Each and every movement for any exercise should be progressed the same way as learning something new. You may have seen it on YouTube. You’ve seen the folks that do 5-minute cardio burn-out videos. Get your workout out and done in 30 minutes to melt away fat and get rock hard abs. Or, make massive gains in 30 days or less. Unfortunately, this has skewed the reality of what it means to make true progress towards your fitness goals. People burn out way too fast because they don’t know how to progress in their workouts or worse, they injure themselves.
The goal needs to be attainable given your skills. If you have never worked out before, it’s unrealistic to expect that you’ll learn everything there is to learn within a month. There is way too much information that is constantly changing for this to be possible. Watching instructional videos or books will equip you with the theory, but your brain has not made any of the neural connections necessary for you to know how it feels physically to do a specific movement with the proper form. You have to do it to get the whole picture. This means slow and steady. Your focus should be on the movement of a particular exercise with 0 additional weight. It could mean that you would need to do modified exercises until you’re able to do the exercise with your body weight. There is nothing wrong with that. Focus on these 3 principles to “progress” with any exercise:
1. Master the Movement
The important piece to focus on is the movement and whether or not you’re using the right muscles to perform the movement. This knowledge can only come with practice and mastery comes at a different pace for everybody. Do it until you’ve mastered the movement
2. Allow for Progression
If you run 1 mile a day and then run a marathon 1. there was no progression and 2. the likelihood of injury goes from 0 to 100 real quick. Start with 0 (learning the theory), then 1, then 2, then 3, and you get the point… embrace the process, build confidence, not ego.
3. Find a (Good) Guide
Let’s use running as an example of the exercise for this principle. Running, though we all have done it at one time or another can lead to joint issues (when and where depending on the circumstances of the individual). The reason for a guide is for them to hold you accountable for sticking with a program or making modifications to a program where needed. An excellent example of a digital guide would help you stick to a running program would be the “C25K” app available on both iOS and Android. I’ve used this app personally and was able to train properly to run up to a 5K (not for time, but for distance). However, still adhering to the running example, you would get greater value in finding a running coach who can analyze your running form and suggest modifications and construct a 5K training program better fit to your skills and goals.
Here’s a bonus:
A simple rule of thumb, no matter how advanced you are: “there is always room for improvement. Always.” Through various different athletic/sports organization, there are constantly enhancements or updated methods on how to perform certain exercises. These changes are made because the scientific understanding of why an exercise was performed a certain way has changed or enough athletes have been injured doing an exercise in such a way that the technique was updated to minimize the likelihood of injury. Always be skeptical though, some people just change things for the sake of change to stand out. Maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. Make sure you understand why you’re doing a particular exercise and it should be a good starting point to continue to learn and improve with effort, understanding, and time.
Co-Owner of FiT ME Brand, LLC