How hard to you train when you are in the gym? How hard are you pushing yourself? Have you ever stopped to really think about this issue?
I am a big believer that the harder you train the better your results. I honestly think that most of us don’t train anywhere near as hard as we think we do. In fact, I’m willing to bet that most people train about half as hard as they really should/could. We tend to stop sets too early. We “fail” before actual failure of the muscle group. We don’t push through the discomfort. After all of that, we wonder why we are not getting the results we want as fast as we want.
I was one who trained hard. I pushed myself harder and harder every session. Even now, as I think back about it, I can honestly say that I left it on the gym floor. However, I now know that there are ways to train even harder and I was missing that point. I would have seen better results and sooner had I used certain techniques that I am now aware of. You should examine your own training for these common deficiencies.
- Ending sets too quickly. We quit while we still have some reps left in us. If the bar is moving we have not failed yet, so why are we quitting?
- Not using heavy enough weights. When an exercise is planned for 10 repetitions, the final set of 10 should be close to impossible to complete. It should be a real stretch. If it isn’t, you are not training hard enough.
- Not having a plan when entering the gym. I know this may not seem to have anything to do with training hard, but it really does. When you don’t have a plan you tend to rest more in between sets. This lowers the intensity tremendously.
- Skipping items on the plan. We get into the gym and start to feel the intensity. It is uncomfortable. As a result, we make the decision to skip certain exercises or we lower the number of sets. If we want to train as hard as possible we have to stick to the well thought out plan we came in with.
- Not training in the full range of motion. When we begin to feel discomfort it is a naturally tendency to shorten the range of motion on an exercise. This means we are not working as hard as possible. Don’t shorten up that bicep curl just to get it done.
Have a listen to the video below and then leave a comment about how hard you are really training. We all want to hear!
[pro-player width='420′ height='315′ type='video']http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT4kZbM_F7w[/pro-player]
