Don’t be in a rush to progress.
Let’s look at progress in terms of building muscle and strength. Slow and steady wins the race with this one.
During the beginner stage you will make your fastest progress, you will be able to increase your weights very often, the progressive overload principle works wonders here, keep on adding weight to that bar then things gradually slow down when you enter the intermediate stage, it’s in this stage when programming has to start to have some thought behind it, if you are to continue progressing, then the more advanced you become this slows down further.
Example:
Take a beginners strength progress in the bench press. His starting max for 6 reps is 50kg, within 6 weeks of training he is now able to bench 62.5kg for 6 reps. This is a 25% increase of his 6RM.
Compare this to an advanced guy adding 25% to one of his lifts in 6 weeks is crazy. The advanced guy can currently bench 200kg, a 25% increase would be a 250kg bench….this just wouldn’t happen. I’m sure the advanced lifter would be happy to add anywhere from 1-5% to his lift!
It’s easy to become Impatient or be over enthusiastic with your progress , I understand, I have been in both of those positions. You have just set a new PB on a lift and you feel great, you decided you could put more weight on the bar, you go for it and you fail, your risk of injury goes up because you add too much weight that your body just wasn’t ready for, your mood suddenly changes from one of joy to frustration because you wanted too much too soon.
An example from the fat loss world:
You are trying to lose some fat and you are making steady progress, you look in the mirror,can see the changes each week, then progress begins to slow, your bodyweights not changing, you feel like you haven’t changed , so you start reducing your calories, adding some extra cardio sessions and buy some fat burners.
Patience!! Fat loss isn’t always linear there will be small bumps.
A lack of patience is why so many people fail on the nutrition side of things,they go to extremes to get fast results, these results don’t last as they return to the habits that got them out of shape in the first place, this process then repeats over and over again. The classic 1lb per week just isn’t enough for some people.
Question…1lb a week average over 52 weeks = you do the maths. But losing 1lb a week on average isn’t very exciting is it?
In this game you need to be patient, this is why so many people in my opinion resort to using steroids, manage your expectations realistically don’t get carried away when things are going well and don’t push yourself too fast too soon.
Enjoy the journey, take pride in your achievements & think long term – slow progress is better than no progress.
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