Well this was a workout that I wasn´t sure would be happening. It was late Friday, there was a group of colleagues wanting to kick off the weekend, I wanted to get home and chill, it was again one of the tools in place that "saved the day" - earlier that day I had went to lunch with my previous team to farewell one of the members who is leaving. It wasn´t a perfect meal - by fitness standards - but it still had a decent portion of lean protein (chicken), white rice and a small portion of salad. OK, the chicken came dipped in a bowl of sauce, the rice was fried boiled, I had an eggplant starter with yogurt sauce and bread nan. But the key take away: you don´t throw out a good chance to improve a little bit more just because every single thing isn´t perfect. I felt like skipping the workout, since I hadn´t entirely stuck to the food part of it, but for my own accountability / demise / good, my training partner was at the very restaurant we entered to have our meal!
So we talked briefly, when I wasn´t too keen on training later in the afternoon, James did what a good training partner will do: he called me on my sh#t. I tried to get an easy way out for the late afternoon, he put a face on that immediately signaled to me "What are your goals with fitness for the year?". I later realized he was right doing that, and I thanked him for it.
Just because all the starts aren´t aligned like you´d want them to, doesn´t mean you should dump all of your fitness plan for the day, out the window! These little habits creep up on me every now and then, I am no different than the next person. This is what Life is called, dealing with every day practicalities and not letting yourself stand down at the sight of something that doesn´t seem immediately confortable. This takes me to a broader topic, which is goal setting.
You see, I am approached quite a few times with questions regarding training / fitness and I´ve had the chance to learn that the emphasis of the majority of questions usually relies on what´s a good "whatever-goes-here". Hey Simão, can you please advise me on what´s a good gym to go workout around here? What´s a good exercise for X body part? What´s a good food to lose / gain weight? Train with weights or bodyweight? In the professional realm and due to me being a graphic designer, that switches over to "what´s a good color / font / effect to put here". How do I make this blink the most in Photoshop? I say the question is based on a false principle. Or at least relative to where you are in the continuum of your own process.
The current state of affairs in the World has us all swirling around these trains of thoughts that implicate quick answers, an ever increasingly faster solution, pills for this, powders for that, save your life gadgets, an un-endable list of things, tricks, tips and licks. It´s usually a setup to think you can counteract your own action that was compunded over a period of time, with one quick turn. It´s a flawed starting point, from which you will have slim to none probabilities to overcome. What I´ve come to realize on various levels of existence, is that everything I´ve achieved took its amount of time and dedication to prove worthy having aquired. Or perfect it, when it comes to a skillset.
OK, let´s not get too caught up in philosophical theories and tie this right in with our main point for today: set yourself a goal for the day, you´ll likely last a week, month, whatever a midnight New Years Resolution takes to wear off. But tie your goal with what, who and how you are, you will get a direction for life. There are no substitutes for accountability, there are no coaches who will keep you more truthful than yourself. Give yourself a strong compelling huge WHY, and you can be sure of this: the HOW will find its way into manifestation. Give yourself a goal that resonates with what you are here to accomplish as a person, make it a part of your life, let it be you. Your results will show up. In our case, I was nicely "coherced" into looking at my goals again. In the end, it wasn´t James who kicked my butt into the gym. It was my having a purpose, it was me who went and trained, it was me who put in the sweat.
When you are setting goals properly, use whatever means you have at your disposal. Your goals success greatly depend on the people, environment, social and professional context you gravitate in, as well as your inherent habits and personality. When setting goals and objectives, make sure you throubleshoot yourself - James came as a very handy tool last Friday, like so many times before I was able to be of the same use to him. Had I not decided to train with him, I would be without a safety net on days like last Friday. This is the 2nd time I will say James is a story for another day, we´ll get there.
Nutrition is another tool that will maximize my half hours to 40 mins in the gym, outside of it! Know when to train, laziness does not equal fatigue, learn to discern one from the other. Strategize: we are currently back to training rythm, after all the breaks and travelling (I´m Portuguese, James is English), we both went back to our Natal countries and took a break out of the training / nutrition schedule. Next, we are starting to measure. Implement principles of progression, every 2-3 weeks. 1 week / 1 cycle around the body (complete routine for all body parts) at maximum effort, 1 more week to let yourself catch up. So on, so forth.
Have your strategy figured out, have your timeline layed down, know when you are making these goals happen. What it takes from you on a daily level, what does that translate into time wise, how are you fitting it into your day? Know the tools at your disposal, get used to them in real time, don´t wait forever. Immediate action is better than delayed perfection. If you give yourself the chance to fail 7-8 times out of a hundred, you´re still 93% better than you were!!! Now, you set a no-tolerance policy in whatever goal you set, set yourself up for failure with a 100% comply philosophy and you´ll be headed into a frustration mode because you couldn´t keep up with the strict rules you caged yourself into. A great plan is only as good as your ability to commit and execute it.
I myself am guilty of letting this happen in some areas of my life. I am setting up a business, so all too often I catch myself doing this very thing. I adopt an all or nothing posture, which works well within the first 4-5 times you are trying to implement a habit. I let me determine what me will do this for x amount of time, without properly realizing all learnings need its time, place and don´t go as you envisioned all the time. Let yourself learn at your own pace, be kind to yourself.
This is what I am saying: have a goal, have tools to assist you in reaching your goal. Do not take the easy way out, you will congratulate yourself after you didn´t. Know your outcomes, what is it that you want to have happen. Use strategies and learn to personalize your solution. Have fun in the process.
Me and James went in for an arms training session. We used 3 supersets to combine antagonistic muscle groups, such as the biceps and triceps, in reverse order. As per goals set, I did some more abs work at the end. The whole time in the gym did not exceed 45 mins.
Superset 1:
Bench closed grip triceps press + EZ bar presses (10-12 reps)
(45sec - 1 min rest)
Superset 2:
Press down rope triceps + closed grip EZ bar 2x7 partial reps+7 full reps
(45sec - 1 min rest)
 |
| James pumping blood into those bis |
Superset 3:
Over head rope cable extensions (15-20 reps) + lying hammer rope curls
(45sec - 1 min rest)
Project Abs made sure I included 3x15 reps of ball crunches with elastic bands.
Could you find flaws in this system? Of course! My nutrition for that day was not perfect, James hadn´t eaten the regular 5 meals up to that point in the day. We didn´t record results and measure them against previous. Some days the will to do it is not entirely there, Life is still happening in the background.
BUT - here´s the most important thing: WE WENT IN AND TRAINED, despite everything we still did more than the version of me that skipped training that day due to Friday party, or because the feeling wasn´t there. We still did more and faster than 90% of the people in the gym. How? Well, that´s smart training... Keep checking back to see what you can apply in your routines to avoid the general misconceptions that you need to train longer to achieve better results.
Until then, go set some goals!
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