You Gotta Progress to See Progress

It’s incredibly common for people to feel like they’re working really, really hard at their weight training, yet not see the progress they would like.  This post is about things you can try that might help you see more progress from your workouts.

When you find yourself thinking about what a nuisance this all is, ask yourself: how bad do you want that progress?  Are you serious, or not?  If you are, then it’s time to put more thought into what you’re doing.

And you can do it.  I wouldn’t be telling you, otherwise!

Always Try to Progress.

Another thing I see a lot at the gym is people doing exactly, precisely the same workout they were doing three months ago.  First of all, this is boring.  Second, doing the same workout means you’re going to stay the same.  You need to progress to make progress.  If you’ve made your rep goal on an exercise, increase the weight.  

If you’ve been stalled for a long time on an exercise, shoot for more reps, even if you have to decrease the weight.  Lifters would say you’re emphasizing volume, and yes, that’s a thing.

Or, add an extra set to your workout.

Or, try doing a “drop set” as your last set.

Or, ditch that exercise for another that works the same muscle group and work on making progress with that one.  

Or, keep all the same exercises but mix up the order; the exercises you do later in the workout will be more challenging because you are more tired.  

Or, Google “exercise plateau” and prepare to be flooded with suggestions.

If you’re not increasing the difficulty in some way, you’re not going to make progress.  Period.

By the way, I’m not a fan of the philosophy of “muscle confusion”, which holds that you have to drastically change your workouts all the time.  I think a certain amount of consistency also has benefits, as long as you’re focused on increasing the difficulty.  And speaking of which, do you even know if you’re making progress?  Maybe you need to…

Write Stuff Down.  

Generally, the only people who write down their weights and sets and reps in the gym are novices and veterans.  But everybody should.  You can get a small notepad or notebook to stick in your pocket or gym bag.  You can use a phone app, but only if you solemnly swear that you won’t check your texts, e-mail, or how the Patriots are doing while you’re at it.  I use a spreadsheet program to enter in all my reps from the previous week on Sunday night.  I print it all out on a single sheet so that as I record today’s reps, I can see them side-by-side with last week’s.  Like I said before, you don’t have to be as obsessive as me, but here are some reasons why you should record your reps in some way:

Let’s say you’re doing four sets of 8 to 10 reps on cable rows.  Last week you did 10 reps in your first set, 9 in your second, 10 in your third, and 8 in your fourth.  Say that this week you do 10 reps, then 9, 8, and 8.  You finish proud because you made all four sets in your rep range.  But check out how it looks on paper:

Last week’s reps: 10  9 10 8
This week’s reps: 10  9  8  8

You’ve made your rep range again, but you actually lost ground.  It may seem like a pain, but knowing this information is critical to making progress.  It’s okay to have an off day now and then, but you should at least know when it happens.

Writing stuff down can also be very motivational, because you can see every tiny little bit of progress from week to week to week.  Maybe you didn’t make your goal on a certain exercise, but maybe you did get two more reps in, and that’s progress you can celebrate.  Also, when you look down and see that you were just one rep away from your goal last week, it really makes you push yourself, and it adds a lot of excitement to the exercise to know you’re that close.  If you hadn’t been writing down all that information, it would just seem like another workout.  Ho hum.

Add in comments like where you might need to watch your form, or if something didn’t feel right last week, or if you feel like it’s time to change things up, and you’ve created a powerful tool to get yourself moving forward. 

Don’t Get Bogged Down During Your Workout.

The point of working out is to make your muscles tired.  If you take really long breaks between sets or exercises, you’re giving your body too much rest and robbing yourself of a lot of growth potential.  Don’t get me wrong, you do need to rest between sets.  But I regularly see people at the gym doing 6 reps of an exercise, then fiddling with their phone for literally 15 minutes before they remember they’re still at the gym and should probably lift some more.  Those people are probably mystified that they spend an hour at the gym 4 days a week, and still can’t seem to make any progress.

If you bring a friend to the gym, make sure they understand that you’re there to work, and they shouldn’t be offended when you interrupt the conversation to do your set.  If you can’t bear to leave your phone in your car or a locker, challenge yourself to not look at it.  If you use your phone to play music, make yourself a playlist long enough to get you through your workout so you don’t have to constantly cue up a song or skip one you don’t like.  Because when you go to your phone to cue up a song, you’re going to see all those text alerts and you’re going to want to reply.

Oh, and by the way: if you do have to take an important call that’s going to take more than a minute or two, get off the equipment!  Some of the most despised characters at the gym are the ones who claim the only available bench press and use it as their personal lounge while they arrange an international real estate deal.

How to Impress the People Worth Impressing

You're not going to impress the really good lifters with flashy moves or putting too much weight on the bar.  But a really good lifter recognizes the habits of really good lifting when they see them.  Write stuff down, keep your focus, and keep challenging yourself as often as you can.  That'll go a long way to impressing the serious lifters.

Get in there and make some progress!
The Friendly Lifter