Those even mildly familiar with the
iron sports (either for strength or volume gains) will recognize the mind-body
connection as one of the recurring concepts presented as a key ingredient of
progress (much touted by Ah-nold back in the days, and likely pirated from
someone else). My position regarding it, as with most “broscience”, is that
there is no such thing, beyond some placebo effect (you can find some
pseudo-scientific defense in Sad attempt at a scientific justification of BS but it
probably speaks more about the limited applicability of EMG data than about the
true effectiveness on “focusing on feeling the muscle”).
However, I do believe there is a
more empirically based connection between how your mind feels and what results
you get, although it is a bit more convoluted and complex to manipulate that
thinking really hard about the muscle you are contracting in each rep. The real
deal here is the ongoing enthusiasm you can gather for your own program, to
keep going after it every single day, in every single (growingly punishing)
session. I’m assuming some experience here, so for this to apply you have to be
an intermediate/ advanced lifter already beyond the novice phase (so no more
Linear Progression gains, but needing to periodize and take each cycle to a
slightly higher intensity, thus requiring a considerably higher expenditure of
will power, in exchange for lesser and lesser gains). If you fit the bill I’m
sure you’ll relate with how difficult it is to convince oneself not to focus
with zen-like abandon, but just to keep getting under the bar and performing
each set as it gets excruciatingly closer to the physical limit you feel able
to reach.
That’s why most elite powerlifters (and
weightlifters) thrive in group settings, and identify lifting in a team of
like-minded individuals as the most important factor to achieve greatness. If
you train all by yourself it is too easy to skip/ delay workouts, take some
freedoms w the programmed weights or be more cavalier about recovery. Belonging
to a group gives them the extra oomph needed when laziness rears its ugly head
and makes us question how badly do we really want to go in the freezing cold to
do battle with a heavily loaded bar.
And that’s why the optimal training
program you are following ends up not being so optimal after all, as the more
demanding the program becomes (and it absolutely HAS to be demanding to keep
progress coming beyond the initial beginners’ phase) the stronger the
temptation will be to take some minimal slack, and those slacks add up to
finally not following the program that much. For example:
·
Big
lifts programmed with F3 (to be performed 3 times a week) end up being done in
F2, or even F1.5 (as other commitments –work, family life, extended recovery-
keep on popping out and reducing the days you can actually go to train)
·
90%
intensity becomes more like 70% in the accessory movements (as after the main
lift of the day you just cannot summon the mental fortitude to go so close to
your limit again)
·
The
5,000 calories a day you identified as needed for top recovery end up being
more like 3,500 most week days (as you eat outside, feel like crap after
guzzling just half of it and decide to compensate later on at home, only to
arrive there as fed up as right after lunch)
I’m talking mostly about myself here, but I
think it is pretty common within this particular population. So when you
honestly assess how what you have been actually doing vs. what you had planned
to do you may surely find out that in terms of volume, frequency and intensity
you have been consistently underperforming. It is just being human. A first
approach to solving it, if you are utterly convinced of the validity of the
programming principles applied, is to adjust the program down a notch so the
workouts become less demanding (and so they are easier to comply with). We may
call this strategy “increasing stickiness by decreasing the challenge factor”. Progress
may be slower (you end up moving less total weight per session, be it by
performing less sets, less reps, or the same but at a lower intensity), but
more consistent and continuous than in the “half-compliance” scenario.
A second approach would consist in the dreaded “program
ADD”, or keep switching programs just to keep training varied and thus funnier,
and make it more palatable. As long as those program are not markedly
suboptimal, the advantage of following them more closely surely more than
compensates for their potential shortcomings.
A third approach (the one I favor) is not just to rotate different programs, but to keep changing the whole training philosophy (after a minimal period to ensure each one of them can deliver the goods that made you choose it in the first place), chasing different physical attributes (between the ones I identified in this post: What to train for). Readers of this blog will recognize that approach as the one I am currently following, as I rotate the pursuit of strength (measured as 1RM in the powerlifts), speed-strength (measured by the distance I can put the shot) and power (measured by the weight I can put overhead in the Olympic lifts), each for about 3 months. The only problem I’m facing (and which has indirectly caused much of this post) is that I made the rotation “circular”, starting the year with the same pursuit with which I ended the previous one, which will have me pushing strength through powerlifting for almost five continuous months, which is starting to take its toll (very busted knees and wrists, almost perennially fried lower back, alarmingly low aerobic capacity...). HOwever, we are only six weeks from the Spanish Powerlifting Championship, in which I’m planning to compete, so I guess I’ll just have to man up and keep it going until then
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