Personalize Your Workouts

Every person is different, everyone's anatomy and physiology are different, everyone's goals are different...  All reasons why everyone's workouts should be different also!!!  This message is not only important for people hitting the gym every day but also for the trainers, coaches, PT's or whomever is prescribing the program in the first place.  I have to admit, in my early years of personal training I was lacking this blatantly obvious concept in my program design.  I was guilty of writing programs for my clients that were similar to ones that I myself used in my own workouts and enjoyed doing until I realized that my 45 yr old female client probably didn't care if she had huge traps or could bench press 300 lbs. Therefore the theme for today is specificity!

 

 This concept of specificity is important to realize as your are planning your exercise routine so that your program is specific to you and only you.  It's not always as easy as cutting a routine out of a Muscle & Fitness magazine, following it and then hoping to look like the guy on the cover in 12 weeks.  I often get asked to write a quick program for someone and send it to them without every seeing them in a gym before.  I try to explain to people that it may not be the best program for them because I don't know what kind of experience they have with some of the exercises, whether or not they can physically do them and/or if the gym they workout at even has the required equipment.  Also, not all people call exercises by the same name, (some exercises don't even have name!) so it's tough to explain the exercises without physically being present to demonstrate them and make sure they are done properly.

Each person is different and responds differently to exercise.  For example a 20 yr old can handle a relatively high training load and can workout/train multiple hours a day 5-7 days a week whereas a 70 yr old may need days in between workout sessions in order to recover.  Furthermore, some people may not be able to perform certain exercises whether it be from an old injury, lack of coordination, or they're 7 ft tall and a back squat is completely out of the picture.  Therefore it's necessary to modify workouts so that they not only fit your individual bodies but your goals as well.

 

 Another concept of specificity is training for a purpose or a specific goal.  A football player doesn't need to be running 80 miles a week just like a swimmer doesn't need to be doing a bunch of jump squats to improve their vertical.  Similarly, in terms of fitness goals, if you are looking to lose weight you don't need to be doing 5 sets of 3 reps with 5 minutes in between sets in the weight room, or if you are trying to increase strength and size you don't need to be doing a back squat.... on top of a stability ball.... on one leg....underwater for sets of 100.

How To Do This?

 So, now the important question: How the hell do I do this?  Well, below are a few tips on how to design a workout specific to you!

1. Set Personal Goals

Before you start any type of program you need to decide what you want to get out of it. Do you want to lose weight? Build muscle? Improve your endurance? Or just look good in a swimsuit? Regardless of what you want, write it down, set a timeline (a realistic one), join a gym and go for it.  In life you often hear the phrase "more is better" is this case it's not always true.  I'm all for the idea of you wanting to be awesome at everything but some times it's simpler to just pick 1 or 2 goals and focus solely on them because a lot of times if you have too many goals they can get in the way of each other and become conflicting.  For example, it's difficult to try and improve your marathon time while trying to gain 40 lbs at the same time. 

2. Know Your Environment

Know what you have to work with; meaning if your goal is to improve your swim performance but you don't have access to a pool, you may not hit your goal as quickly as you'd like to.  The same goes for weight lifting or gym workouts.  If you belong to a smaller gym that doesn't have a lot of equipment or machines, you need to get creative and design a workout that focuses more on body weight exercises or unconventional exercises such as "playground pullups" or "tire flips."  The creator of P90X has made a fortune off of this concept.  He has designed a plethora of workouts that you can accomplish all in the confines of your own home.

3. Trial/Error

Don't be discouraged when something doesn't work or goes wrong. For example, if you wanted to increase your back squat but you soon realize you can't properly hold the bar behind your head because of shoulder issues, don't just quit, try something else; maybe incorporate front squats or leg press into your routine instead. It's important to constantly try new things and plug them into your workouts because variety is the spice of life and it will force your body to continually adapt and improve.  It's also just as important to toss something out if it's not working for you or has gotten too easy.  Keep your body guessing!

4. Monitor Progress

In order measure the effectiveness of your program and determine how close you are to achieving your goals, it's important to monitor your progress throughout the way. This can mean anything really, depending on what your goals are. If you were trying to gain lean muscle, you can have your body composition assessed. If your goal was to improve your 5K time, what better way to monitor your progress than to go out an run one!? If you are working towards strength/power goals, you can test your 1RM on certain exercises (this is especially important for program design as you continually need to adjust your weights each week as you get stronger).

5. Continually Improve

This tip goes along with the previous two.  In order to improve, in whatever area it may be, you need to continually challenge yourself so your body adapts.  Without progressively overloading your system you will hit plateaus and become stale and you will never reach your goals.  So go big or go home!

 

No One Ever Got Awesome Just Sitting Around