting levels by working opposing muscle groups instead of sitting on a machine resting… Think about it. You make the most of your time, you can do your leg extensions then leg curls. Different leg muscles, one set of muscles can rest while the other is working AND you eliminate the rest time between each set, which not only eats up time you may not have, but it allows your heart rate to settle which partially limits your caloric burn.

Not if but WHEN you get to the gym make the most of your time. You got out of bed, YOU stopped on the way home from work… YOU made the goals to get yourself back into shape or into a better looking shape. this is for YOU. The gym fee you may is miniscule compared to the doctors bills that will pile up on you later if you are not physically fit as you age. You pay for the gym, USE IT!!!

stay focused on your goals.

WEEK 7 COMPLETE

I completed the 7th week of this 16 week program today. This week was skewed because of my work schedule had me working at abnormal times... I worked out normally four days a week, and I still did all four workouts, but there were just more days that the workout week went across.

I lifted sunday-monday-tuesday-friday... It was not the best case scenario, but the most important part of a workout program is consistency. flexibility is the remainder of your week needs to allow you to be able to move your workout around if work does not allow you to lift at the normal times.

SLEEP needs be a priority, also. I had the option to go out with some friends and drink... but I was dead from an eccentric workout so i passed... the next day there was no crazy feeling in my stomach , no extra fatigue built up... yea, i didn't go out.... but my strength went up.