Transforming your body through training is no easy task if you are just starting out on your journey.
I have worked with hundreds of clients all over the world and I always hear a similar pattern when asking about their history with training and trying to transform!
While the initial results seems to be amazing, with increases in lean muscle, reductions in body fat and high motivation to achieve a desired goal, many people struggle to achieve their long term goals.
I often hear of injuries preventing training, time restraints becoming an issue or a lack of motivation once the rate of progress slows down.
I am sure you will agree with me that this can be incredibly frustrating especially if you have experienced this personally.
There is a potential reason for all of the obstacles you face… The APPROACH may have been wrong!
(Here is my client Gav, he struggled with these issues for years, until he started applying the methods I about to outline)
Let me explain! Here are 10 methods I use to help my clients maximise their training to achieve incredible results!
1. Finish Line
While your goal may be great and the time frame you have set yourself may be small, have a little perspective on your journey. If you have lived a very sedentary life or been involved in 5 a side games predominantly as your form of exercise, rushing into the gym and trying to emulate more experienced lifters will end badly for you.
With anything you do in life, preparation, planning and meticulous execution will allow you to achieve the greatest results! Ensure you have a plan of action before you cause yourself an injury!
2. All or Nothing
This approach is common in training, nutrition and ecverything to do with your mindset towards transforming.
You may have an amazing week, performing training and cardio consistently, then one day off and BOOM the week is written off!
Remember that having a day off isn’t going to harm you, deciding to take the week off and restart on Monday is going to set you back, so stop chasing perfection and focus on improving on each day.
3. Gym Programmes
You may have downloaded some celebrity trainers latest 6 week plan, or seen an Instagram fitness celebrity endorsing their compound only training plan!
Their results seem amazing, so you go and give it your all.
Unfortunately, that programme didn’t take into account you sit at a desk all day, commute an hour each day and haven’t trained with a significant amount of load for a long time!
This quickly results in injury, as without proper execution, mobility, understanding the difference between passive and active range or assessing your bodies current capability to move, you are putting your back, rotator cuff, knees and everything in between at risk!
4. Training with Intent vs Training Intensity
You see squat, so you squat.
You see barbell bench press so you bench press.
You see skull crusher, so you skull crush…
But the most obvious question that often leads to the best results.
In fact, I based an hour of my recent seminar on this question…
Where… Should… I… Feel… This…
If you are squatting and your back is agony.
You are bench pressing but your triceps are on fire.
If you skull crush but your shoulders are burning…
You may be performing the movement incorrectly or you may just not be ready for these movements… Which is understandable as even the best bodybuilders in the world often have to regress, find better movement patterns and then progress to see improvements!
5. What was the goal again?
You are trying to lose body fat and grow lean muscle tissue.
So you load up the bar and start squatting ass to grass… because if its not ass to grass its not a squat right…
Well yes you are right if you are looking to win the local powerlifting meet…
But if your goal was to lose body fat and build muscle… was the squat essential in the first place?
Do you need to squat, deadlift, bench press, military press or focus on all the other big compound movements so many people talk about?
While they may be in your plan as you look to improve strength or work towards other physique goals, if the exercise doesn’t suit you as an individual, then stop trying to fit into the exercise!
Unless you are going to commit more of your time to mobility, yoga or stretching frequently, then you will struggle to make a real impact with your range of motion. If time was a limiting factor in the first place, then you would benefit from working with what you have got available!
Part 2 is coming soon! Stay tuned for number 10, it could change the game for you!
