If you are anything like me, you want results quickly. Not just that, you likely want results the most efficient way. When you shoot for efficiency, every action has to have a clear reason and a clear outcome. I, for one, try to look for ways to improve my return on investment on many different things.
To look for hacks & shortcuts is a great mindset. Unfortunately, it can lead to bullshit salesmen advice or "gurus" that promise a lot but provide little, if any, results. The QualityFit-team works hard to prove themselves better than that. My expertise as a head coach came through studying biology, sport science, private conversations with a hand full of world-class coaches, pushing my limits successfully for over a decade, and coaching hundreds of people at QualityFit for the last seven years.
To help you get more efficient with your training & diet, I provide you a list of tips below. Most gym-goers do not pay attention to these tips. Once they do, the results improve quickly, or they get the same results with less time invested. I am confident you will experience the same improvements incorporating some, preferably all, of these tips.
Avoid going all-in & all-out
It is very common for me to see people training very hard, even be close to perfect with nutrition, for 3-5 weeks followed by 4-16 weeks of minimal training or diet attention. "Next week, I'll be "perfect" again coach, you know me: when I go hard, I go hard! "Is what I'll hear for months on end. Unfortunately, this leads to little long-term progress even though these people have put a fair amount of work in. Going for a more sustainable method is crucial.
Consider this for a quick analogy: you make 20.000 € in a month, and the rest of the year, you either lose money each month or barely break even. You know this won't make you rich. Now, if you were to make more money every month, you could get there for sure. Results & habits that are sustainable for YOU (not someone else) can get you continuous progress as long as you pick them intelligently! Competitive guys never like hearing this, but this rule applies to pretty much everyone.
Consider fixed training days
When you want to commit to a particular training program, let's say one with three sessions per week. It pays to have fixed days (e.g., Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday ). Most of our work/life schedules have some structure and routine. The specific day of the week is likely correlated to this routine. People who commit to fixed days tend to miss fewer sessions. This leads to a higher chance of you staying the course. Plus these people have much more consistent and better progress. If you have to miss a day, you can try to catch up the next day if your schedule allows such flexibility. But for most, it's better to accept the one loss and get back on your fixed days asap. The overall habit is more important than a single event.
Keep looking for ways to improve your technique
To get the best results, you want to create the most stimulus with each exercise you do. People like to analyze programs, rep-schemes, rest periods,… It's far rarer to see people fine-tune their technique to where every rep is highly effective.
It's understandable; most people want to train and not think that much. They wildly underestimate the effectiveness of poor vs. perfect form. On top of that, let's be honest, most people in the gym have lousy form. It's natural to copy others around you. The cool thing is the better your technique or form, the less work you need for the same results. To develop the most efficient form:
- Look for a large range of motion; your mobility should limit how deep you squat, leg press, shoulder press, … You shouldn't stop arbitrarily; either your mobility or the bar touching your body should stop you. "The weight is too heavy" is not a valid excuse here. This simply means you aren't ready for that weight just yet. Going down as deep as possible is key for close to all exercises.
- Control the descent, don't just rapidly go up & down. When lowering the weight, control it for 1- 2 seconds. This controlled descent followed by a powerful ascent leaves you with a stimulus from the weight going up and down.
- Don't just move the bar/dumbbell/machine. Your form should look like you are trying to put all the effort into the target muscle. For example, Your elbows should be in ( no external shoulder rotation) when doing triceps work, or your arms should barely bend when doing lateral raises. Perfecting your technique takes some time and might seem boring, but it will pay off big time.
Compare yourself to yourself and no one else
All the nutrition and training knowledge in the world won't help you achieve a good physique if you don't have the motivation to do anything. A sure-fire way to burn yourself out is to compare your progress to others, to then feel bad about yourself. Seeing others do well can be motivating and something to aspire to. However, it can make you feel like a loser if you personalize the difference too much.
We all have different lives, challenges to overcome, perks in our favor, and so on. It doesn't help your enjoyment of your fitness journey, and thus your motivation, to compare yourself to people with totally different schedules, genetics, training age, etc.
Do not bullshit yourself. If you can easily do more work and it's important to you: go out there and do more work. But do it for yourself, only compare yourself to who you were yesterday, last week, last year. Seek to do better and notice when there is an improvement. Be proud of it! Give these tips some thought and see which ones you want to incorporate. Number 2 and 3 take some work. Now you don't need to get it 100% right from the get-go. Work into it. The other two tips might take some time to accept fully. I'll leave you with this: these tips have made a big difference for a wide variety of people. Intelligent people and less intelligent ones, successful, strong & old, advanced & beginner. Consider giving them a shot, and let me know how it goes! Whether it was helpful or if you think they are trash. In which case you have my permission to leave mean comments on my socials ;) Get out there: have fun, kick ass & progress!