5 reasons why your training program is not working
Here's what you need to know...
- Choose a program and follow it. If you don't follow a program for at least 12 weeks, then you don't have the right to say it doesn't work.
- If you want to get lean, then take three months to tighten up your diet and put together a program to increase density over time.
- If you want to build mass, increase calories and focus on heavy basic exercises in higher repetition ranges.
- If problems with proper exercise execution are holding you back, take 2 to 3 months to focus on how you perform your exercises and to correct your exercise execution.
- Monitor fatigue, sleep, muscle soreness, stress levels and mood by rating them on a scale of 1 to 5 to customize each individual training session.
- Active recovery almost always trumps passive recovery.
No plan, no progress!
Some training programs are really, really good. All you have to do is look at these programs and you'll see exactly what the exerciser or trainer is trying to accomplish.
And on the other hand, you'll see some training programs that are really, really bad. They are nothing more than a mishmash of random training techniques and exercises with no real focus or real goal.
Here are the top 5 reasons you're not making progress with your current training plan and what you can do to rectify the situation, starting with the most obvious reason.
1 - You don't have a program
Here's a discussion I recently had with a young exerciser:
"Mike, I'm simply not seeing any progress."
"That's stupid. Tell me about your program. What are you focusing on?"
"Well, I haven't set up a program yet..."
The guy was complaining about the fact that he couldn't see any progress when he wasn't even following a training program! You must have a program - and preferably one that focuses on a specific goal.
In a perfect world, a trainer will put together a program for you that focuses on your specific strengths and weaknesses. But even if you don't have the luxury of having a trainer, the internet is full of programs that work.
The key is to pick a program and follow it. As a general rule, if you haven't followed a program for at least 12 weeks, you don't have the right to say it doesn't work.
2 - Your program doesn't have a clear focus
As an exerciser, you probably want everything at once. You want to be muscular, have defined abs and handle huge weights like a powerlifter...all at the same time. Come back to reality. All of this is definitely possible, but it won't happen overnight.
And, probably more importantly, you won't follow a single program to achieve all of these goals.
This is no different for aspiring coaches. The more they learn, the more they want to incorporate into a program. You use glycolytic intervals to get your clients leaner, maximal effort work to get them strong, and forced repetitions and occlusion training to achieve maximal hypertrophy. The bad news is that her clients make little - or no - progress when they train this way.
Pick a goal and really focus on that goal!
The three month rule works well here too. Do you want to get slim? Take three months to streamline your diet and design a program that increases the intensity of your workouts over time.
Want to bulk up? Increase your calories and focus on heavy training in higher repetition ranges. And don't pull your tail when the time comes to train hard - no one said this was going to be easy.
And if you just want to get brutally strong, find a system that works for you and stick with it. 5/3/1, Westside, Sheiko - they all work. But they won't work if you're jumping back and forth from one to another with each subsequent training cycle.
3 - You're moving poorly
Even though "corrective exercise" is experiencing some headwinds right now, this basic premise cannot be ignored:
If you move like crap when you perform exercises, then regardless of your goals, you're not going to see the types of progress you want to see.
You don't have to do years of corrective exercise to see changes. The more we learn about the brain and nervous system, the more we see that immediate changes and improvements in the way a person moves are possible. And that's pretty darn cool.
If your issues with proper movements in your exercise performance are holding you back, or if you're one of those people who feels continuously flattened or constantly injured, try taking 2 to 3 months to focus on how you move and how you can improve your movement patterns.
Dave Tate uses a "movement quality/mobility" training block once a year. After this he moves on to the cooler goals such as strength, mass or definition.
Try taking the bar off your back and doing "goblet squats" or front squats with two kettlebells. Swap heavy presses for push-up variations. Shunt out your boring core exercises and do something more challenging for the whole body like Turkish get-ups or kettlebell windmills.
Heck, you can even use many of your favorite exercises and perform them in a half-kneeling position and reap some serious benefits. It's not the sexiest thing you'll ever do, but dedicating a dedicated period of time to focus on movement quality will improve your gains on virtually every training program you'll perform after this.
4 - You don't autoregulate
Although many people think of autoregulation as an advanced training concept, it doesn't necessarily have to be. In fact, a large part of autoregulation is nothing more than old-fashioned common sense.
Okay, you got drunk to the point of senselessness last night? Then it's probably not the best idea to do a squat workout today. Are your stress levels high because your dog died, your girlfriend left you and you've just lost your job? Then take a day off from heavy iron or just do some light recovery training.
There are many subjective recovery trackers you can use to improve your training:
- Fatigue
- sleep quality
- muscle soreness
- stress level
- Mood
Rate each of these on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the worst, 5 being the best) and monitor the sum of all factors as well as the individual factors.
Over the course of a few weeks, you will begin to observe trends in your training, recovery, etc. and be able to adjust each individual training session to a higher degree to your current situation.
The next level up would be something more objective like heart rate variability. There are mobile versions of the HVR software and these can help you fine tune your training even further.
Regardless, if you're not getting the most out of your current training program, do your best to autoregulate and push your body on the days it's ready for it and slow down a bit on the days it's not.
5 - Your recovery is poor
Recovery is the red-headed stepchild in the training world. Everyone knows it's there, but no one wants to acknowledge its existence.
In my world, I'm spending more and more time emphasizing the vital importance of recovery between workouts because the old adage still holds true, "It's not how hard you train, it's how well you can recover."
A cheap and easy way to improve recovery is to incorporate light workouts into your training week. This could be circuit training or a standard active recovery workout such as walking on the treadmill, riding the cycle ergometer or rowing on the rowing machine.
Active recovery almost always trumps passive recovery.
Having said that, don't neglect the most basic aspect of recovery - sleep. Many exercisers want all the cool regeneration and recovery protocols, while at the same time they only get four hours of sleep per night and their sleep quality is poor to very poor
If you are sleeping poorly or too little, then this is by far the most important thing you should change to improve your training. There is no need to list all the commonly used techniques for better sleep as you have heard them a hundred times before. Just use them!
By Mike Robertson | 01/28/15
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/5-reasons-your-program-isnt-working