Old School Inspiration

So in light of the mega fight coming up this weekend, I thought I’d share this awesome video, it still gets me pumped!

When you’re inspired, you’re never tired.

Be relentless today.

If You’re a Serious Lifter/Athlete – You Need to Start Doing This TODAY

When talking with competitors, athletes, or aspiring gym goers, there seems to be one critical element that’s missing in their training protocol.

Have you ever seen the movie I am Legend, with Will Smith? One of my favorite actors by the way. Well, in the movie, Dr. Robert Neville (Smith) is trying to concoct a serum that will reverse a disease that has spread to all humanity and infected most of the human race. He’s alone, so he thinks, and is certain that if he can produce this serum, civilization will have a chance to be restored to normal. Needless to say, he’s highly motivated to get the job done.

In the scenes where Neville is seen working in his lab, trying to create this substance, what does he do constantly?

He’s shown doing video logs, and documenting every move he makes. He’s working with trail and error, trying this combination and that, hoping to come up with something that clicks. Day after day he’s in the lab, trying, failing, logging, rethinking, logging, trying again, documenting.

As a serious lifter/athlete, think of yourself as a scientist and your body as the experiment. What’s missing from so many people’s training protocols that I come across is a TRAINING JOURNAL.

What is that exactly? It’s a daily log of some kind where you’re tracking everything from your food, your workouts down to the minute detail, every set and rep, time to completion, how you look, how you feel, weight, body fat percentage, total sets, measurements, and supplements.

Why is having a training journal beneficial?

1) You’ll know what works for you, and what doesn’t.

Do you know exactly what training split works best with your body? Do you know what your body responds worst to? Do you know exactly what training style and set breakdown works best for you, and worst? Do you know if you’re able to burn fat more effectively fasted, at night, or with HIIT? These are all examples of questions you will know the exact answer to if you tracked everything with detail. Would be nice to know right?

2) You’ll start to notice patterns. 

Related to number 1, with a detailed training journal, over time you’ll start to notice patterns in your training. For example, when I go low carb (100-120 grams) for two straight days followed by a heavy full body workout, my body looks tight, muscles full and dense. Or, when I train 3 days in a row I will get flat and feel tired. Maybe, when carb cycling, on high carb days my midsection looks bloated somewhat and I feel strongest on my mid carb days.

You’ll start to notice over arching patterns like, when I’m dieting, taking calories up gradually and workload down, worst best for my body composition changes. If you’re serious, this is a gold mine of information.

3) You’ll have a reference point for success. 

Feel stuck? What if you could pinpoint a time in your training history where you were making the biggest gains and having the biggest changes in body composition, and have everything tracked with so much detail, that you could put that on replay and achieve the exact same desired results, down to the smallest portion?

What if you’re dieting for a show and you knew exactly what you were doing each day diet wise and training wise down to the exact minutes you were in the gym each day? Wouldn’t that give you immense confidence that you could duplicate and build off of that success again whenever you wanted?

4) You’ll know if you’re REALLY making progress. 

What if you could look back two years ago and see that you benched 200 lbs for 5 reps in your first set of a chest workout. Then one year ago, in the same scenario, you benched 215 for 6. And finally today you put up 230 for 8. That’s real progress! And not only that, but as explained previously you’ll be able to look back at what you did to achieve those gains and DUPLICATE it.

5) You’re training will be more efficient. 

Ever start dieting and after a while start feeling weak, tired and sluggish? What if you had a documented body composition test periodically and it was recorded and you could see that you were losing lean mass, thus slowing your metabolism? If you had records that your work output was literally decreasing in the gym and also a recent body fat test logged, it would be a simple solution to adjust your calories or training style to stop the bleeding!

On the contrary, if you didn’t have records to show those things, maybe you’d continue on for 2-3 weeks before finally making a change and end up costing yourself an extra pound or two of lean mass lost in the process. For the serious athlete, this is a cost you shouldn’t be willing to pay.

6) You’ll become a master of setting a very specific goal, and then reaching it. 

Combining all of these points, once you what works for you, know patterns your body sticks to, have reference points for success, know where progress lies, are confident you are as efficient as possible in your training, then you will become a master of setting a long or short term goal, a very specific one, and hitting it.

For example, one year from now, I want to have gained 8 pounds of lean mass, take my body fat down 2.7%, squat 270 for 10 fresh and lose an inch in my waist. Having that as your goal, you’ll have the confidence to say, I KNOW THE EXACT PATH AND INGREDIENTS I NEED TO HIT THAT MARK. No doubts, no mysteries, no guessing, no hoping. You’re a scientist and you know the formula. Like Dr. Neville, you have found the formula that will cure.

So in conclusion, if you’re serious, if you are passionate and driven to be the best, the first thing I would recommend you do, is start a training journal. Oh and.. don’t leave out any details.

Go get it. Win.