How to judge effective training? We will discuss the best way to gauge progress in the gym.
Effective training shouldn’t leave you broken and feeling poorly. Effective training should be building resilience and increasing your work capacity. Over a period of time you should see positive changes to your resting heart rate(decreases over time), how much you can do in zone 2(distance rowed for example) and how strong you are in relation to your bodyweight(can you bench press your body weight or do a pull up, or do strict push ups.
The vast majority of people training at gyms measure their workouts by soreness. Soreness has come to mean a “great” workout. Or the person is utterly exhausted after a workout they can’t get off the floor for 20 minutes after the completion. While being sore isn’t terrible and being exhausted after a good workout once a week isn’t a bad thing – both of these aren’t great ways to judge the effectiveness of a training program or even a gym.
Soreness
A bit sore now and again is 100% fine. And shows you are challenging yourself. If you are so sore you can’t train again on the scheduled training time – then it was too much.
If you are completing conditioning workouts that leave you on the floor for 20 minutes after day in and day out, how much time do you really have to recover? What is your resting heart rate looking like for multiple days afterwards? These sessions feel great at the time but can really fatigue you. This fatigue carries over to your home life. Do you have energy to chase your kids around after a workout? If not, is the gym helping your lifestyle or hurting it?
Complexity
Everyday athletes, gym goers think that more complexity is going to “confuse” their muscles and lead to significant gains. This isn’t really true. And in fact complexity when starting a fitness training program can lead to overthinking and less results.
When starting training, keep it simple stupid. Or the KISS principle. Everyone needs to squat, hinge, pull, push, and do zone 2 conditioning( or moderate to low intensity conditioning, preferably cyclical in nature).
These super simple rules will lead to great results. We have coached hundreds of athletes that have lost weight, gained strength, got healthy, and achieved their goals with the effective training that is SIMPLE.
Coaching
A coach should be able to explain the foundation of the training program. A good coach can effectively answer the question – why are we bench pressing today? Or how is zone 2 conditioning going to be more effective for me than doing another HIIT workout.
Explaining the process is part of the coach’s job. And one of the biggest differences between a coach and cheerleader is that they understand the stimulus of the workout. Or what is the desired effect?
Training vs Workout
Training is a day in and day out process to yield results. Working out is being sweaty, sore, not training with a plan and just doing some stuff. One of my favorite sayings in regards to the difference between training and working out is:
“If you want to make someone tired, just give them a workout with no plan.” – Russian sports scientist Anatoli Bondarchuk
How to judge training
If you want to judge training and you should – ask yourself these questions:
Are you getting stronger? How are you measuring that strength? Is it by 1RM bench press, or by pull ups, or by doing db goblet squats? Really it doesn’t matter the way you are measuring it as long as your capacity to lift objects including yourself is increasing you are getting stronger.
Does your training make you happy? Does the training lead to results, increase your self confidence, make you happy to see yourself in the mirror? If you said yes to these questions then you are on the right track.
Finally, are you healthier? Is your resting heart rate lower? Do you know more about training. Can you effectively do bodyweight exercises on your own? Are you surrounded by others that have similar goals? If you said yes to these you are going to be healthier.
Training should be a compliment in your life and should be yielding measurable results that build a stronger, happier and healthier YOU!
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