Could this help bust through your pressing plateau?
Most people spend a lot of time looking for the perfect way to train. Many times they do this because they think that if they find a new or different way to train they’ll suddenly make progress. Yet often what’s really holding them back isn’t the program that they’re using, it’s a weak link somewhere in all the factors that have to come together for you to make progress.
When you consider training don’t just consider the nuts and bolts of the actual program – you have to also think about the big picture. Don’t get me wrong how you put your sets and reps together – the structure of your workout IS important, but that’s only one part of the puzzle. Let me elaborate further.
Many times people are looking to add weight to a specific lift and they want to change programs to do it. Sometimes that’s a smart thing to do and sometimes by doing so you accidentally hit on an assistance exercise or a combination that specifically trains your weakness and your lift goes up. Let’s take the squat as an example.
Say you just started a brand new program that includes lots of middle and top end partials. Coincidentally you often lose a full squat in the middle which is usually a lack of torso strength. You may or may not have been able to purposely choose a program to address that weakness or you may have simply seen a cool new program and it happens to address a weakness that you have. By the way, for tons more program and exercises to help you in the squat check out How to Squat 900lbs.
The bigger picture here is that you have to be analytical about what you do. If a particular lift isn’t going up then this applies past lifting to other areas of training and life as well – simply changing the way you do things may not make it magically go up. You need to look at why it’s not going up in the first place. Most people try to get progress via the Viagra-Solution for lifting. The thought is, “Well this ain’t working – I’ll take this magic potion to force it to work artificially,” instead of stepping back and thinking about why it wasn’t working in the first place and fixing the real underlying problem.
I guess if you look deeper at the statement I just wrote you can see the correlation applies past just lifting.
So if a particular lift isn’t going up is it because of connected weakness – torso strength for squats, form mis-cues, etc., and not just because it was two sets of four or, “Oh well I squatted on Tuesday instead of Thursday.” When was the last time you stepped back and analyzed your progress and then figured out the why or why not of whether you’re making strides towards your goals? If you’re not losing the fat you want then maybe you’re conditioning or eating is out of whack. If you’re conditioning isn’t transferring over to your sport does it have the right balance of aerobic and muscular effort to actually apply to what you want it to do?
On a deeper issue are you not making progress because you’re simply not pushing or focusing yourself enough to get the job done? Think about it as you go. Think about it as you train. You don’t have to jump ship on a program necessarily because hap-hazard changes can leave you spinning your wheels. Be thoughtful in what you do.
For things to work well in every area of life – and this is especially noticeable in training – you need balance. More on this tomorrow…
Bud Jeffries
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What’s Your Weak Link?
Could this help bust through your pressing plateau?
Most people spend a lot of time looking for the perfect way to train. Many times they do this because they think that if they find a new or different way to train they’ll suddenly make progress. Yet often what’s really holding them back isn’t the program that they’re using, it’s a weak link somewhere in all the factors that have to come together for you to make progress.
When you consider training don’t just consider the nuts and bolts of the actual program – you have to also think about the big picture. Don’t get me wrong how you put your sets and reps together – the structure of your workout IS important, but that’s only one part of the puzzle. Let me elaborate further.
Many times people are looking to add weight to a specific lift and they want to change programs to do it. Sometimes that’s a smart thing to do and sometimes by doing so you accidentally hit on an assistance exercise or a combination that specifically trains your weakness and your lift goes up. Let’s take the squat as an example.
Say you just started a brand new program that includes lots of middle and top end partials. Coincidentally you often lose a full squat in the middle which is usually a lack of torso strength. You may or may not have been able to purposely choose a program to address that weakness or you may have simply seen a cool new program and it happens to address a weakness that you have. By the way, for tons more program and exercises to help you in the squat check out How to Squat 900lbs.
The bigger picture here is that you have to be analytical about what you do. If a particular lift isn’t going up then this applies past lifting to other areas of training and life as well – simply changing the way you do things may not make it magically go up. You need to look at why it’s not going up in the first place. Most people try to get progress via the Viagra-Solution for lifting. The thought is, “Well this ain’t working – I’ll take this magic potion to force it to work artificially,” instead of stepping back and thinking about why it wasn’t working in the first place and fixing the real underlying problem.
I guess if you look deeper at the statement I just wrote you can see the correlation applies past just lifting.
So if a particular lift isn’t going up is it because of connected weakness – torso strength for squats, form mis-cues, etc., and not just because it was two sets of four or, “Oh well I squatted on Tuesday instead of Thursday.” When was the last time you stepped back and analyzed your progress and then figured out the why or why not of whether you’re making strides towards your goals? If you’re not losing the fat you want then maybe you’re conditioning or eating is out of whack. If you’re conditioning isn’t transferring over to your sport does it have the right balance of aerobic and muscular effort to actually apply to what you want it to do?
On a deeper issue are you not making progress because you’re simply not pushing or focusing yourself enough to get the job done? Think about it as you go. Think about it as you train. You don’t have to jump ship on a program necessarily because hap-hazard changes can leave you spinning your wheels. Be thoughtful in what you do.
For things to work well in every area of life – and this is especially noticeable in training – you need balance. More on this tomorrow…
Bud Jeffries