A couple of weeks ago I attended Paleo FX in Austin where I met Trey Potter, owner of
Driven Training Systems. Trey is a personal trainer who works with clients to find the balance between nutrition and fitness. In this guest post, he offers some insight into setting goals.
“The goal is to keep the goal the goal” – Dan John
In the fitness and health community today there is more
information and misapplication than ever.
While the fitness world has done some things right, we’ve also done some
horribly ignorant things as well.
One such atrocity is turning a means or method of training
or eating into the end goal. Paleo
and Crossfit are primo examples of this.
I’ve never heard of anyone say that they didn’t care about the results
as long as they were eating Paleo and Crossfitting (or whatever other methods
you prefer). They always get into this stuff as
a way to improve health, performance, or how they look and it’s crucial to keep
your eye on the prize.
If we get caught up in the methods we use and not the
results they produce we can quickly spiral our health and body composition way
out of control. Training hard 5-6
days a week while not sleeping isn’t going to get you any closer to being
healthier and better looking. In
fact, it may actually do the complete opposite.
My Mad Method
When I have a new client come in we always talk goals. What are they wanting to
accomplish? You absolutely must
have a clear objective that you’re aiming at. This can always change as your interests change but you NEED
a goal of some type. All my new
clients goals fall into one of two categories.
Look/Feel Good (LFG)
Performance (PFM)
The methods of planning for each of these are drastically
different. For the LFG crowd I
prefer to let diet and lifestyle dictate our training application. This is very much a less-is-more type
of approach. I prefer to put the
vast majority of our focus on sleeping well, implementing a stress management
technique, eating really good food, and getting as much low level movement in
as we can. To really set this off
we’ll do some type of abbreviated strength training 2-3 days/week. Once we’ve established a good baseline
then we can add in some of the finisher or metcon activity to shake things up.
On the other side of the coin we have the PFM crowd. For these people we’ll let lifestyle
dictate our training to a degree but generally these folks will train more
frequently and we’ll focus on how to manipulate their lifestyle and food to
maximize performance. We still
have to address the sleep, stress management, and food but this side requires
much more attention to detail and more precise execution.
Choosing Your Metrics
So how the hell do we know if we’re actually making progress
or not? We have to measure
something. For the LFG’s out there
I prefer to use pictures, tape measurements, and 1-2 primary lifts. Since these people are not competitive
athletes and therefore don’t need to make a weight class in something, the
scale is virtually worthless. A
drop in scale numbers could be muscle as well as fat as could scale numbers
going up. Calipers are great if
the person running them knows what they’re doing. If not then they’re just guessing. The bioelectric impedance (those hand held machines that
give you a BF% in about 10 seconds) are almost as bad as the scale. They’re so horribly inconsistent and
inaccurate that you may as well just be throwing darts at a dart board. BodPod, Dexa scans, and
hydrostatic weighing are all great
if you have access to them. If not
then I wouldn’t make any special trips to go find one because in all honesty
they’re not necessary. No one is
happier at a specific weight or body fat percentage unless they’re happy with
how they look.
Here’s why I like the 3 metrics I stated above:
Pictures: Give real time side by side comparisons about
progress made. I’ve had many clients
who were unhappy that the scale wasn’t moving only to be thrilled when we put
their previous and current pictures right next to each other.
Tape Measurements: Just like pictures, these can show some
body comp changes despite no or very little movements in weight. If you’ve lost 6 inches around your
middle you’re not going to care that you’re weight hasn’t moved.
Lift Numbers:
Basically this is just to make sure we’re not getting weaker. If we’re getting weaker then we’re
probably burning off muscle along with fat which is no Bueno. We want a nice big engine under the
hood so that you can function well and burn calories well.
For the PFM people these change just a little since you have
performance metrics you should be tracking. The entire point of training and eating well is to improve
the performance of your chosen activity.
Pictures and tape measurements are still useful but not nearly as much
as lift or activity markers.
Putting Down the
Kool-Aid
There are many diet and training programs out there that
tout themselves as the end-all for specific goals or for every goal. However, since you’re reading Primal
Balance I’m assuming that your smarter than the average bear and have the
ability to think critically. If
you’ve been stuck on a goal I want you to really sit down and look at what
you’re doing versus what you’re getting out of it.
IS YOUR CURRENT PLAN MOVING YOUR CLOSER TO YOUR GOALS?
How do you actually know? Compare current metrics to previous ones. It’s as simple as that. If your waist is down an inch and your
back squat has gone up then we’re moving in the right direction. If it’s gone the other way then we need
to reevaluate and move in a different direction. Are you keeping the goal the goal, or have the means become
the end?
