Trust The Process

Eric Shugars

 

So this article was inspired by a few things happening over the past few days.

  •  I read a pretty good short blurb from Joe DeFranco on T-Nation titled “Don’t Just Get Tired. Get Better.” Google it – it’s the TL/DR version of this post.
  •  Someone new started at our gym who, while squatting on their first day, didn’t think they were working hard enough because they weren’t drenched in sweat.
  •  Someone else asked for a conditioning workout on their light day. I gave it to them, and the conversation afterwards went something like this:
    • Person: That wasn’t too bad. Should I go back and do a few more rounds?
    • Me: No. Go home and eat and relax.
    • Person: But I could have done the whole thing like 3 more times
    • Me: No. Go home and eat and relax.
    • Person: Should I at least do some extra prowler sprints or something?
    • Me: No. Go home and eat and relax. Now get out of my sight before I karate chop you.

Now, I’m all for terrible workouts when the time is right. Sometimes, you need a good butt-whupin’ to keep you humble. But the first thought that went through my mind for each of these scenarios was: not every workout has to destroy you. If you’re not a beginner and are intelligently programming your training, you’ll end up with some days that are hard – they’ll be heavy, have lots of volume, and you’ll wonder why on earth you got out of bed that morning. Some days will also be a little lighter – it feels magical to squat, press or snatch at 75%% for just a couple sets when you’re feeling a little beat up. The point with both of these is that they’re working towards a goal that your training is based around. These things are planned ahead and they are part of the process of achieving whatever goal you’ve set for yourself.

“At the end of the workout I was sweaty, hot, confused, and tired. But that doesn’t mean it was productive training, and I definitely wasn’t achieving my goals.”

Recently, it’s become very popular to indulge in what I refer to as the “effort” programs. Crossfit, P90x, Insanity, Bodypump, or anything similar where people are actually challenged to work hard. It takes a lot of initiative to do these things – more effort than most people are used to. If you are doing something like this I applaud you for actually doing something with your body. I’ll be honest and admit they are hard while you’re doing it. I know this very well. I used to do Ab Ripper X three times per week in my college dorm room. I know the feeling of complete muscular exhaustion and how you need to ring the sweat out of your shirt afterwards. At the end of the workout I was always sweaty, hot, confused, and tired. But that doesn’t mean it was productive training, and I definitely wasn’t achieving my goals. I was training 5 days per week and I still wasn’t where I wanted to be. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. It wasn’t until 2011 when I gave Beau at WSC a call that I realized what a difference productive (or optimal) training makes.

 

It is important to note here that any person or coach can make a workout “hard” to make you feel like you’ve accomplished something. 12 sets of 5 squats at 90% of your 1RM. That’ll be fun. And while I sit here laughing at my computer thinking of somebody actually doing that, someone out there is a “coach” who is coming up with ideas with the sole purpose of making people sweat. Yes, a good amount of training needs to be difficult, but all the effort that goes into the training needs to be focused on a goal. You can only recover from so much – make all of that energy spent productive energy.

 

Whenever someone new comes to Westminster Strength and Conditioning, we inevitably have the “training vs. exercise” talk. Simply put,

  • exercise” is physical activity done for the sake of how it makes you feel today. It can either be a random workout that an instructor wrote on a chalk-board, or it could be the exact same routine for eight weeks. The goal is to make you sweaty, “confuse” your muscles, and make you feel like you’ve worked hard.
  •  “Training” is a systematic approach to exercise. It is done with a plan in mind. Goals are set and progression is planned ahead of time to get you to those goals quicker than if you were simply exercising. Some days might even be easier than others, but they serve a purpose and are all part of a master plan.

 

The first thing to worry about here is whether or not you actually have a goal in mind. Find whatever motivates you and work toward it. Then whatever goal you have, figure out what you need to do to achieve it, and freakin’ do it. As simple as this sounds, a lot of people do the exact opposite of what they need to do. Here’s an analogy… my wife is terrible with directions. I mean exceptionally bad (sorry Jenna!). I’m awaiting the call where she’s broken down on the side of the highway in Arizona, about 2200 miles away from our home in Maryland. Thankfully, she’s pretty smart and uses the GPS on her phone to get to where she’s going. She inputs where she wants to go into her phone and it takes her right there using the most efficient path possible. Shouldn’t exercise be the same way?

 

It took a little while before I understood how this process actually works. A lot of people get caught up in the feeling of “man, I really got a good workout today. I did a bunch of squats and crunches. I’ll have a kale salad for dinner and I bet when I wake up tomorrow I’ll be super ripped”, but fail to see how what they did actually fits into a plan. That is exercise. I can’t count the number of times I’ve talked to someone and they have said something along the lines of, “at the end of my lifts yesterday I added a bunch of rower sprints.” When challenged why, the answer inevitably boils down to something along the lines of “I felt like I needed some extra work to get sweaty and out of breath.” No! There is a difference between making something hard because it needs to be, and making it hard because of “the feels.” This isn’t about your feelings. This is about trusting the process and following a training program.

 

So after all that, why might some days be easier than others? It depends on your plan. Remember that all physical activity is just a repetitive cycle of stress, recovery, and adaptation.  Rank novices can get away with doing some pretty crazy things in the gym, but eventually if you’re progressing and actually working towards a goal the stress needs to increase at times and lighten up at certain points to maximize recovery. Any non-beginner program that doesn’t do this is 1) actually a beginner program, or 2) simply exercise. Maybe your light day serves as a recovery day between two hard workouts, like a lot of our advanced novice or intermediate programs. It could be after a heavy volume or intensity day, where you to maintain some skill in a lift without a whole bunch of extra physical stress. The point here is you can’t always recover from max-effort training sessions in a short period of time. If you are seriously thinking about long-term progress, you need to understand this and plan your training out accordingly. And while a low-stress workout doesn’t always seem sexy or bad-ass, doing it makes you much more likely to achieve whatever goal you set out for. So stop worrying about having the greatest workout ever every day. Think critically about your goals and the path you need to take to reach them. Then do everything you need to to reach those goals, even if it means taking a light day.

Tags: