9 QUESTIONS TO VERIFY THE EFFECTIVENESS OF YOUR WORKOUT PROGRAM.

When was the last time you looked at your training program? Is it working for you or against you? Here are nine questions to ask yourself the next time you do an audit of your current workout habits. Hint: That should be once a quarter.

1. What’s your goal?

This step is your overarching WHAT and WHY. Without a clear, measurable, and intrinsically derived WHY statement your chances of success drop significantly no matter the WHAT you decide on. Just think about any other commitment you’ve had to make in your life that you either have or have not seen to its fruition…finishing school, quitting smoking, being nicer to people, shaving 2/10s of a second off your 40m dash, eating healthier, making (x) dollars per month.

This can be a very simple answer but it’s general not the first answer you come up with. I like to ask 3–5 WHYs with a client in order to get down to a real WHAT. It might look like this:

• I want to lose weight…WHY?
• Because I want to be in better shape… WHY?
• Because I want to set a better example for my kids… WHY?
• Because they look up to me and I know I can be a better example…

That’s this hypothetical client’s real WHY. His kids look up to him and he wants to set a good example.

Would losing weight set a good example for his kids? Probably.

Would losing a bunch of weight in 12 weeks and then putting back on 125% of the weight he lost in the following 12 weeks set a good example? Probably not.

Would obsessing over his body stats and deciding that one number is good and another is bad set a good example? Debatable but probably not.

What this guy wants is to set a good example not lose weight, what he actually needs is a program that he can do indefinitely and pleasurably; if weight loss occurs as a result that’s just a bonus.

Maybe your WHY and WHAT are easier to glean. Maybe you’re at risk of a cardiovascular event and your doctor told you to get your blood pressure down. In that case your WHAT is “Get my blood pressure down to (specific number).” Your WHY is because if not you’ll die.

The first step is the hardest. If you do a great job on this one you’ll have a much easier time on the next steps.

2. What do you currently do for training?

It’s a lot easier for me to put together a plan if I already know what you’re doing (the same goes for the diet). So, establish a baseline. That way we can get very specific on the plan. Progressive overload is the concept that states that in order to get better, stronger, faster, healthier, etc you need to up the ante periodically to get another step further. If you don’t make things harder enough you may not progress, if you make things too much harder you risk injury and loss of motivation and intensity.

If you train once a month sometimes… well, you probably shouldn’t jump right into a plan that has you in the gym lifting heavy weights 3 times a week and running a 5k three different days of the week.

THIS IS THE MOST COMMON ERROR PEOPLE MAKE.

I get that you may want to get to “optimal” quickly but be realistic with yourself without feeling guilty for where you currently are. You can devise an optimal plan and then walk it back to a realistic first step instead, this is backwards planning. You have the rest of your life to perfect things anyway.

For the above client trying to set a good example for his kids we may determine that 4 days of intense exercise a week is a great metric as a good example for his kids… plus other healthy habits. If he’s starting at zero, we may choose to begin with 1 day a week for a couple of weeks and then add a second, and then a third, and so on…

In the next step I’m going to add some nuance to these sacred training times that you decide on.

3. When can you train? How many times per week?

Get specific now, look at your schedule and determine when you have 45 minutes to get a workout in. Start with 45 minutes as your training blocks. Just plan to get in the gym or on the road, get your work in, and get out. If you can’t do that in 45 minutes you’re probably trying to do too much .

Write down all the days and time that you can train. Aim for at least 3 times per week, even if you’re only starting with 1 or 2 days of intense exercise. That other day or two is going to be a walk in the beginning.

The goal is for you to hold these times sacred. Even if you don’t have a serious workout scheduled, you’re still going to do something good for your body like walking or stretching.

Get them on the calendar and consider them as necessary as your most important weekly meeting.

4. When do you need to accomplish this?

Choosing when you need to have your goal accomplished may be very easy. When is the wedding, your vacation, your competition, your race? It may be rather difficult on the other hand. If your goal is to set a good example that means you need to train for the rest of your life. It’s rather hard to set a timeline for these types of goals. That’s why I recommend setting smaller goals to keep you progressing.

At the start it may simply be to get to 3 hard sessions a week and 3 walks per week in 12 weeks. Using that timeline you can establish how you wish to progress.

After you’ve established great consistency it’s time to start looking at other smaller goals that you can build a program around like a powerlifting competition, a tough mudder, a specific goal on a lift, or a specific time on a run distance. Don’t choose anything crazy, if you don’t think it can realistically be accomplished in 3–4 months max it’s probably too big of a goal.

By sticking to goals that can be reached in 3–4 months you’ll be setting new records and learning new skills 3–4 times a year! That’s a lot better than yo-yo-ing in weight or consistency for a full year while you “try” to squat 500 lbs or lose 60 lbs even though you are currently squatting 100 lbs and haven’t lost a lb in months.

Stay realistic and measurable. Accomplishing a smaller goal feels a lot better than failing at something you need to be a genetic freak to achieve.

5. What’s your preferred type of training?

Do you like weightlifting, running, powerlifting, bodybuilding, taking classes, swimming, kettlebells, etc? It really matters what you like, at the same time though, it’s also important to work all aspects of our health, so there should be some balance. Who wants to be able to lift hundreds of pounds but not be able to run 1 mile. Who wants to be a marathoner but not be able to do 10 push-ups?

Life is best when we’re in balance.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t spend time training for a marathon or take time to get really strong. Just switch goals 3–4 times a year and you’ll never walk so far down one road that you can’t easily perform reasonably well at another aspect of fitness.

CAVEAT: In order to meet the physical activity guidelines for adults you need to be doing some form of muscle strengthening activity 2 times a week. So even if you’re a runner or prefer yoga ensure you’re also getting a little stronger each week. This is often the most overlooked aspect of a training plan.

In those 2 strength training days ensure you’re hitting these major movements to guarantee you aren’t getting too imbalanced over time: squatting, hip hinging, lunging (single leg movements), pressing vertically and horizontally, and pulling vertically and horizontally.

A simple way to set up these two days with these exercises is like this:

Day 1: Squat, lunge more horizontally, press vertically and horizontally Day 2: Hip hinge (deadlift or hip thrust), lunge more vertically, pull vertically and horizontally.

Sets and reps depend on which specific exercises you’re doing and the weight you choose. Just starting somewhere and doing a little more next time is always the goal. If you find yourself doing upwards of 25 reps of any one exercise you need to add some weight in an effort to stay efficient on time. I generally don’t program anything over 15 reps. Number of total reps is something to keep in consideration in regards to joint health.

6. What hurts?

Whatever hurts needs extra attention, not less. Plan to do some type of rehabilitation on your weak or sore spots. That doesn’t mean you should be crushing this muscle or joint every time you train. It means you should be doing 1 or 2 extra exercises for that body part per session, that’s it.

Your weak spot is going to be what hurts you when you get older or careless enough to injure yourself. Pay attention to it now. The ultimate goal is to get to the point in which you feel like you have no weak spots.

7. Do you think you need to sweat your ass off while training or do you like to talk a lot?

There’s a time and place for both. All of your sessions don’t need to be complete ball busters and they definitely shouldn’t all be 90% gossip and only 10% work.

That being said if you’re the type that wants to get as much work in as quickly as possible due to time constraints it’s time to take advantage of active rest periods. If you’re squatting for instance, instead of resting between sets you should choose to do that rehab exercise I mentioned above or maybe an ab exercise that you would regularly do at the end of your session. The main rule of thumb for active rest periods is to choose exercises that don’t conflict much with the movement you’re currently conducting.

Check out this article on antagonist paired sets for more on this topic.

The physical activity guidelines for adults recommend 75–150 minutes of vigorous activity or 150–300 minutes of moderate intensity exercise. The average between these two types of exercise comes out to 45–90 minutes of exercise 5 days a week in which ⅓ is vigorous and ⅔ is moderate intensity. That’s less than 2 of your five weekly sessions that should be all-out sweat your ass off sessions.

I’m not telling you to do less if you currently slay yourself 7 days a week. I am however, pointing out the importance of different types of exercise, including lower-intensity aerobic exercise.

8. How long have you been training?

How sensitive you are to training matters.

• Generally, younger and less experienced individuals are more sensitive to training. They can do less and get more results.
• The opposite end of the spectrum is older and more experienced individuals. They have to do more in order to get the same results that they used to with less stimulus.

When you first start training in any new-ish way your best progress will probably be in the first 2–3 months (that’s why most workout programs are this length). After the 3 month mark things will usually start to slow down if not plateau altogether. That’s why above I recommended you aim for goals that will take no more than 4 months to accomplish. In that period of time you can get the best beginner gains on whatever your focus is and then shift your focus enough to reap some gains in an aspect of your fitness that wasn’t getting as much attention.

Age and training age are factors here. If you’re over 50 and have never lifted you may need to work out much more than you previously thought before you experience any strength gains. This is a view counter to how many older individuals think they should be training. I’m not saying you should be going for your heaviest weight ever at this age but you may need to train 5 or 6 days at an intensity of 9 out of 10 instead of 2–3 days like you could have when you were 22.

9. How do you handle stress best?

If your exercise session is one of your main ways of mitigating stress then it should be a very high priority on your list of things to do each day. Training makes us feel better, this is chemically verifiable.

I know that I personally get depressed, anxious, lonely, and stressed if I don’t train for a few days in a row. I’ve been training long enough that I see the immediate effects if I train vs when I don’t train. Maybe you haven’t honed your barometer for the effects of exercise quite yet. In that case, I recommend you keep a written record of how you feel for a few weeks or months, long enough until you are able to make a direct link.

We are surrounded by stressful decisions, situations, and scenarios every day. If we don’t actively focus on shedding that stress it will build up on is and make life a lot harder than it needs to be.

Ask yourself and be honest.

You should be taking an active role in ensuring your exercise training program is making you better, happy, stronger, more efficient, and all-around better. Use these nine questions to really poke and prod to figure out if what you’re currently doing is satisfying your desires and how you can change things to become more optimal.

1. What’s your goal?
2. What are you currently doing for training?
3. When can you train?
4. When do you need to accomplish your goal?
5. What’s your preferred type of training?
6. What hurts?
7. Do you think you need to go 100% on every session every time?
8. How long have you been training?
9. How do you handle your stress?

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.