I am often asked what it takes to get results in the gym. After asking the question people just stare. They expect you to come up with some complex answer. However, the answer is much simpler than people expect. I have come up with 3 important points that will lead to success in the gym for anyone who listens—Focus, Intensity and Consistency.
What is Focus?
Anything worth doing is worth doing right. When it comes to something like fitness, something that is not an overnight endeavour, you need to do some careful planning. You get out of it what you put into it. The more time and effort you give to planning for your success the better you will do. This is what focus is all about. You create a plan and then you work the plan. You don’t let anything distract you from the plan.
Nutritional Planning
Tom Venuto, author of The Body Fat Solution has stated that counting calories is essential to the success of any nutritional program. I hear you all groaning at once! Nobody likes to count calories. It is time-consuming and dull. You have to write down everything you eat and track the calories from that food. It gets pretty complicated. But does it have to be so complicated?
Planning in Advance – The Secret to Calorie Counting
The best way to count your calories is to create a menu and then stick to it. What I do is sit down on Saturday and plan the next week’s meals. I then do my absolute best to stick to that menu for the entire week. In doing so, I am able to count my calories as I plan the menu. I don’t have to track everything I eat. I don’t have to carry around a log with me. All I do is plan and eat. If something happens to change in my menu, I just go back and add that little change and recalculate the calories. It is alot less stressful this way and it helps me insure I am eating enough, but not too much.
Exercise Planning
It is extremely important to be focused with your training. Take the time to plan your workouts well in advance. Carry a log into the gym and write down everything you do. You are collecting some very important information that will help you with the Experiment of One at a later date. If you are unsure what the Experiment of One is, please sign up for the Fitness Expose eNewsletter and free Fitness Basics eCourse. You will learn some valuable information that will help you with your exercise planning. Some of the topics covered are where to start, the Experiment of One, repetition inroad, and High Intensity Training. It is completely free when you sign up for our mailing list. We never sell your information to anyone ever.
Make Changes
Use your log and make changes as necessary. Maintain an intense focus in the gym and you will get intense results. Take measurements regularly to assist you in determining how you are doing with your planning. Don’t let your results get you down. We produce results 100% of the time. Sometimes those results are what we want and other times they are not. Either way, use the feedback you get to fix anything that is wrong with your plan.
Stay Tuned
My next article will discuss the role of intensity in achieving your success.
