Mission of training

Dec.2

"Never discourage someone who is continuing making progress........no matter how slow"
Plato

WOD
5000 meter row on the C-2
time 25:02
Easy steady pace for technique training. It been a long time since I have done a long piece, but with the new equipment it makes it really comfortable to row longer pieces.

The mission or goal of physical fitness training is to make progress! Sounds simple but it is not often reconciled by the vast majority of those who train. You have to continually ask yourself, is my progress, if any is keeping with my goals? Is my body weight at a level I want, is my strength and endurance increasing, is my body composition changing? If you answer no to those questions, then its not working for you and its time to look at your plan or what you have been doing up to this point to ensure progress. Just clocking in hours in the gym doesn't guarantee progress without a solid plan of attack or work in progress

Most people that go to a gym don't know they are making progress because they don't track their training via a journal or log to review it themselves or have the staff review. A training log is a must for getting personal feed back on what you have accomplished. On the other had there are people who keep a very detailed or continuous tracking log, but never change anything.

The body adopts to training quickly during the first year or two of training, therefore shifting gears frequently is a must. If you see your progress stalling, or not a all, then its time to make changes. Better yet, plan to make changes in your training frequently as one a month. Going one step beyond, have a series of plans or routines you can change each week so you are always challenged all the time.

Now you may ask how long before you completely plateau out on strength and endurance. Well it can be in as Little as one year you but mostly its about 3-5 years of hard training and you will not see much progress in regard to strength and endurance in any sport or training methods. However, you now have on more tricks up you sleeve, and that is increased performance or efficiency.

All this becomes the science of periodization or the planned exercise order, number of sets, choice, rest between sets, intensity and sessions per day or week. It can be complicated if you don't understand exercise science but any good trainer can come up with a number of varied routines that should allow you to make continuous progress and never become mentally stale.
Designing resistance training programs, by Fleck and Kraemer is the best information on programing your training.

The mission is sacred