Every so often I’ll get in a client who was a jock of some sort in a former life.  Either they played ball in high school or college, or they had some experience on a professional or semi-professional level.  But the story is nearly the same in every case: Through accumulated or acute injury or life circumstance, they stopped playing and gained a ton of weight.

Being a former fit person, they attack the weights with unusual vigor.  The second workout finds them considerably more gun-shy than the first, due to crippling soreness.  “What happened?”, they ask.  “I used to lift twice as much as this.  I used to work out 20 times harder and still made every late-night party on campus.”

My typical advice:  Forget “used to.”  But this doesn’t just follow for former athletes.  This applies to trainees across the board.

It applies to you if you obsess about the size of jeans you wore back in high school (that, sadly, you’ll never fit in again).

It applies to you if you stubbornly chase a poundage you used to lift last year, back before you sustained injuries to both your shoulders and left wrist.

It applies to you if you complain that every time you used to get a little too fat all you needed to do was run a couple of times a week without changing your diet.

Maybe that’s the way things used to be.  But they aren’t that way now.

“Used to” is self-limiting because it keeps you from the difficult but necessary work of addressing reality.  Maybe things aren’t as they used to be, but that doesn’t change the fact that right now you’re not where you want to be.  Worse, getting stuck in “used to” blinds you to the actions that you need to take right now, when the rules of the game have changed.

Forget “used to.”  Focus on “need to”, right now.

The surest way to lose focus during an exercise is to judge yourself on that exercise.   Instead, get “mechanistic.”  Focus on what you can actually do, as opposed to your emotional reactions to the exercise.

Don’t think, “Damn, this weight feels heavy.”  Instead, think, “Drive your heels through the floor; be patient; make it happen.”

Don’t think, “I’m not doing this exercise well.”  Think, “Tight on this next rep; go!”

Don’t think, “Boy, that was a tough rep.”  Think, “Breathe.  Stabilize your core.  Get ready.”

Ignore what you feel.  Think about what you can do.

Focus on the movement and not your emotions.  Remember, progress isn’t linear and you’re bound to have some bad days.  That doesn’t give you a bye.  In fact, it’s slogging through that crappy workout and getting it done that will ultimately lead to your best performances.

I’m not implying that you shouldn’t adjust your pace if you feel you’re plowing through a conditioning circuit more slowly than last time or that you should ignore all feedback from your body.  But to allow yourself to self-criticize when you’re still in the game (i.e., still exercising) is to enter into a spiral that will eventually lead to the thought, “Who am I kidding?  I can’t do this.“  And, lo and behold, you won’t.  Not motivating, not results-producing, not effective.

Stay focused.  Exercise impeccable technique.  Get your numbers down.

A fellow trainer (name withheld) asks me how I can be so nice to my clients all the time, even when it’s clear they aren’t even trying.

The answer’s simple:  To them, they are trying.  They don’t know how far they are from fulfilling their potential.  In fact, their actual “potential” is as inconceivable to them as beating Deep Blue with a couple of pawns is to me (BTW, I’m horrible at chess).

There are two truisms for novice trainees I’d like to invoke here:

Truism #1:  You’re probably not exercising as hard as you think you are.

Truism#2 (the more important one, IMHO):  Not only are you not exercising as hard as you think you are, you’re not even working hard enough to produce meaningful results.  So there.

But that’s ok, because the initial beginner period isn’t about working hard or “losing 26 1/2 pounds in 2 weeks” or whatever.  It’s about obtaining technical proficiency in the exercises you’re doing, and about learning to care.

Daniel Coyle describes a young girl learning a new piece of music.  He writes:

It sounds pretty bad.  It’s not music; it’s a broken-up, fitful, slow-motion batch of notes riddled with stops and misses.  Common sense would lead us to believe that Clarissa is failing.  But in this case common sense would be dead wrong.

He argues:

…experiences where you’re forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them…end up making you swift and graceful without your realizing it.

What this implies for a novice trainee is:

1) Their ability to exercise safely with effort is a skill that needs to be practiced.  Over and over and over again, if necessary (and it usually is).

2) Prepare for a long period of “suck” at the beginning.

Most normal people (”normal” meaning not unhealthly obsessed with the intermittent lifting of heavy things) don’t see the value in grinding out an arduous set of say, squats, for a “meager gain” of an extra pound or two (or five).  Luckily, this is as trainable as the ability to actually grind out an arduous yet technically proficient set of squats.  Whether it’s because you tie the exercise to your goals (”Press that weight up – it’s short-sleeves weather!”) or because you become a fitness savant, familiarity in this case breeds self-motivation.  People naturally want to be effective (even if the outcome isn’t necessarily so).

But the rub is that long period of “suck.”  Almost always accompanied by much whining, complaining, cajoling, and gnashing and wailing.  Change – particularly important change – is hard.  And so it’s nice to have a pleasant guide doling out the beatings.

So if you or someone you know is just starting out in their exercise and nutrition odyssey, be patient.  Some people just have to wade through more “suck”  than others.

(The irony – I’ve been deadlifting for years and am still wading through my deadlift “suck.”)

Most people believe that operating an SUV with the windows open is more fuel efficient than running it with the A/C cranked.  But if you run tests and gather actual data, you’ll find the opposite to be true (legions of sweaty passengers thank you, Savage and Hyneman).

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a field more built on mythology than exercise.  I doubt you’d be able to come up a similar industry that so often takes hearsay for gospel.  Perhaps this is why trainers and customers alike so readily fall for the latest fitness fads.

Back to the point:  Take what you hear as “fitness and nutrition gospel” with a grain of salt (for example, the admonition that salt raises blood pressure).  Am I saying that you should throw away your running shoes, junk your weights set, or eschew fruits and veggies for fried Coke and potato wedges?  No – well, maybe you could stand to stop running – but what I am saying is that you are responsible for your own health and well being.  Don’t blindly trust news outlets with overhyped headlines (really just press releases from labs hawking their latest wares).  Read the studies yourself.  Probe deeper than the surface.  And do yourself a favor and don’t stop at the written word – put it into practice.  Keith Norris’ blog (good blog, BTW) puts it perfectly – Theory Into Practice.

Your life is really just one big experiment with a subject population of n=1.  So go gather some data.  Test yourself.

An awful lot of money is spent on promoting the whiz-bang, glamorous image of being fit, strong, and healthy.  What you don’t see promoted is the diligence required to get there.

Here, in no particular order, are some inconvenient truths about going from looking like this to this:

1. It takes the patience of a stonecutter, the steadfastness of a zealot, and the determination of an action movie hero.

2. It’s physically uncomfortable (some clients of mine would say, “It HURTS.”).

3.  The process can’t be gamed; in other words, working out 12 hours one day doesn’t get you as far as working out for an hour consistently over the course of 12 days.

4. Consistency is key.  Consistency (particularly in proper nutrition) will get you farther than waiting until you’ve got the perfect diet and workout plan in place.

and finally,

5. Progress isn’t exciting, extraordinary, or even entertaining.  In fact, progress can be pretty darn boring (”Ok, meat and vegetables yet again.”  “Another 2 pounds on the overhead press – yippee.”).

If it were easy, comfortable, and effortless, then America would look like one big Abercrombie and Fitch ad (heaven forfend).

I woke up today desperately wishing I hadn’t.  I’m sure you know the feeling – everything hurts, and it feels like it takes all the strength in the world to walk those 5 steps or so into the bathroom and start your day.

All day, I had a voice inside my head telling me, “You’re tired.  You’re overdoing it.  You can’t keep this up.  Take it easy today.”  Later, the voice chimed, “Skip your workout.”

While training clients – “Skip your workout today.”

During meals – “Skip your workout today.”

So what did I do?  I took Stephan Kesting’s advice and worked out anyway.  I proceeded to lift a little bit more than I did last time – it went up surprisingly easily.

Do yourself a favor.  Ignore the voice.  If you’re hurt or sick, then you get a pass.

Yesterday a client asked me if I listened to my iPod during my workouts, to which I responded, “Never.”  Incredulous, she asked how I managed to block out external distractions (like other people, for instance) while strength training, and my embarassingly lame response was, “I don’t know; I guess I just focus.”

Aside: I learned how to focus when I cut my teeth in my local college’s gym years ago.  Being the sole 12 year old Asian nerd in a sweathog gym with college linebackers walking around, you quickly learn to be aware of and yet ignore loud, sweaty dudes throwing iron all around you.

You may hem and haw about how much you don’t like to exercise.  You can complain all you want about how much work lifting weights is.  You can cry and moan all you want about how unfair it is that you have to keep working out, over and over and over again, lest you lose your hard-earned muscle.  Heck, you can even whine between exercises.  But when it comes down to the work, don’t meta-exercise.  Focus on your efforts, keeping your technique as perfect as possible.

Meta-exercise?

It’s a made-up term, of course.  It refers to meta-level (or abstract) discussion of exercise.  As in:

• Saying to yourself, “It’s too heavy” before you pick up the weight
• Thinking about whether or not you should use machines, free weights, kettlebells, or other human bodies
• Worrying about whether or not your program is too simple/complex/long/short
• Arguing over the Internet over whether single or multiple sets of an exercise are required for optimum muscle growth

…in lieu of exhibiting consistency, discipline, and effort in an actual nutrition and exercise program.

All of these things are great distractions from getting down to business – i.e., the actual process of exercising.  Don’t meta-exercise.  Focus, and get things done.

A client of mine (name withheld*) related to me an interesting anecdote with regards to guitar playing:

I read or heard somewhere that if you practice a piece but allow mistakes to seep in, all you’re doing is practicing mistakes.   If you take 40 minutes to play a 20 note passage perfectly, you’ve practiced it once.  If you go – Do do do do do do *slop* “Damn!” Do do do do do do do do do do *slop* ” Crap!” – then you’ve already practiced making that mistake twice.  Your brain doesn’t know the difference between playing the piece properly or not (sic); you’ve got to teach it the right way to play.

What n.w. is saying is that practice doesn’t make perfect.  Perfect practice makes perfect.

Why is this an important concept?  Because it directly applies to lifting a heavy (for you) weight.

The act of lifting a weight (i.e., performing a resistance training exercise) is a skill.  And just like a difficult passage in an Albeniz piece, performing a resistance training exercise poorly by jerking or heaving the weight (vs lifting it strongly and smoothly), whipping your body around (vs holding yourself stable), or involving every single muscle in your body (in the wrong way) is not only is a poor showing for that particular exercise bout, but sets the stage for imperfect practice later on as well.

The moral: Treat every rep (yes, every rep) as an opportunity to deliver perfect form.  Will your form be perfect?  No – especially if you’re new to strength training or you’re on your last reps – but that’s not the point.  Your attempts at maintaining perfect form – that’s the point.

Incidentally, this also means that the last rep you can do in good form is the last rep you should do.  Yes, you should sometimes push the envelope – flip the switch, so to speak – but be sure you’ve learned good great technique first.

Of course, I’m not the only one to advocate this.  Pavel has been preaching the virtues of treating your weight training as skill work for at least the last 20 years (as I’m sure my friend Nikita will be happy to hear me admit).

Treat every rep with respect.  Perform the initial, easy, warm-up reps of your exercise as skill rehearsal.  Make all the “working” reps of your exercise as perfect as possible.  And please, hold it together in your final “death-throes” reps – for your safety’s sake.  OK – practice time!

*While I’m not at liberty to say who this is, take it from me that as a world-renowned guitarist for a multi-platinum selling band, he knows what he’s talking about.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly trainees want to do new exercises, particularly when they haven’t mastered the basics.  I suppose it’s endemic to our culture of “more is better” that a routine is judged on how many exercises are done.  For example, a good routine for say, chest might be a few sets of incline press, a set or two of decline presses, and some cable crossovers for good measure.

I say:  Forget how many exercises are done.  Focus on doing the basic exercises better.  Then, once you’re really cooking on the basics, add in exercises one at a time, based on your goals.

Is this tedious?  I suppose it can be.  But it’s necessary.  Lifting a weight safely and effectively involves more than just getting it from point A to point B.  The biceps curl isn’t just about mindlessly bringing the dumbbell up to your shoulders and letting it fall back down.  Tighten your abs.  Keep your shoulders in position.  Maintain an athletic stance.  Lower the weight under control, smoothly. Don’t just let it bully you down, fight it.

Seems simple, doesn’t it?  But simple doesn’t mean easy, or that it’s even done.  All too often I’ll see someone struggling through an advanced exercise like a clean and press, when it’s woefully apparent that they wouldn’t even be able to deadlift that same weight, because they don’t understand the concept of neutral spine (aka, “keeping your back slightly arched”).  Or someone who’s looking to lose a few pounds being coached through an agility drill.  Agility?  I thought you were trying to lose a couple of pounds, not make the varsity tennis team.

Work on the basics first.  Get really solid on the fundamentals of lifting a weight.  Master an exercise or two, then add new ones.  You’ll get much more out of them in the long run.

Body transformation is a long-term proposition.  But in those in-between moments when you’re eating and exercising properly and it looks like nothing is happening, it can be tough.  One useful method of tricking yourself into doing the right thing when your willpower is low is create an event for yourself.

Goals have the power of motivating you to action, provided they’re vivid and tangible.  Having your doctor tell you you’ve got to lose a few pounds to avoid having a heart attack like your brother did might be a powerful motivator for some. But it’s not nearly as strong as knowing you’ve got a Grand Canyon trip booked for July and you’re currently 20 pounds too heavy for the burros to carry; oh, and did I mention they like to walk right on the cliff edge of the trails?

Set a specific event-directed goal.  It could be to lose 3 inches around your waist by May 1st.  Or to attain a body weight of 168.5 lbs by the next jiujitsu tournament.  Or to lose 23 lbs by Sept 27th, your next paintball outing with friends.   Now that you’ve got the goal, treat it as a sporting event.  Pretend you’re an athlete in training, and treat your event like your personal Olympic run.  Plan out your workouts in advance, stick to your diet regimen, execute both with ruthless consistency.

Training for something always trumps “just training.”