Many people are able to follow these programs and know how to do exercises correctly - however, it is important to understand the reasons why you are following a particular program and the purpose of the exercises you are doing.
In this article, I'm going to cover a few basics about training and cover a few things which I hope may help you gain a greater understanding as to why you might follow a particular program or exercise routine.
PROGRAMS vs TRAINING
Most people know how to follow a program, but to really learn how to train is much more than following a piece of paper or written plan.
Nearly all of the programs found online, in magazines, books or by myself or other trainers are written to illustrate a concept, not to teach someone how to train.
As a trainer, my job often involves writing programs or routines for people to follow - but if you don't know how to train or what the objective is, it'd be a waste of your time to follow it.
This is why having a personal trainer is invaluable for those who have not really learnt how to train on their own.
Even if you've been going to the gym a while, people often end up doing random exercises or what I would call a myopic approach to training...e.g: "Let's just see what happens today, work really hard, get a sweat on and hope for the best" and eventually become frustrated and give up.
Let's say I give you directions to my house, but on the way you run into some road works and have to take a different route. You'd probably still have a general plan and know roughly where you're going, but you now have to find your own way.
It's the same with training programs - they are a map - but not the territory itself and it's very easy to get lost along the way.
95% of the results you get in the gym are going to be from how you train, not the program/routine template itself.
TRAINING WITH PURPOSE
Regardless of what your goals may be - aerobic fitness, muscular strength or size, fat loss...etc. the whole purpose of training is to create a physiological response.
What that means is that we use exercise as a means of inducing a certain amount of physical stress on the body so that it responds by adapting to that stress and we gradually increase our ability to tolerate more.
It is this adaptation to the stress of exercise that results in increasing our performance or fitness for the goal we may have.
If your training program or routine can't get you that physiological response, it's worthless. And since your daily physiology changes depending on how you're feeling day to day, your training must have some variability to change in accordance to that.
That is why a strict periodization model - in other words, a piece of paper or strict plan - can never predict how your body will react on a day to day basis, let alone, from set to set or minute by minute.
OVER-COMPENSATION
The reason we see gains in performance during a training session is due to fact our body recovers and super or "over"-compensates by adapting to the stress we induce previously.
During and after an intense training session there is an initial breakdown of muscle fibers and depletion of naturally occurring substances (nutrients..etc.), which leaves the body, nervous system, endocrine system and immune system in a state of fatigue.
From this state of fatigue the body begins to rebuild itself through rest (and nutrition of course) and an increase in what is called protein synthesis, to rebuild the muscle fibers and nervous system back to its original baseline level.
The period from level of fatigue to baseline level is known as compensation.
Now, if we allow for proper recovery from initial
fatigue to the next training session, we will hopefully achieve what is known as super or "over" compensation.
This is where the muscle/nervous system is built up beyond the original baseline, creating a new and improved level of physical condition.
This is the goal of training and the very reason why we exercise.
Realize that exercises, dumbbells, barbells, set and reps are merely just tools we use to induce a physiological response to stress.
TRAINING VARIABLES
- Recovery
- Frequency
- Intensity
- Volume
All these variables pretty much sum up training in a nutshell.
Let's look at each variable briefly....
RECOVERY
Recovery really consists of 2 aspects
A: Local muscle recovery
B: Systemic recovery
B: Systemic recovery
Local muscle recovery - refers to the recovery of individual muscles.
Let's say you train your biceps. The next day your biceps are sore and not as strong as they were the day before.
This is because the local muscles you trained, in this case the biceps, are simply fatigued.
Local muscle recovery is affected by muscle damage, neural fatigue, and energy depletion.
Let's say you train your biceps. The next day your biceps are sore and not as strong as they were the day before.
This is because the local muscles you trained, in this case the biceps, are simply fatigued.
Local muscle recovery is affected by muscle damage, neural fatigue, and energy depletion.
The depletion of energy can usually be replaced rather quickly - as in hours. However, recovery from muscle damage and neural damage can much longer.
If you go in and do a max bench press tomorrow you might not be able to match that effort for 4, 5, 6, 7 days or more.
Systemic recovery - refers to generalized whole body fatigue involving the nervous system, muscular system, immune system, endocrine system and brain that can occur for a variety of reasons.
It involves mood, energy level and other subjective measures.
If your body is a city and a powerplant supplies power to the city, whole body fatigue could be looked at as fatigue of the powerplant. Multiple things can influence it including lack of sleep, stress levels, as well as nutrition.
The amount of both localized and systemic stress we are able to tolerate varies greatly between individuals due to genetics and other environmental factors.
For example; every person has a different skin pigmentation or skin tone.
Some people can sit out in the sun for long periods of time and rarely get sun burnt due to the melanin pigmentation of their skin. Others may get sun burnt easily and have a very limited tolerance to sun exposure due to the difference in skin type.
These differences in our physiology and lifestyles mean that some people have a greater work capacity and tolerance to stress than others - and therefore it would be foolish to prescribe the same rules on recovery to everyone.
Here are some factors which influence our tolerance to exercise that will also determine our recovery needs.
- Red vs White Fiber Ratio
- Tolerance To Pain
- Level Of "Psych"
- Amount Of Rest Since Last Workout
- Perceived Exertion
- Amount Of Eccentric Stress
- Incentive Level
- Strength-To-Weight Ratio
- Time Of Last Meal
- Type Of Foods Eaten At Last Meal
- Use Of Ergogenic Techniques Or Substances
- Musculoskeletal Leverage Factors
- Motor Unit Recruitment Capabilities
- Skill Level At Exercise Being Performed
- Equipment Quality & Design
- Environmental Factors (e.g., Heat, Cold, etc.)
- Size Of Muscle Being Exercised
- Various Intra- and Extracellular Biochemical Factors
- How close you are to your maximum potential in size or strength
FREQUENCY
Frequency, as the name suggests, simply refers to how often you train.
It is largely dependent on recovery - for example; if you are training very intensely, you may not be able to repeat the same level of intensity as frequently due to the recovery required.
Once again, the frequency of exercise is determined by not only the type of exercises we are doing, but our own individual tolerance to exercise stress.
INTENSITY
Intensity is what drives the majority of the training effect and in many ways is probably the most important parameter.
There are two types of intensity -
A) Relative Intensity
B) Perceived Intensity or "level of effort"
Keep in mind that the term intensity is often used interchangeable to describe both of these, which is often confusing for people.
Relative Intensity - is simply how much load your working with relative to your maximum.
If you bench press 100kg for 1 repetition and are lifting 60kg, your intensity is 60%. If you're lifting 90kg, you're working at 90%.
This can also be applied to cardiovascular/aerobic exercise as well where we can use relative intensity based on your maximum heart rate which is often calculated based on a person's age, gender and weight.
Perceived Intensity - is how much psychological and physical effort you are exerting. In other words how hard something "feels" based on your perception.
The lifter who has a 100kg bench press lifting 60kg could actually put more effort into the set than they could lifting 90kg.
So it is possible to have a high perceived intensity with a low relative intensity and vice versa.
In simple terms - intensity refers to the level of difficulty you're working at.
VOLUME
While intensity determines the majority of the training effect, volume on the other hand determines the magnitude or extent of that effect.
Volume is simply the amount of overall work you do.
For example; if you do 3 sets of 10 reps, your volume would be 30.
If you jog for an hour - your volume would be determined by the amount of steps you took over that time period.
The relationship between volume and intensity is closely linked.
Generally speaking, a higher volume approach requires a drop in intensity and vice versa.
If you've been around a while, you may have heard the maxim - "You can train hard or you can train long, but you can't do both".
In other words, it's very difficult to do both high volume and high intensity together.
As you can see from the graph below, there has to be a balance between each of these training variables in order for super-compensation to occur. Training with too much or too little volume, intensity or frequency can hinder your progress.
SUMMARY
Hopefully this has given you a brief overview on training.
While some of these points may seem unfamiliar to you or confusing - if there is one thing I want people to take away from this blurb is that the purpose of exercise is simply to create a physiological response to stress. RECOVERY from exercise is where the magic happens, not the exercise itself.
The amount of reps, sets, exercises, duration, frequency, volume, intensity...etc. are all just tools we use in order to create this response and each of us have different needs, different goals as well as differences in our ability to tolerate exercise stress.
If you are serious about getting optimal results from your time in the gym, you cannot expect to follow some random training approach or "workout of the day" type program and expect everything to magically fall into place.
As a trainer, my job is to guide you based on the feedback and observations I see, with an emphasis on improving your performance progressively.
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