Consistent effort & doing more

Consistent effort over time gets results. This is true in all life, of course, but is especially true in physical training. Most people do not apply consistent effort. Someone might do 10 pushups, then struggle out 5 more, their body peeling up from the ground like a band-aid, their face fierce as they grunt and strain, then 4, 3, 2 and 1, and collapse; the next day they can't comb their hair, and they do not do pushups again. It would have been better for them to just do 10 pushups every day. This would be consistent.

The body is not a machine. It repairs itself, it adapts. If today you do 10 pushups and it's hard, your body says, "that was hard, I'd better build the capacity to do 11 pushups, then next time it won't be so bad." If tomorrow you do no pushups, your body will say, "I built this extra muscle, and it's not being used – back to being able to do 10 pushups," and that extra muscle will disappear. If instead you do 11 pushups, your body will have a reason to build again. And then 12, and so on.

This is fancily-called the SAID principle, Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand. In plain English, If in every session you do more than you did before, you will get stronger, fitter, and your physique will change. For fitness, you must go faster or against increased resistance or do it for longer. For strength, you must lift more weight, or the same weight more times. For mobility, do an exercise or stretch over a greater range of motion, if you were doing quarter-squats do half squats. Do more.

Most people in the gym do not make a consistent effort over time, and do not do more in every session. Most don't have a routine, they just wander around doing a few of their favourite exercises with a few more random ones thrown in, something they saw someone else do; their efforts are inconsistent. How then can they know they're doing more? If I squat 60kg for 5 reps today, and leg press 80kg for 8 reps tomorrow, was that more? But if I squat today and squat tomorrow, I will know if I'm doing more.

Of course, doing the same thing all the time is boring, right? I had a conversation with a client a while back.

"These workouts we're doing are great, but what about the workouts I do on my own, could you give me some more exercises? It's getting boring."

"Try putting another 5kg on the bar."

"Oh okay." Two days later, "That was great!" 

If you're bored, you're not working hard enough. 

Those who do stick to the same exercises tend not to do more. Go to any gym and look at people's programme cards, you will see the same weight, the same sets and reps, for weeks or months on end. If the person is happy with their fitness, strength, mobility and physique, that's fine – but if they want an improvement, they must do more. The problem is that doing more is fucking hard.

Consistent effort over time gets results, and to improve you must do more than you did before. This is simple, not easy.

Movements, not muscles

Train movements, not muscles. 

Or put another way, train movements, and the muscles will follow. This is another one from Dan John. I steal from the best – and like I said, nothing here is new and original. Anyway, this is something that also comes from Paul Chek, he's got some fruity ideas but this is good. The human body has a few basic movements, you can break them down many ways but I like Dan John's. 

• squat
• push
  
• pull
• hip hinge
• loaded carry
• getup

Paul Chek's is similar, but he adds lunge (which we can take as a variation of squat), bend, twist and gait (ie walk/run). How do we become more better faster stronger for everyday life and sports? How do we burn a lot of energy? It's a three-step process.

1. perform the movements correctly, eg squat with knees in line with ankles and back straight is better and harder than a squat with knees caving in and back rounded
2. when performed correctly, next perform them over a wide range of motion, eg squat below parallel is better and harder than a half-squat
3. when performed correctly over a wide range of motion, load the movement, eg barbell squat with 20kg is better and harder than a squat with no weight

So we take those movements and load them up with resistance – our own bodyweight, dumbbells, kettlebells, machines, stones, small children, whatever we have to hand.

But do we load up all of them? No. Someone like Stuart McGill or even our local physiotherapist would tell us that bending or twisting under load will be less than ideal for our backs. Gait? Loading yourself while walking or running is good if you want to join the Army, or go hiking, and it's good for certain back conditions. But for most while not harmful it's not going to be helpful for most beginners in the gym.

That leaves squat, lunge, push and pull. Squat and lunge use pretty much the same muscles, but lunge is a bit more difficult to perform well as it's one-legged. So perhaps squats for complete beginners, progressing to lunges later on, depends on the person's capabilities and goals. Anyway, so we add resistance to the movements squat/lunge, pull and push.

By training movements not muscles, we actually end up training all the muscles. The squat/lunge works quadriceps, hamstrings and gluteals (front and back thighs, arse), the pull works the upper back, biceps and forearms, and the push works the chest, shoulders and triceps. 

And the "core"? What is the "core"? Your postural muscles. Their job? Help you stand up straight. Do you think that if you could stand up straight with 40kg on your back you would have stronger postural muscles than if you couldn't? As my old PT teacher Ian Martin said, every exercise can be, is and should be a "core" exercise. Do all three movements with good posture and bracing, and you will work your abdominals and lower back muscles, too. 

That's your whole body in three movements. Strengthening the legs with the squat/lunge turns out to strengthen your gait, too, while good posture and bracing under load ends up strengthening your bending and twisting. So all 7 movements get stronger. 

Why not train all the muscles with isolation movements? Time and health. If you wanted to work your pectoralis major, anterior deltoid and triceps, you could do dumbbell flyes, dumbbell front raises and tricep kickbacks – or you could just do a bench press. You'd need a bit more rest after sets of bench press compared to the others, but still it'd only take half as long. But maybe you'd like to live in the gym, I don't know. If you do spend all your time on isolation movements, what you find is that because you're working each muscle to its individual maximum, your weak muscles get stronger, but your strong muscles get stronger, too – so the injury-causing imbalances remain.

As I've said before, many aches and pains and injuries come about from muscle imbalances, from one side being stronger than the other. Correct movement in squats, lunges, pushes and pulls will balance the muscles out. Remember that physical training can change how you look, feel and perform. With stronger and more balanced muscles and better posture your looks improve, as do your health and performance. 

For example, your gluteals and hamstrings may be weak from sitting on them all the time, and your quadriceps relatively strong. When you squat, in the top part of the movement it's mostly quadriceps, at the bottom it's mostly gluteals and hamstrings. This is why so many people half-squat, they get halfway down and realise if they keep going it'll be hard to get up. But having weak gluteals and hamstrings means more work for the lower back day-to-day, thus pain and general misery. By squatting correctly, you will strengthen your gluteals and hamstrings, bring the muscles into balance and support your back, have a nicer bum, and feel much better.

Possibly not a beginner exercise

As strength & conditioning coach Markos puts it, in every session we need to do a deep knee-bend, put something heavy overhead and pick something something heavy up off the ground. This does not necessarily mean the powerlifting trio of squat, bench press and deadlift. But if in your day-to-day life you do those seven basic movements - and everyone does unless they've let themselves get weak - then you need to have them strong, which means squatting, lunging, pushing and pulling in the gym. That's what people do in sessions with me, and it works. 

Our seated lifestyle

or, "Why you should squat and deadlift."

Typical office manager without Gillette

The Western lifestyle is largely a seated lifestyle. We sit down for work at desks. We sit down for transport, driving or on the train or bus. We sit down for leisure, watching tv or on our computers. Our bodies don't only adapt to what we do in the gym, they adapt to our day-to-day lives, too. If we sit down all the time, our bodies adapt to that. Our muscles become unbalanced, our joints stiff and twisted. Basically we end up looking like an ape.

What I commonly see in beginners coming to the gym is what I call the Western posture: The head juts forward. The shoulders are hunched up, rounded forward, and the upper arms rotated inwards. The upper back rounds forward. The lower back is arched back. The pelvis is tilted forwards, look at the belt line on men. This causes the belly to stick out, so that even thin people think they're overweight. Mostly this is just cosmetic, however usually the person also has neck and back pain from the muscles being tensed up, and in years may get disc herniations, shoulder impingements and so on.

If this goes on, future humans may slump around on all fours in constant pain, heads raised only far enough to check their iPhones and reach up for their wet cardboard burgers. 

Image of Western posture
from Pilates Integration

How can exercise help? By giving you better posture. Physical training can change how you look, feel and perform. In the Western posture the chest and front shoulder muscles are short and tight, as are the lower back muscles and hip flexors (the muscles at the top of your thigh that raise your leg). The upper back, abdominal, gluteal and hamstring muscles are weak. So we strengthen the weak muscles, and stretch the short and tight muscles.

For these reasons, I have a beginner focus on deep knee-bends and pulling motions, we don't worry too much about pressing motions. As the upper back, legs and glutes get stronger, the person straightens up, their shoulders open up. I have one client Julian who at 1.90m tall began at 165kg, once he dropped below 140kg workmates and friends asked, "Have you got taller?" Better posture improves their looks.

As Dan John says, "the body is one piece." When we exercise it with what should be normal everyday movements like squats and deadlifts, all the muscle imbalances tend to even out. With deep squats and correct deadlifts, the weakened glutes, hamstrings and abs become stronger, and so the risk of herniated discs, shoulder impingements and trauma joint injuries from sports and so on decreases. The person can lift heavy things in day-to-day life, feels more vitality and spring in their step, many small mysterious aches and pains tend to disappear. Better posture improves how they feel.

As for performance, obviously when your muscles are balanced you can move better. Physical training is about learning correct movement. The typical beginner will just use their quadriceps to squat, raising up on their toes and rounding their lower back. A quarter of people over 70 are unable to sit down and stand up without shifting their weight forwards and using their hands, and cannot pick up 5kg off the ground; if they cannot go to the toilet unaided or do their own shopping, this has obvious effects on their quality of life and independence.

By squatting correctly and using their gluteals and hamstrings and stabilising their torso, the person will use more muscles for the same movement, and be able to run faster, push over or grapple players on the sports field, and so on. Better posture will improve how they perform.

Thus, everyone needs to squat and deadlift. This does not mean everyone needs to squat 100kg or deadlift 200kg, or even use barbells. It does mean that everyone needs to be able to do some sort of movement with a deep knee-bend, and to be able to pick up something heavy off the ground. If your work involves this, great. If not, then you need to do it in the gym. 

In this way we look, feel and perform better and become bipedal creatures once more. 

Self-evident truths in training

None of what I or anyone else says about weight or cardio training is new and original. It has all been said before in different words. Sports science is mostly about putting precise numbers to what the old-timers learned by just trying it and seeing. 

Because we sit still at work, at home, at leisure, and in the journey in between, we have to stand up and move our bodies in the gym. As I've said before, once I worked in a sheet metal factory moving and cutting quarter inch sheet steel, and I cycled to work every day. I didn't need a gym membership then. 

Train movements, not muscles. When do you do bicep curls in day-to-day life except at the pub and when you're feeling lonely? Move your body in the gym as you should in day-to-day life. In every workout, do a deep knee bend, pick something heavy up off the floor and put something heavy overhead, and do all this with good posture and bracing, thus your whole body is worked. Legs, pull, push. 

Consistent effort over time gets results. More important than which routine you choose is that you be consistent with it. Better an ordinary routine you stick with than an awesome one you quit. Most people quit.

If in every session you do more than you did before, you will get stronger, fitter, and your physique will change. More weight, or more reps or more sets. More range of motion, too, but that really just applies to beginners. For everyone else, more weight, more reps or more sets; or for cardio, more speed or more resistance or more time. 

Strength and fitness are built in the gym, size at the dinner table. No amount of weight training will make you bigger if you live on a bowl of rice and stick of celery every day, nor will it make you smaller if you eat 20 quarter pounders a day. 

Recovery depends on food and rest. The Bulgarian weightlifting team works out six hours a day six days a week, but they have lifting as their full-time job, eat 13,000kcal daily, have afternoon naps, hot saunas and ice baths, sports masseurs and copious amounts of vitamin T. The ordinary person has a life to live, poor diet and poor sleep, so struggles to work out 2 or 3 times a week. 

None of what I or anyone else says about weight training is new and original.

Why should I exercise?

Humans were made to move, so move your body. Most back pain, many performance, health and physique issues can be traced to spending too much time in one position. That's because our bodies don't only adapt to what we do in the gym or on the track, they adapt to what we do day-to-day, too. If you did pushups for eight hours a day, you would expect your body to adapt to that, if you sit hunched over a computer eight hours a day, you should expect your body will adapt to that too, and you get stuck in that position.

Physical training can change the way you look, feel and perform. It changes the way you look by helping you stand more upright, move more confidently, by giving your body a reason to grow some muscle and burn some fat. It changes the way you feel by improving your day-to-day movement, giving you extra energy, making all your organs function better, and making you feel more productive and useful. It changes the way you perform by improving your strength, agility and fitness.

"Exercise" doesn't have to be in the gym. For three months once I cycled to work in a sheet metal factory, shifting 2 by 3m and 8mm thick sheet steel on rollers to cut within 1mm over a metre – I was strong and fit without chrome and mirrors. Nowadays in the developed West our jobs are more mental and social than physical and we drive everywhere. The person who gets a more physical job and travels under their own power by foot or cycle will improve how they look, feel and perform without paying for a gym membership or a personal trainer.

Those who do not move their bodies enough day-to-day need to move them in the gym or on the track. That's where I come in. I help you move your body, and teach correct movement.