At the beginning of this past week I asked a lot of you to think about how you feel and decide if you need to dial things back a bit or if you feel great and want to keep pushing. I personally know that it’s sometimes hard to know one way or the other, but it’s really important to give it some thought. I noticed a lot of you thinking about whether you felt tired or sore or drained, and making some choices based on that. Or some of you knew that you were just getting back on track and feeling ready to push hard. All are right options, because we all need to take our real, actual life into account when planning our training.
Our goal is to focus on quality not quantity. Anyone can train hard and randomly every day, but you’ll get much more out of training hard and thoughtfully 4 times a week. And it will be easier to maintain with a better chance of consistency and less chance of injury. Deloading weeks and active recovery days are important and they work best when they are planned intelligently within your program. But this is group exercise we’re doing here, so you also need to keep your own individual body and schedule in mind.
Maybe your sleep is terrible or you are feeling really achy or sluggish. Maybe you’ve been eating less or worse than normal for a bit. All these are signs that you should pay attention to when figuring out how to proceed. Pay attention to how your body feels and ease off when you need it. Your body knows best and it will tell you when it’s time, you just have to listen.
On the same note, us telling you that you have to deload or have a rest day when you’ve only been making it to the gym 2 times a week doesn’t make sense either. If the sun is finally shining and you are feeling awesome and super energetic no one should be telling you to hold back or tone it down.
Individually we’re all pretty complicated and the only way we can figure out what’s best for our bodies is to consider our lifestyle in conjunction with our training. We do not just do this thing as hard as we can until we burn out. We happen to be particularly interested in trying to figure out the most effective way to train, together as a group, week in and week out without getting injured and at an intensity level where we continue to make progress. The main idea is smarter not harder.
Our program is planned to enable you to push hard throughout your Monday/Tuesday training sessions, have an active recovery day on Wednesday, and push hard through Thurs/Fri/Sat. with a rest day on Sunday. However, summer is upon us, and many people will likely eliminate a number of weekend training sessions for the next several months. Many people will also not be training 4-5 days a week. So we’ve decided to give you the option to do the Saturday conditioning workouts on Wednesdays throughout the summer. If you come on both those days, the lifting option is still there for you on Saturday.
I’d like to encourage you to sit down at the beginning of each of these summer months and have a look at your schedule and what’s going on in your life. Are you taking a week long holiday? Going hard in your training before that long break would be great to plan for. Are you at the lake every weekend? Try to think of a way you can get 30 minutes to an hour of steady state conditioning in during those times to maintain your progress. Are you planning your parents 50th wedding anniversary party? Maybe don’t try to max out your 98×1 front squat that week.
Try not to just spend the next three months flying by the seat of your pants. Own the fact that training is part of your lifestyle. Sometimes it’s gonna be less and sometimes more, but it will always be a very important part.