If you’re hardcore about your training, you’ll be familiar with the concept of pushing yourself relentlessly and having feelings of guilt if you take a day off. While the ‘no pain, no gain’ motto can make you work harder, train more, and avoid skipping sessions, it can also leave you gasping for air and bent over in pain in the name of results.

Train hard without training yourself into a hole.

You must be mindful that your wellbeing determines your state of readiness for exercise. For example, if you visit the gym for a heavy leg session and it’s at the end of a stressful day at work in which you’ve eaten junk food and not drunk enough water, then your body will be in a pre-stressed state. Similarly, if you consistently train at very high intensities, you could actually be getting less-than-optimal results as a result of the lack of adequate recovery.

The Importance of Recovery and Regeneration

Recovery and regeneration is often overlooked when it comes to fitness, but it’s a critical determinant of how effective your training is and an influential factor on the results you’ll obtain. Depending on your overall fitness level and your genetic makeup, your body can sometimes take longer than you’d have thought to recover from high intensity training. Muscle glycogen can take several days to replenish, and the rebuilding of dysfunctional mitochondria and the immune system can take weeks. So how do you know if you’re overtraining or under-recovering, and what the right intensity is for you?

Start by imagining you’re a car. Think of your engine as your cardiac fitness, remembering that engines come in varying sizes. Regardless of make or model, we each have five gears within our gearbox and need to use all of them every day, depending on what we are trying to achieve on that day (i.e. your goal), and taking into consideration the conditions and the terrain (i.e., the environment). Each gear within your body requires a slightly different fuel source (e.g., glycogen via the glycolytic pathway, fatty acids via the oxidative pathway, and ATP and phosphocreatine via the ATP-Pcr pathway).

Now let’s say you needed to get to a destination that was 200km away. If you shift straight into fifth gear, then you’d have great speed, but you’d run out of gas before you reach your destination. And if you stay in first gear the whole way, then you would eventually get there but it would be a very slow journey.

This is exactly how your energy system works. You have to use all five gears. Training in one gear all the time is incomplete; after all, what would happen to your car if you drove at high speeds in fifth gear all the time? It would be difficult to turn corners, you’d probably crash regularly, and your tyres would be bald. In anatomical terms, you’d be experiencing overuse injuries.

The Daily Readiness and Programming Chart

Let’s look at a practical way to see how ready you are to train each day and at what intensity you should be training.

This scientifically developed energy system chart will help you define the best gear (i.e. heart rate percentage) for you to train in, whether your goal is fat loss, muscle gain, sports performance, or wellness. This chart also takes into account your wellbeing and overall readiness for exercise. Applying this tool will ensure you get the results you want, without the risk of overtraining or under-recovering.

Currently, the most accurate way to determine which gear you are training in is to measure your heart rate percentage. This is most accurately done using a heart rate monitor. Once you’ve worked out what gear you’re training in, it’s time to apply it to the Daily Readiness and Programming Chart.

The Daily Readiness and Programming Chart

[Chart credit: The Personal Training Academy]

If you don’t train with a heart rate monitor you can also use a Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) scale, such as the one below.

How to Use the Daily Readiness and Programming Chart

Readiness: This is simplistically assessing how much stress you are currently experiencing. Rate the 4 items on the 3–point scale. Tally up the total score to find the your Readiness level for exercise each session.

Wellbeing Scale: This is assessing how you feel generally each session. Rate how you feel on the 5-point scale. This score should correlate with your Readiness score.

Heart Rate Gear: This tells you the heart rate zone that will be most appropriate for you train in today. It will typically match your Wellbeing Scale and Readiness score. It does not mean you cannot go into a higher zone, but if you do, you may wish to minimize how much time you spend there.

Heart Rate Percent: This shows you the percentage of your maximum heart rate for each zone.

1. Rate your Readiness (the first column) by scoring yourself in the four areas of sleep, diet/water, aches/pains, and mood.
2. Compare this score to the Wellbeing Scale (the second column). They should match.
3. Next, find out which Heart Rate Gear column (the third column) and Heart Rate Percent (the fourth column) is most appropriate for you to train in on this day. Typically, it will match your Wellbeing Scale and Readiness score.

Your resulting scores don’t mean that you can’t go into a higher gear or heart rate percentage, only that you should consider limiting the time you spend in those higher gears. Doing so may mean you are creating more stress than your system can handle on this particular day.

Get Ready for Awesome Results

The key is to listen to your body every day, and use this chart to find your ideal training intensity. A training regime that takes into account recovery and regeneration will yield better results, fewer injuries, and less burnout.

Unconvinced about the power of a great recovery strategy? Read more:

The Gaps in Your Training Aren’t in the Gym

The post A Practical Guide to Training Intensity appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

When training gets hard and motivation evaporates, it can be hard to find it again. [Photo credit: Rx’d Photography]

Unfortunately, even the most motivational moments don’t last forever. There are times when your motivation evaporates and you feel like you’re going nowhere. During these times of feeling in a rut, it can be hard to know how to climb back out.

The good news is all the motivation you felt during those previous moments is still there. You just have to remind yourself how to tap back into it. Ruts are normal. No one achieves their goals without experiencing some periods of reduced training mojo, whether it be emotional or physical. The challenge is not to let these negative feelings derail you from getting back on track with your training.

With this in mind, here are seven strategies to break out of your training rut.

1. Pinpoint Why You’re in a Rut

The first step to climbing out of a rut is figuring out why you have fallen into it. Take a long, hard look at your training goals and ask yourself whether they really are what you want to achieve.

How does it feel when you imagine yourself achieving your goals? What are you missing out on by not achieving them? When you reach your goal, how will things be different? Provide honest answers to these questions. They’ll help you identify whether your lack of motivation stems from inappropriate or mismatched training goals.

Next, ask yourself if you are truly paying attention to your body. Have you pushed yourself too far in your training? Are there signals you are getting inadequate rest or recovery? Is your lifestyle working against your training goals?

Take the time to listen to your answers and clearly define what you really want. View your rut as an opportunity to get reacquainted with the reasons you started training in the first place.

2. Be Clear About What You Want

The next step is to narrow your goals and make a clear decision about what you want to achieve in the future. Identify goals that will give you the motivation required to take action. Examples may be competing in a race, completing 20 push ups, having enough energy to play with your kids, fitting into your old jeans, or completing a triathlon. Once you are clear on your why, you have something to refer back to when things get tough. A true ‘why’ will be your ultimate and most reliable motivator.

3. Picture Yourself in Action

Imagine yourself doing what it takes to be successful. Mental practice can boost confidence, improve motor performance, and increase your state of flow. Visualise your success as soon as you wake up and before you go to bed.

You may have heard of the experiment by Australian psychologist, Alan Richardson. Richardson took a group of basketball players, split them into three groups, and assessed each player’s ability to make free throws. The first group would practice 20 minutes every day. The second would only visualise themselves making free throws, but no real practice was allowed. The third group did not practice or visualise.

Interestingly, the group who visualised showed significant improvement. They performed almost as well as those who actually practised.

4. Believe You Can

Know that anything is possible. Not only can you do it, you deserve to do it, and do it well. As the famous American industrialist Henry Ford said: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

5. Enjoy the Small Steps

In my early days as a fitness competitor, I focused on turning professional every day. I lived and breathed the goal, but when that day came and I stood there getting my medal, I actually felt a bit deflated and wondered if that was all there was to it. It wasn’t until I reflected back that I realised what I enjoyed the most had been the training, the discipline, and the personal growth I’d experienced along the way.

The lesson here is while you’re taking action towards achieving your goal every single day, always remember that it’s not just the end goal that matters. The small steps along the way all contribute to your overall success. Take value from each one and enjoy the journey.

6. Recognise What Works and What Doesn’t

You don’t have to keep doing things the way you’ve always done them. Sometimes we can be so committed to getting there that we stick to a process or a system like a safety blanket, even if takes us nowhere. If your approach isn’t working look at how it can be adjusted and fine-tune it. Don’t wait until boredom and frustration sets in. One secret to success is being able to learn from your mistakes and adjust what you do along the way.

7. Take Charge of Your Mind

Taking charge of your mind is an important step to successfully driving your motivation. Your mind and body are linked in a constant state of communication. How you move, speak, stand, and sit has a direct link to your emotions. Think about what state of mind you need to be in to succeed in achieving your goal. Do you need to stand up straight, smile,and have open body language? You might be surprised at what else you can achieve simply by changing your thought processes.

Work the Feelings Out, Don’t Fight Them

Next time you hit a rut, stay positive and be prepared for the negative feelings it brings. Try and avoid fighting all the associated feelings of being in a rut. Instead, accept the feelings are normal and learn from them. Work out why you have lost your motivation and use the above tips to break out of your training rut and get right back on track.

Ready to saddle up and train again? Read this first:

Get Back on the Horse

The post 7 Ways to Break Out of a Training Rut appeared first on Breaking Muscle.