Plan Beyond Resolutions

That which comes easily does not last. With fitness, how you begin tends to be the way that you’ll end. If you shoot out of a rocket to begin what should be your lifelong training career, more often than not there will be hard plateaus, injuries, demotivation, all-or-none thinking, and/or complete relapse into old habits.

Alternatively, you could take a more calculated approach. One that allows for the psychology of human nature and plays into the power of continuous small victories. An intentional brick-by-brick laying of your fitness foundation - assuring structured, balanced, and long-lived experience.

It literally echoes the training methods that emerge due to necessity as you gradually advance in training age. The longer you train, the stronger, faster, or more durable you become, the more patient and nuanced you must also become in fitness programming. There is less room for random chance to account for your progress. Amongst other things, there must be carefully chosen exercises, training parameters, coaching cues, and genuine attention given to recovery.

An intentionally methodical approach allows you to build the strength of mind and body required to enjoy the easy times, remain disciplined during the hard times, and develop a belief in the process through accumulated daily victories in training. It also is critical to understand early that “training” and “exercise” are not the same thing. Workouts designed in a training program are specifically tailored to generate your end goal success. While they may be fun, they also might not be. Exercise on the other hand will only account for your physical exertion on that specific day, with next to no consideration for your end goal. My own training career has been rife with misinformed attachment to an arbitrary level of exhaustion that I’ve erroneously associated with success in my training. Lace their workouts with dopamine instead of adrenaline.

All this is to say, in the first hundred days we have the opportunity to set, or reset, the mind of a trainee. Get them on the path to long-term adherence. Success can be found in the small, and usually obvious, details. Be measured, or even mundane, and experience what those details are. Expedience is only valuable (or possible) when done correctly.

Best,

Eric