You’ve just finished work… feeling flat but you know you shouldn’t skip your workout.
So you fill up your shaker with pre-workout, get caffeinated and hope it makes up for your lack of energy today.
While you drive to the gym you start thinking “Did I put enough pre-workout in, I swear it hasn’t kicked in at all”… You start to warm up anyway.
Then you get under the bar… it’s already feeling heavy AF and you’ve barely put any weight on their yet. You keep pushing through but you only get to 10kg lighter than last week.
You start to think the session was a failure, you shouldn’t have bothered going to the gym. If you keep training like this you will never reach your goals. You’re beating yourself up over it and you haven’t even got to the second exercise!!
Now you’re in your own head and the rest of the session follows on the same as your minds telling it to.
Sadly, this is too similar to how most people train. It follows along with something one of my mentors has told me.
“How it starts is how it ends.”
Most people go in thinking that the rest of their day has already ruined their workout and they follow that self-fulfilling prophecy. Only to let down that little part inside of their head that thought they could still turn it around.
But it doesn’t have to be like that, we have found there are three keys to ensuring you have an awesome workout every time regardless of how the world has tried to ruin your day beforehand. The three keys are:
- Progression
- Environment
- Flow
We’ve seen time and time again that if you are seeing progress, training in a positive environment and you can reach a flow like state in your training then every session becomes a win. When every session is a win then results will come faster than ever before.
So how can we make sure we get these things right?
It comes down to the program, the place and the people!
Programming A Winning Workout
I remember when I first started training, I’d go to the gym and the standard thing was 1 body part per session and every exercise was done for 3 sets of 8-10 with 60-90s rest between. Maybe every now and then you would get crazy and superset something but overall it was all the same.
Don’t get me wrong having something simple was ideal for me at the time as I tend to overanalyze things and I probably wouldn’t have stuck to a really complex program from the start.
But that’s the thing, programming is an art form it’s not simple vs. complex. Great programming like great art draws you in and creates a response from you. That response is engagement and intensity and this combination creates a flow state.
The other piece of great programming is being purposeful in driving progression. Programming is about being the sniper, not the crazy guy with a shotgun.
Knowing where you’re going, where you are right now and what path you’re taking are essential.
Right Place, Right Time
There’s these places around the world known as blue zones where people live significantly longer than the rest of us. Now there’s no magic about the locations but rather these people live longer off the back of community, nutrition, less stress and a bunch of other factors.
I believe there are blue zones of training as well, areas or gyms that just get the environment right to produce results at speeds that just don’t happen elsewhere. People talk about winning culture when it comes to sports, teams that just know how to win no matter how many points they’re down or how long is left on the clock. New players join these teams and walk in knowing they will see results and improve beyond their own beliefs.
Gyms are the same if you walk into your anytime fitness and don’t get the feeling that the place is helping drive you to results than that gym probably isn’t the place for you.
I believe the commonality amongst these blue zone facilities is they tend to be small community gyms, not the big box genesis and anytime fitness style gyms. These smaller gyms create a larger connection amongst people which brings a greater energy to training resulting in significantly better results.
It’s not to say you can’t get good results in a big box gym but it’s definitely stacking the deck against you.
Training Partner Should Be A Sacred Title
Everyone who has trained consistently know how variable of an environment having a training partner can be. In some cases the training partner can elevate the energy, intensity and help create flow but the wrong training partner can often kill the energy quicker than Usain Bolt over 100m.
If you’re one for training hard you’re often very protective of who you give that sacred title of training partner too. You know how valuable they can be but just like finding a girlfriend at Finnegan’s it’s not always easy to come across a good choice.
What should you be looking for in a good training partner?
A great training partner is like a great DJ. They know how to manage the energy of the session and the room, there’s no need to get amped and waste energy while warming up but when the bar’s getting heavy if you’re not ready for it you’re missing out. Not to mention when it’s time to grind through some pain, it’s always much better when you have someone there with you.
A great training partner is like nearly like having a great coach, and if you can have both at the same time then you are definitely going to be moving in the right direction.
Win The Day
So there you have it, want to have a winning workout every time?
Put your focus on having the right program, training in the right place and with the right people.
This is what we have focused on building Newstrength around and we are proud of how it’s grown.
If you would like to try us out click here to get access to our FREE 7-Day Pass.