Go In With A Plan

Is it any wonder more people regularly attending a gym … don’t look like they do? Not talking about nutrition and what happens the other 23 hours of the day here though; I’m talking about the training.

(Before any of those who like to complain for the sake of complaining yes it’s fantastic that people are in the gym exercising, trying to better themselves and not sitting at home bathing in ice cream. That’s not the context here.)

Now with that out of the way …

Why DO we go to the gym? Yes to feel better, etc. of course but lets be real here, most people go to the gym to over time look better. For guys this invariably means more muscle, for girls it’s sometimes more muscle but obviously less fat (which applies to both genders of course).

But let’s be real here. Simply exercising and having a plan/following a program are NOT the same thing.

Numerous times I’ve overheard a couple guys say, “so what do you want to train today?”

No plan.

“Shoulders? Ok. What do you want to do first?”

No plan.

Again, let’s keep the context in check here – people go to the gym to improve and in the case of weight training, it’s to generally build muscle (or maintain it if dieting).

And yet, most people come into the gym with no plan whatsoever. They’re just ‘working out’ and hoping for the best.

A workout is not supposed to be a simple random collection of exercises for a given body part. Similarly, a PROGRAM is not just a random collection of workouts strung together in a week. Workouts are not separate entities – they’re supposed to flow together with a purpose.

In a PROGRAM, there is an objective TO the program and a design BEHIND the program. A program is about exercise selection and sequence, about rep ranges, but not any one of those in isolation.

The focus of the overall program is also supposed to be greater than the focus of any singular workout.

I think this may be one reason many people don’t progress or make any meaningful change over time. THIS strategy more often than not does not work and for every person who claims it does work for them, there are 99 for whom it obviously does not (look around the gym). And I’d put good money on the fact that the one for whom it does “work” for would have monumentally better progress having a plan of attack.

There are of course no magic exercises. Any exercise is only as important as the context within which it is applied in the overall workout/program.

Go in with a plan.