PRECISION TRAINING

The last newsletter I was talking about Offset Momentum Training, which is a concept of training whereby you forget about perfect technique and ideal training circumstances.

This month is the opposite. Now I want to talk about Precision Training. Like Offset Momentum Training, Precision Training is a concept. It is a training mentality, a mindset you can have for every workout. You can choose one, and dedicate yourself to it. These concepts can be applied to most of the exercises you are already doing, that’s why I don’t need to talk much about the actual exercises themselves.

If I max out at 20 reps of a certain exercise one week, and I max out at 22 reps the next, for me, this is a good result! There were 2 reps that I was physically incapable of doing the week prior, that’s a real improvement! My improvement of two reps may seem slow, but it’s real. So how do I know for sure that I improved by 2 reps?

Because I trained in the same circumstances as I did the week before. So, last week, I did my exercise in the following circumstances:

• I performed 2×20 reps of my exercise, that’s all, no other exercises, but doing a different exercise each day. 
• I did it in the afternoon on a Wednesday, with a week’s rest until I did it again. 
• I used a tempo of 2-1-2 (e.g. if it’s a push-up you go down for 2 seconds, hold for 1 second at the bottom, and take 2 seconds to come back up) .
• I avoided muscular failure (I stopped about 2 reps shy of failure) 
• My technique for the exercise was correct. 
• My rest times between my 2 sets were a strict 5 minutes. 
• My warm-up for the exercise was 2 easy sets of simpler exercise. 

The next week, on Wednesday, I did the same exercise under the same circumstances. But this time, I performed 2 repetitions more than last week. This is Precision Training, training week in week out with the same circumstances in order to see instantly if improvements are being made. After all, if you have no goals or focus on your gym visits, then it may be difficult to sustain any motivation.

If you are using a gym programme, say 3 times a week, you can use the above rules for your programme, but they do not need to be exactly the same as the ones I listed e.g. same tempo, same rest time. To go by this mentality of training, requires patience, dedication and precision, it’s a great way to know for sure that you are improving.

Something Else to Consider 

Take Example A. He/she decides they are going to do one set of push-ups every morning when they wake up. After a week they are buzzing because they can do 10 more push-ups than they could at the start. They feel strong, healthy and continue with the push-ups every morning. But after the first week, they stop improving, they are only just managing the same amount of reps each morning, and as the days go by, it’s actually becoming harder, and now, they are starting to do less than before. So now they are losing motivation, are confused and frustrated that they can’t perform as many as before.

Here is What Really Happened 

When they improved by ten reps, it was an improvement in efficiency, not strength. Because they suddenly went from doing no push-ups every morning to one set every morning, the improvement came from a physiological adaptation of the nervous system for that particular movement. Real improvements happen after the initial adaptation. This is one of the reasons we see so many people excited about their new decision to start exercising, but they give up after a month or two. They have been tricked by their body into thinking they’re not good enough. So let me tell you this, the body just doesn’t improve that quickly.