Yesterday I talked about a relatively easy way to record your workout. Paper, pencil, and that's it. I said I use Excel to create a form which I print, and fill in by hand. Here's a piece of it:
Why is it important to look up and see what you did at your last workout? There may be several reasons, but an important one is to know how much effort you need to put into this workout. You give maximum effort every single time and you don't need a number to tell you what to do? Good for you. For the rest of us it helps to have a record.
Here's what I mean. You're on your way to benching 200 pounds. At your last workout you did four sets lifting 115 five times and one set of only lifting it 4 times. Your intermediate goal is to do 5 sets of 5 reps at 115 pounds before moving up to 120 pounds. You begin your workout, and you're not feeling it. The reps are coming harder than you expected. But you know that you almost got over the 115 pound threshold last time, so you buckle down and try that much harder, and before you know it you got your 25 total reps at 115 pounds. That's how gains are made, by exerting yourself.
This concept applies to several disciplines. I find that it's very easy during a run to believe I'm running faster than ever, but my actual time says I had lead feet. I heard Michael Jordan say once while he was still playing that each day he wanted to get a little bit better. If that's your goal, you're going to need to know what "better" is. In other words, you need an intermediate goal that is slightly heavier, faster, etc., than your last goal, and knowing what the goal is helps you get there.
If you don't use past performance and intermediate goals to motivate yourself, what do you use?
Here's what I mean. You're on your way to benching 200 pounds. At your last workout you did four sets lifting 115 five times and one set of only lifting it 4 times. Your intermediate goal is to do 5 sets of 5 reps at 115 pounds before moving up to 120 pounds. You begin your workout, and you're not feeling it. The reps are coming harder than you expected. But you know that you almost got over the 115 pound threshold last time, so you buckle down and try that much harder, and before you know it you got your 25 total reps at 115 pounds. That's how gains are made, by exerting yourself.
This concept applies to several disciplines. I find that it's very easy during a run to believe I'm running faster than ever, but my actual time says I had lead feet. I heard Michael Jordan say once while he was still playing that each day he wanted to get a little bit better. If that's your goal, you're going to need to know what "better" is. In other words, you need an intermediate goal that is slightly heavier, faster, etc., than your last goal, and knowing what the goal is helps you get there.
If you don't use past performance and intermediate goals to motivate yourself, what do you use?
No comments:
Post a Comment