Day 32: Incremental Gains

                Get a six pack in six weeks! Transform your body in 30 days! Lose weight today! We live in a society obsessed with instant gratification, & unfortunately for most of us, our gains in terms of health & fitness tend to come slowly over time, as opposed to fitting into the short time frames promised by flashy magazine advertisements.

                Now that I am nearly 5 weeks into my training program, I am looking to retool my exercise regimen to focus more on my weaknesses (ahem, running). In order to do this, I went through & input each of my 16-journaled strength-training workouts into an Excel document (blog posts to come). In doing this, I was amazed at the progress that I have made! What seemed like small gains from week to week turned out to be quite significant when you compare week 1 to week 4.

                The post that follows focuses on the impact of incremental gains, & how to best take advantage of the massive potential that small, incremental gains have to offer.  

Journal everything

                First & foremost – you must journal everything. It is very difficult to remember what you did in the gym yesterday, let alone a week ago! By journaling everything, you can ensure that you are constantly comparing yourself to last week’s self & pushing to get better, even if it marginally so. One habit I have picked up recently that has served me well is sitting down before I head to the gym & writing out the exercises that I will be completing, & above where I write the repetitions & weights, I put in small writing what I did the week previous. Having this information readily available before each set kick starts my competitive nature & the ‘progress over everything’ mantra in my head, & has undoubtedly helped me push for a few repetitions beyond what I thought possible more than once. Additionally, by reviewing what I did the week previous, I ensure that I am always challenging myself by adding more resistance to make the exercise more challenging where applicable.

Focus on being better than yesterday

                The key to taking advantage of incremental gains is to not get stuck dwelling on the BHAG (big, hairy, audacious, goal) that you’ve set for yourself, because if you’re anything like me, your long-term health & fitness goals can seem daunting at best on an ‘off-day’ which can be very discouraging. Your focus in the gym should be to always improve, even if it’s by a single repetition or just a few pounds. By utilizing the journaling technique above, you can ensure you are comparing your current performance versus your performance the week prior to ensure you achieve the incremental gains that you are looking for. 

                I went to school for finance, & one concept that has never ceased to amaze me is the concept of compound interest. While it is very difficult to consistently increase your return on an investment 1% per week, in the gym, especially at the beginning of a new training routine, it is very possible. If you were to improve 1% in an exercise week-in & week-out for 52-weeks, you would be 168% better than at the start of the year – nearly twice as effective by improving just 1%! Increase to a 2% gain per week, & you are 280% better, & at a 5% gain per week, you will be 1,264% or nearly 13 times better than at the start of the year! To put that in perspective, if you currently can only bench press the bar (55lbs), that means by the end of the year you’ll be benching 695lbs, over halfway to the world record of 1075lbs! (Ok so maybe that’s not possible, but you get the point!)

Do one thing better

                Of course, the numbers in the example above are great to look at, but most of us recognize that we are about as likely to consistently improve 5% week-in, week-out as we are to achieve a 695lb bench press by the end of the year. It is unrealistic to expect to make such drastic improvements in every exercise, every week. What I focus on instead if making sure I improve at least one area of my workout, every single week. Whether it’s moving up 5lbs on your deadlift, doing 2 extra pull ups, or lowering your KM running pace by 2 seconds; focus on improving something. The psychological impact of consistently improving can be profound & once you get the ball rolling, there will be no stopping you! Additionally, by consistently doing one thing better, by the end of a set period you will find yourself improved in all areas of your fitness program!     

Set short-term, & stretch goals

                It is certainly important to have longer-term goals, which is one of the primary reasons I signed up for the Spartan race which I discussed in my day 18 post focused on ‘my why.’  That said, longer term goals can occasionally seem abstract or far-off, which can lead us to become complacent in our pursuit of them. To keep yourself motivated, it helps to set shorter-term, daily, or weekly goals, that will help push you towards achieving your longer-term goal. Personally, I try to set 3 fitness goals for myself each Sunday which I have discussed in my weekly summaries (week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4). These shorter-term goals help me remain focused day-in & day-out, & also serve as a positive feedback loop as I continuously achieve them, leading me to set & achieve more ambitious goals each week which move me closer towards my ultimate goal of successfully completing a Spartan Race. For further information on goals, I spoke at length on the topic of goal setting in my day 11 post.

Look back on occasion

                I began going through my journal with a mindset of identifying where I was weakest, & instead found myself proud of the progress that I have made in a relatively brief period of time. While you always want to be looking forward to achieving your goals, it can be motivating & reassuring to occasionally take time to look at how far you have come. In terms of health & fitness, despite what celebrities & magazine advertisements would have us believe, it is a sprint, not a marathon. As has been demonstrated in this post, even the smallest gains in the short-term can result in massive improvements over the long-term. Even the slowest walker will eventually lap the person sitting on their couch!

                In conclusion, by taking 15 minutes to sit down & review my training journal, I was able to observe how much progress I have made since I began this journey 32 days ago. This progress contrasted with the way I felt that the progress had been slow or non-existent after some of my more challenging workouts. The reality is that by focusing on getting better every single week, even if it is marginally so, you can achieve some truly big results!

100 Day Spartan