It’s funny how things change as you spend time in the same field for a while…
When you first begin you just want something that’s easy enough to follow for you to gain progress. Whether it be getting stronger, building muscle or losing fat.
We don’t want to complicate it too much just yet. But then as progress starts to slow or you need a shake up to keep mentally stimulated you crave more.
Something harder, whether it’s more movements, different progressions or the best diet to step up your results.
The problem here is, this is the point where many people get stuck and have trouble continuing making progress. We get caught up needing to make the most complex plan to get results. Combining this diet with another then mixing 5×5 with F45 and adding in Brazilian Jui Jiitsu on your rest days to keep moving.
Too much of the fitness industry is pushing this idea of variety as the best way to make progress.
It sounds great in theory, to be able to mix it up and constantly get better at everything. In reality though it doesn’t work that way. You don’t become a doctor by studying medicine on one day, art history the next and some palaeontology the day after.
If the aim is to close the gap between where you are now and where you want to go then identifying the main factors that have the biggest impact on getting you to your goal and focusing your attention towards that should be the priority. Not trying to confuse the muscles or brain into making progress.
Jim Kiritsy said it best when he said;
“We do the simple things savagely well”
Usain Bolt didn’t become the fastest man alive by running a marathon whenever sprints got boring to him. He put the goal first, focused on his drills, training and recovery. Then he just got out there and broke records.
In the same way that NRL players don’t go play soccer every few days to keep their bodies guessing.
This is the goal of what we do at Newstrength, we don’t use fancy russian squat cycles (even though Smolov will get you real strong and steal your soul away at the same time), there’s no such thing as a random workout. Everything has a purpose to the bigger picture of helping you become the strongest version of yourself.
Want to get stronger in the squat, focus on perfecting your form, putting in the work week after week and eating enough to recover from your training.
Is the goal to get leaner? Track your food, for a little while at least, be really diligent with eating the right amount and training consistently and you’ll get leaner.
Our goal as coaches is to lay the path for you to move from where you are to where you want to go with the most efficient route possible while engaging you in the process.
Sometimes that means giving a person a purposeful variation but as I was reminded first hand recently working with my coach Brad is a lot of the time it’s trimming the fat and doing the simple things savagely well.