Thriving vs. Surviving
Have you ever thought about what happens as a result of your training session? Are you better for it? Seriously, have you ever stopped and considered the actual outcome of each session?
A well-designed training program will help someone get a little closer to their goals. Regardless of the goal, whether it is fat loss, strength, mobility or improving posture, each session should progress the trainee just slightly, thus getting them closer to their desired outcome. This is what I would refer to as thriving from the session. However, even though some individuals get a huge sense of satisfaction from barely surviving the training session, they never stop to consider if it actually helped them get closer to their goals or made them better in some way. In this article, I want to address the concept of thriving vs. just surviving in your own training/exercising program.
First, thriving – As I mentioned before, a well-designed training program will essentially help the trainee become better. Fundamentally, as a result of a good program and adherence to the program, the trainee will improve their flexibility, increase their mobility, clean up asymmetries, improve their strength, and attain their personal goals. This improvement should not be confused with the old mentality of “if a little is good, then more must be better and if more is better than lots and lots must be the best.” Back in my days of coaching high school kids, one of the first things I figured out was the volume of exercise was way too high and the athletes were run into the ground. Because of their constant over-trained state, they were never able to attain their true potential. By cutting their volume down by 50% (or more in some instances) and focusing on quality over quantity, I was able to bring over a dozen kids to the CIF championships. Please, avoid misunderstanding me by thinking that this is easy. Just because a program’s focus is on quality over quantity, by no means does it mean that it will be easy. In fact, it may be very tough on some days and lighter on others. Some days in the program may have more volume or more intensity and some may have less. In the end though, the goal should always be quality over quantity. In this instance, and in the instance of all well-designed training programs, the goal must be to enhance the trainee’s life and help them feel better, look better and/or perform better. In a nutshell, this is thriving from a training program.
On the other hand, there is just surviving a training program. For the life of me, I can’t understand the old school mentality of “more is better.” It absolutely blows my mind that huge populations of people truly believe that if they barely survive a training session, then it “was a good workout,” and they really benefited from it. Listen, Ladies and Gents, I (or any coach for that matter) can always make something harder. We can always design a program where people have to crawl to their cars when they are finished or make something so unbelievably hard that the trainee can barely walk for an entire week afterwards. Enjoy vomiting? Sure I’ve got just the program for you!
My question to you is this: do you really think this will help you get closer to your goals? Again, please realize who this is coming from. I know hard training. I’ve been lifting weights since I was 12, I started heavy weightlifting over 10 years ago and I competed in power-lifting for 7 years. I’ve trained among some of the best and “baddest” in the world and I know all about barely surviving training sessions. But did these sessions always make me better? The answer is flat out no! Some days, after training then sleeping for 12 straight hours, I could still barely get out of bed. My body felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I once trained my calves so hard that I couldn’t extend my lower leg and touch my heel to the floor for a week. Imagine walking on your toes for 5 straight days. I could go on and on, but the point here is not for me to tell war stories, but to get you to think and hopefully open up to the idea that a “good workout” does not have to mean you barely survived it. Sure, I’m all for pushing someone and for reaching beyond my comfort zone and the comfort zone of all the clients I work with. Sometimes by pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zones, we can grow and expand to become more than we ever thought possible. I just do not think that this should be done every single time you train.
In my own training program and the training of the typical member at Imagine If, I usually build in 2-4 peak sessions within one micro cycle. A micro cycle usually lasts about 4 weeks. What this means is that each full macro cycle lasts about 12-16 weeks, and within each macro cycle are 3-4 micro cycles and within each micro cycle are 2-4 training sessions that should push the trainee beyond their comfort zone; which only equates to about 25% of the training days being peak workouts in any typical month.
When it’s all done and said, I believe that you should thrive from your training program. Sure, some days will be tough; you should be pushing yourself toward personal excellence and you should also be better as a result of your program. The easiest way to figure this out is to ask yourself two questions:
1) Are you getting closer to your goals as a result of your program? Basically, is it working?
2) Upon the completion of your training, how do you feel? 90% of the time you should feel better than when you started. If you constantly feel sick, tired, weak or lethargic your program may need to be adjusted.
Hopefully, as a result of this brief article, you now have a new perspective on training, gained some insight into your own program, and possibly you are now open to the idea that thriving from your training might be better than just surviving it.