ways to work on progress

Firstly try not to put to much pressure on yourself to progress week on week, some adaptions will become noticeable pretty early on and some will take a lot longer to become apparent but that doesnt mean to say that they aren’t happening.

This year my father in law had a heart attack and the family were in shock that actually he had been a ticking time bomb all along but we simply didn’t know it. Cardiovascular disease had been there but nobody knew it until he had a myocardial infarction.

Essentially this means that he had partial and the a full occlusion to his coronary arteries.

Thing is we don’t ask the doctor to check if we head in for a check up do we? Its often only apparent if we develop a symptom or we develop a injury or have some kind of event.

I know for me, I can promise myself I will foam roll every day if I pick up a small strain – little strains are things that happen from time to time but I have to stay disciplined in order to do it as there often isn’t a immediate short term benefit but I know doing it helps longer term in my injury prevention.

The key is to leaning into somethings we might find hard without a immediate return but that our bodies and minds can benefit from.

1. Listen out for progressions from Beth within the workout, lengthening a lever eg, performing a full press up rather than on your knees will make the exercise feel harder but there are ways to safely layer exercise so that we can slowly build our strength, our endurance and our explosive power.
2. Build up the time you train per week – that doesn’t mean doing it all in one day but perhaps do 1 full session and 2x 5 minute sessions on a Mon, Weds, Fri and then build up to 2 full sessions and 1 x five min fit. or even 1 session and 3 five min fits eg Mon, Tue, Thurs, Fri This will mean your able to add more reps and sets and add more volume, to your week.
3. Control tempo – listen out for slow the eccentric phase, so the lowering phase perhaps on a press up. more time undee tension will help you to make further progress
4. Work on your range of movement. lifting and squeezing your bottom fully for example on a glute bridge will help you contract your glute max fully and fully contracting the muscle will aid in hypertrophy and strength,
5. Eat enough and eat the right foods – to gain muscle and increase your metabolism we need to preserve muscle if we are in a calorie deficit (diet phase) so having enough protein is key and if we are bulking or working on muscle definition we need to eat above our tdee – total daily energy expenditure and have adequate protein to gain optimal protein symphysis, so to build muscle.
6. Record/track what your able to do, perhaps a min plank or 5 press ups, but keep an eye on your progress and look to gain range of movement, or control the movement a little more, celebrate your wins but look on ways to progress the exercises and identify where we need to work on,
7. Get enough sleep – everything will feel so much harder to achieve without enough sleep
8. .Track your steps, or watch your movement, we naturally adapt to exercise and your body often finds ways to preserve energy, you taking the lift without thinking or taking a shorter route, or perhaps fidgeting less, keep up your neat – none-exercise activity to help you see results that are slower to show,
9. Remember just because it doesn’t show this week or month doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, be patient.
10. Go for a thicker band or heavier dumbbell, keep challenging your strength!