Strategic Training

AskMen / Thinkstock

"One of the biggest mistakes, by far, is a phenomenon known as program hopping."

I was talking to one of my online clients yesterday, and our discussion revealed a number of insights about his training that I find are more common than people care to admit -- that is, Chris is guilty of mistakes that nearly everyone makes and almost anyone can avoid.

Now, to put this in perspective, Chris happens to be getting really incredible results -- he’s down 12 pounds of fat and up four pounds of muscle in seven weeks total -- and not only are these the best results he’s ever gotten, but this seven-week period is pretty much the only time he’s seen consistent progress.

Even though he’s been training for years, if you were to graph out Chris’ results over the course of that time, it would mostly be a flat line, interspersed with a series of “blips” that were few and far between.

But during the time he and I have been working together, he’s made progress, week after week.

Why the change? Is it because I have some magic up my sleeve?

No. Contrary to popular belief, I did not attend Hogwarts, I do not ride a broom and I don’t wear a robe and wizard hat. Sadly, I cannot do magic of any kind.

But while I do get results that are well beyond the ordinary -- seemingly magical -- I submit that anyone can do this without any spells or wands.

All that’s required is a willingness to plan long term, and the programming prowess to employ a simple trick.

That trick, simply, is to avoid the mistakes that most people make.

One of the biggest mistakes, by far, is a phenomenon known as program hopping -- which is when clients move from program to program to program, often without even finishing them.

Even when they do finish a program, these hoppers don’t really think about the overall structure of their training as a whole, and instead move to whichever program seems cool at the moment.

As you can probably guess from the tone of my assessment, I don’t think highly of this; in fact, I consider it to be the No. 1 mistake that is holding people back in their training.

Now, let me just say that I completely understand the desire here: You want muscle, so you do a muscle-building program. Then you want fat loss, so you do a fat loss program. From a logical perspective, that does make a great deal of sense and things should go well.

Regrettably, logic and physiology don’t always play nicely together.

Here’s the problem: When you jump from program to program, these training methods often vary from each other to a very significant degree.

You see, your body is a dreadfully tricky organism, and while variety definitely has its place, it’s only truly effective if you structure that variety in a way that allows these programs to build off of each other. The truth is that in most cases, the opposite occurs.

For example, if you perform a muscle-building program that requires very low reps, you’ll increase strength in that rep range. Assuming the overall volume is high enough, you’ll also gain some mass. Overall, not too shabby. However, because you’re training primarily with low reps, your strength endurance will drop -- meaning, your ability to train effectively with high reps decreases.

During that program, you’ve gained some muscle but also put on some fat. The remedy is obvious, so you jump onto a fat-loss program.

Here’s where things start to break down -- most of those programs require you to train with high reps; however, because of weeks of working with low reps, your body is now deconditioned in regard to high reps. Your first few outings nearly put you under the bus. Your overall conditioning sucks, so you’re not able to get the most out of the workouts. Next Page >>