Consistency in Training
Hi all! Hope everyone is having a relaxing and fun break thus far! I wanted to make this post to the convey the importance of trying your best to maintain a consistent workout routine over the holidays, as well as the fundamental way in which we can all approach weight training in order to grow and improve ahead of the upcoming season.
The importance of consistency. Even though the holidays are a great time to eat away your pain from exams, doing some form of physical stimulus is important for a number of reasons. Keeping a schedule with your workouts is important as missing a number of days in a row can not only decrease the positive metabolic aspects, but eventually skipping exercise can affect motivation, endurance, and increase chance of injury. In a New York Times article, Dr. Michael Joyner, a physiologist at the Mayo Clinic, points out that your endurance can fade if you skip exercising for too many days in a row. One of the main benefits of keeping to a routine, is that it is much easier to maintain your motivation to go to the gym the next day. Exercising haphazardly can not only affect the quality of the workout, but also the desire to work out again. Also, there is some evidence that injury rates can rise after taking a multiple day break. A 2011 study of circus performers found that two-day breaks between performances lessened injury rates, but the rates rose again if the performers rested for three or more days (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20561270).
As we approach the second fit test and our boat season, it is important to work effectively towards improvement in the various compound lifts. Progressive Overload is perhaps one of the most important principles in achieving weightlifting goals. Your body will only ever change or improve if you create an environment that stimulates this growth. In order for muscle to grow, strength to be gained, performance to increase, the human body must be forced to adapt to a tension that is above and beyond what was previously experienced. If you’ve been working out for some time now, you may find that you’ve reached a plateau and that the gains aren’t coming as easy as they once did. This is because the more you do something, the more your body becomes desensitized to it. You now may be reaching this point where you’ve grown accustomed to the typical way in which you’re working out.
There are two main ways we can look to achieve progressive overload: either increasing strength (increasing amount of weight you can lift) or increasing reps. So, if you’ve been benching 135 for 3 sets of 8, next time try 145, and overtime push to 155. By doing this you are pushing your body to lift weight that it’s never done before, shocking the muscle. Doing more demanding rep schemes within your workouts may also be effective in increasing the intensity and challenge of the workouts. Also, decreasing rest times between sets may be an effective method of progressively overloading. A study that looked at rest intervals in weight training found that there are benefits to using short rest times for improving muscular endurance, which will be particularly important in the boat season (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19691365).
I know it may be difficult to spend hours in the gym over the break, so here are a few full body circuits to try out over the next couple of weeks. I’ve attached a few different levels of difficulty (and different lengths), all of which can be done at home with no equipment!
Beginner (20 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UItWltVZZmE
Intermediate (10 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQKIczEj8m4
Advanced (20-minute intense workout): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeGrTqW5lek
All that being said, I hope everyone has an amazing and restful holiday (with workouts)! See you all in the New Year.