In this day and age, we are a culture of doing more to get more. Training is no different. Most athletes think the harder they train, the more success they will incur. This approach often gets confused with “beating yourself into the ground” to make “gainz”. I think most of us have subscribed to this approach at one point or another.
In my 20s I often thought that if I took a day off I would lose everything I’ve been working for. It wasn’t until some years later than I realized the higher my training age, the less training I actually needed to make progress.
From July 2010 to July 2011 I was deployed to Afghanistan. During this time I lost more muscle mass and strength than any other time in my life, including the time I spent in Basic Training.
The reasoning is simple when I look back now: I wasn’t getting optimal sleep (most days less than 4 hours) and when I did have time allocated to sleep, I opted for a training session instead, in hopes of not losing any of my fitness. But in my effort to maintain my fitness, I lost more of it than I thought would’ve been possible. Looking back now, I should have chosen the extra sleep and kept my training intensity and volume low, as my body was already in a state of constant stress.
The moral of the story is: informing your athletes of the importance of listening to their bodies is vital, but often overlooked.
Listening to your body is key. When you need a rest day, your body usually tells you in more than one way. When these days come up, now I listen. If I’m just “not feeling it”, I take the day off or do something less taxing.
Conversely, if I’m feeling really good I might be more likely to try for a new PR or push the envelope. Overtraining is a real phenomenon that I’ve experienced multiple times in my 20 years of training. It’s definitely not something that lends itself to feeling motivated to train or to eat healthily. Avoiding the signs of overtraining and not listening to your body is a recipe for disaster.
I tell all my clients to tune in to your body’s messages. Taking a day off is not going to halt your progress; in fact, it can do exactly the opposite.
Often times training programs call for a planned period of “deloading” where volume/intensity is significantly lower. With the Conjugate System, the rotation of work, volume, and intensity are constant, so deloading isn’t necessary, but there comes a time every 16-24 weeks that my body says “take a week off”. Often, this is an opportunity to recharge your battery and return to your training even better than before.
Not only does it provide great benefits from a physical standpoint, but the mental clarity you will incur from a planned week off is huge. If you get to that point, be receptive to these messages; you will come back to your training feeling a new level of motivation.
Giving Advice to your Clients
Most times clients’ schedules prevent them from training as much as they’d like. Well-thought-out programming includes training that will help facilitate recovery, improve limiting factors, and build their bases.
Group training classes should be no different.
Unlike one-on-one training, we don’t have the luxury of knowing when our clients are going to train, but this does not mean that we should assume we need to plan training that is going to put people through the ringer every day.
Our job is providing the highest level of service regardless of their commitment to the training. In most cases, it’s intelligent to assume your clients are going to make it to your facility at least 3x a week, but in most cases, a large sect of your clients will train with you even more consistently.
With that said, if we program high-intensity pieces daily, we run the risk, over time, of wearing our athletes out.
Conversely, if we don’t program enough high-intensity work, then our athletes don’t incur the benefits of such training, which doesn’t assist improving body composition and their basal metabolic rate.
So What is the Balance?
A well-rounded training template. To develop a well-rounded template we need to be somewhat versed in the science behind our training. We need to understand how to program higher threshold work, the desired effect of each piece, anaerobic vs. aerobic, and how this fits into our training structure. There are many options when considering how to develop a template that makes sense to you and your athletes. A few things to consider:
- Higher threshold work: Think about having 48-72 hours between these sessions.
- Aerobic Work: How are you able to fit these pieces into a 60:00 class while keeping this fun and engaging?
- Building Value: Some of your athletes still may think they need to kill themselves to make progress. We know for certain this is not the case. Be confident in your approach as this confidence will transmit to your athletes. Also, “the proof is in the pudding”. If they are making progress and are staying injury free then the training will build value on its own.
- The Why: I’ve talked about this before, but you should be 100% confident in your “why” and be able to articulate this to your clients.
- Have fun: Having fun with your training is key. If you’re not having fun you’re probably not going to continue with this approach. Be creative, but try to put yourself in your athletes’ shoes when writing a workout.
- Data: Test your workouts. A lot of times workouts on paper turn out differently when you test them. Be confident that the effect you’re looking for is attainable.
It’s easy to tell your clients why you’re doing what you’re doing. It’s harder to prove to them they will be rewarded with their efforts. If you’re confident in your logic, people will eventually buy into your process.
Encourage your athletes to be patient as anything worth getting is hard to get. Results do take time, but tend to favor those that stick to the program and not deviate.
