When the new year comes around most people make a resolution or two and abandon them within a week. That’s not me and I hope not you either.
I find the new year is always a time for reflection as well as forward planning. And I spend significant time doing those things. Seriously, right now there’s a list of several plans on a wide variety of topics (life, business, fitness and more) that I need to get done in the next couple weeks.
Why do this?
Well, as the saying goes “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” That’s enough reason for me to do the planning.
But today I want to talk about reflection. And I ain’t talking about looking at yourself in the mirror.
The very first lesson in my Keys to Successful Training Course is to keep a workout journal. Without this key tool you will not get very far. The primary use of this is to know what you did in your last workout and what you need to do to beat it, and thus make progress.
But another use is going back over the year (or whatever time period you want). You can look at what your most productive periods of training were. You can find where your weak points lie.
Training is a continually adapting creature. One workout is never exactly the same as another. Because there are so many factors involved you will have times of great progress and others where you’re not gaining (or even sliding back!).
By consulting your workout training journal you can see what the patterns where. Every single person is different and you’ll find what works best for you. Which exercises, which set and rep schemes, different methods of strength and conditioning and more.
When you have this knowledge you are better prepared to move forward in the future.
Your homework is to do just what I’ve said. Post your comments below on what you find.
And if you aren’t keeping a workout journal START NOW! You can thank me later.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. Another important aspect of success is to get coaching from those who can do what you want to do. On that note I’ll be interviewing one of my mentors, as far as doing insane feats of strength goes, tomorrow night. Want to listen in and even ask your own questions? Go to Register for the Dennis Rogers call here.
Filed under Strength Training Concepts by on Dec 14th, 2009. 2 Comments. 
One of my brothers who was in town is into Crossfit big time and he convinced me to go along with him to one of the local gyms this Saturday.
When we got there I was asked if I had done Crossfit before. My answer was ‘sort of’. I had done Crossfit style workouts several times, and knew how to do the lifts, but had never actually trained at a Crossfit before.
Since I was substituting my normal Hill Sprint workout with this one I was hoping it would be more conditioning focused and I wasn’t disappointed.
Here’s the workout:
3 rounds of 400m Run, 12 Deadlifts w/ Bodyweight on the bar, & 21 Box Jumps done for time
My time was 11:52. I finished second in the group of about seven. Only eight seconds behind (but I was using a bigger box to jump on).
I’m not going to lie. It feels good to go into someone else’s house and perform near the top. Of course, I train hard and heavy all the time, just differently from what is typically done in Crossfit.
And I know there are certain other workouts that could have happened that I wouldn’t have performed as well on.
There are great benefits to training like they do at Crossfit. It develops all around fitness using all manner of exercises. From gymnastic and bodyweight exercises to Olympic and power lifting. You’ll build strength and endurance almost always at the same time.
The randomness of it can be both good and bad. It will keep you excited and the body will never really adapt. However if you have certain goals you want to achieve its not the most direct path.
The competitive element pushes you to work harder then you might normally do. However, I’ve seen some people neglect form to go faster and also due to being tired. This can lead to injuries which is never good.
It was a fun time and a good workout. I may be going back every once in awhile just to test myself and shake things up a bit.
They also have a bunch of knowledgeable coaches. I know I’ll be going to get some help on Olympic lifting which I have little experience in myself.
Sometimes you need to train outside your box even if it’s a good box that you train in.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. Next time I’ll have a video for you of a somewhat extreme feat of strength. I’ll tell you I can feel the soreness in my head and neck right now from doing it yesterday…
Filed under Barbells and Dumbbells, Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Strength Training Concepts by on Aug 3rd, 2009. Comment.
