Welcome to Day Nine!
So you know now (thanks to one of my earlier emails) that you aren’t “blasting” or “melting” away your fat with your workouts – no matter what you do.
However, you might still be wondering why these workouts are so simple compared to others you’ve seen people doing.
There’s no supersets. No circuits. No “rows into curls into shoulder presses”.
That’s because I’m a firm believer that simple is best when it comes to training. I had to learn this lesson the hard way.
I saw lots of fancy routines in the gym and on Instagram, and thought that just “working harder” would get more results. It doesn’t. Working smarter does – and we’re all about optimising the time you spend to get you the best result for your effort!
There is no point in making something complex for the sake of being complex.
Some things I see make absolutely no sense.
Take supersets, for example.
A superset is where you complete a set of one exercise, and immediately follow it with a set of a different exercise (no rest between).
I could have supersetted dumbell rows with lat pulldowns.
There’s a general belief that if something feels harder, that means it is better.
And for sure, you’ll be breathing harder if you superset those two exercises and it will be more difficult, generally.
You’ll struggle more on whichever exercise is second. That means you’ll lift less weight in total across all of the sets of both exercises.
Not allowing yourself to recover before the second exercise will definitely impact your performance. Just because it’s harder, definitely does not mean it’s better.
What is actually better for driving adaptation is lifting more weight for more reps, in total, regardless of rest. Therefore, resting between sets and exercises is of benefit to you as you will be able to lift more weight for more reps.
Try not to be distracted by what other people are doing.
It’s imperative you avoid shiny object syndrome.
Always looking for the NEW magical training method and switching up your workouts to “confuse” your muscles is a good way to get worse results over the long term. Your muscles can’t be confused.
Sticking to ONE good training program, that you make small tweaks to when necessary, can get you great results for years.
The person who jumps from program to program never actually sticks with anything long enough for it to work. Once they jump to another program, the small amount of progress they started to make begins to disappear, and they start progressing at something else. This progress then disappears in a few weeks when they’re onto the new thing!
Consistency and patience is the number one thing you need. If you’re on a smart program that incorporates progressive overload, you’ll do well.
If you want to read about some more gym mistakes (that I made) then read this post.
This is Another Way A Coach Adds Value
When you have a coach drawing on their knowledge and experience of what works best and tweaking the programme in ways that make sense for you to keep progressing (not just trying to tire you out every session!), then you’ll make great progress.
It removes you from the process and allows you to get out of your own way.
Indecision and constantly second guessing whether you’re doing the right thing will 100% hold you back. Either you won’t give your current plan your all, or you’ll actually keep changing your programme.
Instead of wondering whether you should do what that other person is doing in the gym, or that workout out you saw on Instagram, you trust in your coach and execute on the plan you’re on.
Constantly hopping from one thing to another guarantees you’ll never make much progress. You need to stick with something long enough to get really good at it and see changes.
Here’s Your Action for Today
Set yourself some goals, related to your workouts.
Make them specific, measurable, achievable and time bound.
For example – “I will goblet squat 20kgs for 10 reps within 4 weeks.”
Make sure this is something that is achievable with the current rate at which you’re progressing.
Setting goals will keep you focused on what you’re doing.
Trust me, you just need to get better at the simple things. This will have a huge impact if you keep it up over the longer term.
That’s it for today! Share your workout related goals in the Discord server!