Thursday, March 13, 2008

How to Make Progress Every Time You Train

The reality of life is some days you just feel like crap. So how do you make progress week after week, even when your feeling down or just having "one of those days"? I discovered this simple chart as a way to easily moniter (besides just listening to your body) how hard you should go that day:

1) How Do You Feel?
- Fantastic: +4
- Good: +2
- Average: 0
- Bad: -2
- Awful: -4
2) Are You Motivated to Train?
- Beyond Belief: +4
- Yes, I'm Psyched: +2
- I Wanna Go, But That's It: 0
- Do I Have to?: -2
- I Really Don't Want to: -4
3) How Did You Sleep?
- Great Night: +4
- Pretty Good: +2
- Average: 0
- Had Trouble Sleeping: -2
- Barely Slept: -4

Add up your score and use this chart to see how you should train today.

Interpretation Chart:
> 10 to 12: Increase daily training load a lot (intensity and volume)
> 6 to 9: Increase daily training load (volume only)
> 0 to 5: Stay with planned training load
> -6 to -1: Decrease daily training load (volume or intensity)
> -12 to -7: Skip it


Hopefully you are are following some sort of program or have an idea of what you want to do throughout the week. This chart will help you make progress even if your having a rough week or not feeling your best. There's no point in pushing yourself when you just don't have it....and if you feel great, there's no point in holding yourself back just because that's what your program says to do.

Happy training.


- Max