Trust Your Training

Training has quite a carryover to many things in life. Progress is always the goal. Be better tomorrow than you were yesterday. The scope and focus of your training can and will change courses many times over your life, and there is nothing wrong with this. Evolving your body and your mind is what this journey is about. The becoming is the juice worth the squeeze. The day you are there is the first day of being the same.

When talking training, especially with weights, we are talking about increasing capacity of the system. Increasing total volume moved over the course of weeks or months will push your capacity. This isn’t rocket science. A well thought out approach can save you a truckload of time and struggle, though. Testing and retesting your maximal effort over time is a great measuring stick to track progress. As you progress in this journey, your familiarity with your body and its ability to move a load will increase. The numbers involved in reps and sets will soon be very familiar. It will soon become apparent that your emotions and your body’s ability are related, but in some instances there is a huge gap. Just because you feel great about life today doesn’t mean today is an optimal day to set a new deadlift PR, or it may definitley be related and today is your day. Knowing when your emotions and your training are in line will soon become like second nature.

As in the pursuit of any goal, struggle is never far. Cozying up to the struggle bus and just dealing with it many times will be your best friend. There are always enough weights in the gym to break everyone. Leaving ego outside is a huge fast forward in your journey. When you are going for a maximal effort, there is one major thing to consider. Have you put in the work to warrant such an effort? If you have, your body should be able to handle the demands placed upon it, barring any mental errors or injuries, of course. Knowing your training is very important. This is a game of gains in the long term. It doesn’t happen over night. Not every day is a max effort day, but each day is worthy of training in some regard.

Separating how you are feeling and the training you are doing is two-fold. I am not saying that every day you train you have to being singing and dancing, and if you feel sad you should run from the gym. I am saying quite the opposite. Use your training to build momentum in your life. Use your physical expression of movement to uplift your mood and provide motivation for you. No one wakes up in the morning and just feels motivation. Motivation is earned by those that get after it. Emotion (the gushy stuff) and viciously moving a barbell are very much the same and very different. Where those paths cross you will find lots of success, but there are a lot of times in this life where those paths seem very different. Know what path you are on, and stay plugged into your training.

 

Danny Lesslie

@dannylesslie