Monday, July 17, 2017

Let your great object be victory

In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns. 
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

While being educated in how to perform, program, and implement exercises for specific goals, we had to do one assignment that involved annual training plans.  Now, these training plans aren't the most in-depth plans, but nevertheless, they exist.  As a trainer, especially in that I work with the public rather than athletes as much of my education set the stage for, I generally don't work with annual plans.  In fact, many of the plans that I have to implement are much, much, shorter since many people don't particularly like to have long term plans.  

Much of the time, the goal for many of my clients and class participants is to look better naked.  Seriously.  Think about your fitness goals, many start out with wanting to look better and they generally progress to something else, such as being stronger or having broader shoulders or a bigger butt, whatever.  Many of these goals are accomplish-able through continuous changing of plans, rather than sticking with lengthier campaigns.  When I say campaign, I really refer to those long term training plans that I was taught how to do.  


I had shown, in one of my video posts, one of the programs that I will implement with some individuals.  This particular program that I highlighted has the benefit of being able to be implemented short term, so 4-8 weeks, or long term >12 weeks.  It depends then on distribution and selection of exercises.  So this campaign may be costly when implemented at length, or it can be an asset, depends on the goal.  

When deciding on a program, decide on your goals first.  As long as you're making strides towards your goal, then don't modify the program, at least too much.  If you feel as if you're inching a long and see no progress then modify the program to re-stimulate gains.  Now, I'm sure that I have colleagues that would disagree with my approach, and for an athlete that is more than accurate, but I don't work with athletes, generally.  

So set your sight on your goals and the programs will follow.  



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