General plans lead to general results.
In order to get fitter, stronger, faster, or more healthy, we all need to follow a training plan. But which plan is best?
Get-Fit Guy is hosted by Kevin Don. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Hi, it’s Kevin Don, the Get-Fit Guy. I’m a fitness coach with over a decade of experience training world-class athletes, and on this show, I share some of the knowledge I’ve picked up so that you can improve your own fitness.
This week, I would like to talk about training plans. There are so many options out there, different online templates, different coaches, and different methodologies. Sometimes they agree, some times they completely contradict each other. So how do we know which training program is best for us?
To start, I think we should have a look at the meaning of, or the etymology of, the word “coach.”
The word is actually the name of a town in North West Hungary—K-o-c-s, pronounced as “coach.” The location was renowned across Europe for the craftsmanship of a wooden wheeled cart called the “cart of Kocsi,” which is where we get the word “coach.” So we can say that a coach is a vehicle for delivering you from point to point in a safe and efficient manner.
In terms of fitness training, think of your current physical capacity as the point of origin, your training intent as the point of destination, and your training program as the vehicle that delivers you from A to B.
So, in order to work out where this training journey is going, we need to spend some time being honest and vulnerable in self-reflection. If we are in our twilight years, do we really have elite athletic goals? If we want to spend time with our family and young children, do we really need to have the body of an Olympian? Or is the goal just to move and resist the aging process? We can only begin to look at a training intervention once we have answered the question of training “intent.”
Once we’ve taken some time to consider our intent, we’ll know where the journey is going, but we also need to know where we are getting on board. So again, we need to have some reflection and self-questioning. We must bear in mind, however that this data here must be ACTIONABLE. Data is only as good as what you can do with it.
Here are some factors to consider as you figure out your point of origin:
Biological Age: As we age, our ability to perform both general and specific tasks decreases. Lower hormone levels, motor unit numbers, and metabolic syndromes like sarcopenia and osteopenia mean that training protocols for older and younger cohorts will look very different.
Training Age: Just as biologically older people are anabolically resistant (as in, it’s harder to add muscle as we age), someone with a high training age may be closer to their maximum physical potential and therefore more resistant to training prescriptions.
Available Resources: Where do you train? What equipment is available? How much time do you have to commit to training each week? A program that asks you to use equipment you don’t have will be tough to stick to. The same goes for marathon sessions that someone with a busy lifestyle cannot complete.
Personal Preference: We may be able to say for certain that a particular lift or movement will be optimal for a specific goal. But if you don’t like that exercise, it’ll be a lot harder to commit to the training plan. So knowing what you enjoy versus what your idea of a nightmare workout is, that’s very important.
Past or Current Limitations: Prior injuries or mobility, strength, or energy system limitations will be critical in understanding how to prescribe training. If one had, for example, chronic knee tendon issues, lower body training would look very different compared to someone with healthy joints.
Now we have determined our destination and have established our starting point. Now all we need is the vehicle to get us between the two points. As you heard, the information we needed to be able to even start thinking about training was individual and unique. Our training program needs to be individually-tailored as well— a general template, written for a mass prescription, will not be able to fulfill specific outcomes which are unique to the individual.
In all situations, specific programs result in specific outcomes and general programs will have general outcomes. You can’t follow Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bicep program and come out with his biceps, for example, because that training protocol was written for him and not for you.
The best program to use is always going to be the one that takes into account all of the aforementioned factors: your training intent, your training starting point, and your limitations. If you aren’t able to find a coach or to travel along that road yourself, then of course, following a general template is always better than sitting at home on the sofa. But we couldn’t ever compare them with individual design, and shouldn’t expect the same results.
To find out more on how to assess yourself and how to write your own bespoke program, keep following the show, as I will be revealing the best practices for both over the next few months!
Get-Fit Guy is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to the team at Quick and Dirty Tips, Adam Cecil (SEE-sill), Morgan Christianson, Holly Hutchings, and Davina Tomlin (Duh-VEE-nuh TOM-lin) and our intern is Kamryn Lacy. I’m your host, Kevin Don. If you have a question for me, leave me a voicemail at 510-353-3104 or send me an email at getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com. For more information about the show, visit quickanddirtytips.com, or check out the shownotes in your podcast app.