There has been a trend in the recent years towards the so-called functional training. It emphasizes training the body so that it performs better in sport activities and life in general. As with many trends sometimes the pendulum swings too far in one direction. What I mean is that after fitness training for decades meant working purely for size and aesthetics with a split training routine, now the completely opposite thing is in style.
Now that’s not the kind of modeling I’m talking about here. It doesn’t hurt to have a picture of a gorgeous woman though.. Behavioral modeling is a technique developed to replicate the achievements of high level performers. It means observing the technicalities of their competence, creating a model of that behavior and teaching it. For example, if you follow the exact steps someone took to achieve a certain thing, you will achieve it too.
Now the catch is that most pros are at a level of unconscious competence. This means that they know how to do certain things, but neither can break them down in explainable form, nor can they teach them.
Here is an example. A badminton player used to come to the gym where I trained. When we asked her to explain specifics about the way she plays the game, she said that you just do it. The girl declared that we were just unfit to grasp the techniques. Unconscious competence is the reason why many natural athletes are poor coaches.
They never had to analyze and breakdown the technique of their sport. Mediocre athletes on the contrary, often have to dissect things and are thus suited to teach others.
The gradual increase of the difficulty of your training (progressive overload), is the only guaranteed method to increase your fitness. This works whether your goal is to get stronger, get bigger, get more endurance, etc. Your body changes because it adapts to the changing levels of stress.
Every change or shock in the environment is perceived as stress and the body tries to adapt to it. If the stress is too small, it won’t cause a disturbance and no adaptation will occur. If the stress is too big, you simply die.
Have you ever noticed how when you first join a gym it is easy to get stronger, add weight and do more reps on each subsequent workout? But a few weeks or a few months later, your progress comes to a halt. You keep pushing the same amount of weight and keep struggling at the same number of repetitions.
This is what I experienced when I first became serious about working out 8 years ago. I wouldn’t miss workouts and yet I seemed to be stuck. In fact, I keep seeing the guys at the gym struggling to change their bodies OR get stronger.
Truth is, I see this at most of the gyms I visit when I have to workout somewhere else. The cost of all this is not only that people fail to get their dream bodies, you know, the type of physiques that inspired them to start training, but also quit working out altogether.
I will be real here. The beginner strength training workout is not the only routine I’ve trained with. And, this is not the workout I have started training with. Having said that however, this is the workout I currently do and I would recommend to anybody that is a beginner or intermediate, because it produces the fastest progress thus the fastest results. I will write more about what physical goals you need to surpass in order to advance past intermediate status.
Weight training is a kind of stress. When your muscles, as well as tendons, bones and internal secretion glands are exposed to the stress of resistance training, they fatigue and break down a bit. The organs and tissues subsequently recover and become stronger than before.