Hope you all had a great thanksgiving. Gotta love that whole week. Turkey day. Football. Black Friday madness. A zillion calories. Abundance on parade. I love it all.
Couple of nights ago was my last leftover Turkey on wheat bread with gravy dinner with the remaining candied sweet potato. Wow – didn’t think I’d actually polish off all the leftovers. Love the leftovers.
We use a maple-bacon Turkey recipe from the Food Network. First saw it many years ago on Food 911 with Tyler Florence. About 5 or 6 years running and the turkey comes out great each time. Simple to prepare and Simple is best.
Which brings me to my thoughts, wanderings and musing for today – with all due respects to Don Banks.
Let’s talk intensity.
I’m thinking at its most basic – muscle building is pretty straightforward. You work, you eat, you grow (a little or a lot), you get happy.
But in the process of executing that formula, I think many over think or get bogged down in the manure of this set/rep system, bodypart sequence, German system, Bulgarian, East Outer Mongolia Way, etc.
At the end of the day, none of that really matters. All can work. All cannot work.
What matters is that you do an infinitesimally tiny bit more each and every workout. Or do a lot more. But if you give 100% today. The next workout, you must do 100.00000001% – or 110%, that’s up to you.
It should be a mantra
- Every workout – 1 more rep
- Every workout – 1 more pound
- Every workout – 1 sec less
Because if you’re not progressing in a measurable way – you’re not.
It’s great if you have a 1 year plan or a 6 month goal. Keep in mind, though, to achieve any goal, you must have daily, weekly, monthly metrics that measure your progress. And metrics that are executable.
The point is – you have to pay attention to the trenches. The trenches is you and that one workout. And that workout must be measurably better than the last.
You can’t say
- I’m tired, I’ll take it easy.
- My arms are sore, I’ll cut back
- Been a rough day, just not into it today
- Wow – that new gal/guy is hot
- Whatever…
I am writing a series of post based on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s classic, Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder, over the next few weeks. And what really sets him apart from all the rest is his ability to focus totally on his workouts. That is fundamental.
But upping the poundage or the speed isn’t the only way – actually…
There are a lot of ways to do more…
You can use different techniques, such as:
- Supersetting
- Giant or Tri-sets
- Forced Reps
- Rest – Pause reps
- Negatives
- Burns – Half reps
- Pre-Exhaust supersets
- 100 rep set
- 2 sets of 50 reps
To list a few.
Because I get that you can hit a plateau or be at a stage when nothing seems to be happening. But you still gotta up the intensity every workout – or, you will never break free of that plateau.
More thoughts later…
Gotta go to my day job…
