Rethinking The Training Program
You don’t live in a lab, you live on Planet Earth, it’s not pretty, that’s the point. Animals achieve feats of strength through the scrums of their environment, and survivalism favors the fittest, so when training programs go astray, why is there such a panic? Training isn't a mathematically perfected formula, it's a generalization built on principles used in Strength and Conditioning, and exercise physiology. It's not a tap-dance that will make gains rain, it all hangs on one component. Specificity of training: does your training look like your game?
Specificity of Training: Keep Your Eyes on the Road.
For results to improve, specific training must be done. Not necessarily down to the minute details that some athletes, or their coaches, tend to take them to. Before an athlete digs deeper into a fast-acting formula, or complex training program, do they understand the premise of their training programs? They should, or else find themselves becoming a soccer star with great biceps, a weak-jacked powerlifter, or a big but slow football player. They all have attained great training results, but not for what was specifically demanded. Whether or not an average person has the same pressure as a pro or collegiate athlete to improve their fitness, they should always be able to improve what they were striving for. Doing ten sets of bench press for cardio to improve your 5k time is not going to do much, and if you find yourself training similar sideshows like this, you're going to want to adjust, or regress.
Whether a strength or weakness, whatever skill is in need of the improvement at that time will need the majority of the attention. The primary objective of your training should be what gets accomplished by the end of the session. If you're working on improving lower body endurance, you can choose to load up the leg press and max out for multiple sets, but you would've probably missed your original intention. For better results in training, don't fall victim to this!
Practice Skills Over Everything.
If your kettlebell swing looks like this, work on that SKILL. Don't be a part of the "Front raises with a squat" technique crowd. It's bad for your health, and reputation.
You're going to want to practice the skill and accumulate volume. Volume is your total number of sets x repetitions for your training session. Adding more volume is a great way to improve training, if one can manage dodging the recovery blues. If you can maintain a high amount of volume, improve, and not reach overtraining, or burnout, you're working with the right numbers. If sessions are getting harder, and the level of performance (speed, load, power output) aren't increasing, there might be too much high-intensity volume.
Volume is good with the right touch. The athlete and/or coach should be aware of the heart rate, or mainly the Rate of Perceived Exertion(RPE) during training. While Rocky chopping wood in the Siberian Tundra sold movie tickets and American Pride, training at that 100% effort level is unsustainable. Visualize hitting 100%, or an RPE of 10 as this: It was the peak of your exertion, so it was the peak of your performance. Most likely, the following sets or distances will not go as well as this performance, due to the huge tax it just put on the body.
Think of this in sets of rowing on a Concept 2 or other style rower. An athletes personal record 500m time is 1:45. That's a 500m, all out sprint pace, for the sake of the example. if you wanted an athlete to hit a 5000m row, that would be done 10 times. If an athlete pulls a 1:45, or even 1:39 timed 500m, it would be their PR, but it would also take the training session pace downhill. It'd be better for the athlete to instead work 10 consistent 500m rows, at about a 1:55 pace. That way, knocking off 1:55 splits keeps getting easier, then you move to 1:50 working sets, then all the way down to your PR at 1:45, but for rounds! If you can get this done, you're all out, max-effort 500m (or any distance for that matter) time, will have improved.
One of the most popular training principles in endurance competitions is the 80-20 principle. 80% of the work is focused on accumulating volume, 20% of the work is at high-intensity levels. This allows unaffected, less-fatiguing volume, and meets it in the middle with peak training sessions, seldom. Much like in endurance competition, strength and power training should take note from this. Popularized by Pavel Tsatsouline, and other strength and conditioning professionals in the martial arts realms, most training sessions weren't meant to make the athlete sore, they were to make the athlete strong. The Russian Kettlebell Challenge and Strongfirst curriculums have become very common in the Tactical Strength and Conditioning community.
Simplify Your Training, Please.
If you have a specific sport or athletic skill that you are training for, train movements that mimic ones from the sport you participate in. Punching through banded resistance, swinging weighted baseball bats, and jumping with weight are some examples. Find something that challenges your games weakness, and drill them (or lift them).
Has the routine gotten off-topic? If the training sessions don't feel like they are addressing a goal thats at the forefront of training needs, hit pause on training, and look at what needs to be done. The top olympic weightlifters aren't using bicep supersets to increase their power clean, it wouldn't make sense. Neither does fasted cardio during a traditional "bulking" season. This is where cross fitters mean well, but don't always get the greatest guidance from their coaches and classes. The general premise of the class seems to come off in a way that challenges the participant, "how much can you burn in one day?"
Some people are too rigid in their fitness confidence. It doesn’t always go according to plan. Your meal was 30 minutes late, your sleep was an hour off, you only had one hour and your training session required 2. It doesn’t matter, get it done. Practice to improve, and improve however much you can in the time you have. The burnt calories will come, and they will have been expended for your betterment, not just your punishment.
An improved appearance can sometimes serve as proof of a successful training period, but it's not the greatest way to measure progress, in every case. Some athletes need success in functional movement patterns, and their strength with them. The major compound lifts are a part of them. Not every person needs a double bodyweight squat or deadlift, but can they at least use the technique properly? If the machines have become the entirety of the workout, and chasing a vascular pump is the measure of success, some very muscular people can have the athleticism of a sloth. Training should never worsen your performance. The field of study that contains training is Human Performance!
If this describes you, spend time away from isolated, body part splits, and work on the compound movement patterns. The smith machine is a great place to start, and kettlebells create the opportunity for so many gateway exercises to better performance! The bulk of your strength training should stem from structural exercises, or ones that challenge the midsection of the body. Weed out the ones that don't relate to your endeavors, and master a few, before moving on. Keeping the variety lower can help an athlete maximize improvement in a select few areas, as opposed to the give and takes some training routines make.
Trap bars, kettlebells, power racks, and platforms will show you better strength, and health once you find ways to do exercise with them safely. The humbling experience of learning new exercises at minimal weight can be embarrassing at times, but that should be tuned out. Every person who trains is, and should be at the session for the sheer focus on improvement. Functional strength is for all people. Modify the movements, choose your best version of the movements, and grow.....or shrink, or shred, or kick ass. Stick to the main ideas of fitness, and Darwinism will support your health.
Get away from the shackles of your training notebook. If your lifts are your sport, practice your sport, and practice often. The more you stay focused on your priorities during training, the more results you will get, from training. You can't improve everything at once, so instead, improve something enough to appreciate it! When you are ready, move on, and repeat.