Tools of The Trade
This week has been rough in terms of the gym.
I have found my mind wondering a lot on certain days, form completely off, and feeling almost burnt out.
Now in hindsight this would really bother me and it does. Although on another note when you have been training for sometime or pursing a healthy lifestyle you notice you go through cycles. (At least I tend to go through cycles)
I have few cycles that I notice my body and mental state have gone through time and time again.
For example one of these very cycles is when I personally look in the mirror one week and think I look horrible. 9/10 in a week to even two weeks later I'll probably see something I never saw before and feel and think I look better yet.
So why do I bring this us?
Well with one of those weeks last week and my current workouts lacking that animalistic intensity, I have to revert back to other methods to see progress and keep myself motivated.
So for this blog I want to list a few items that I use on the regular to monitor my progress when one fails or I'm feeling a little off.
Now I call them tools, I personally feel its better to call them that, because when I first started out I was obsessed with numbers. Not in a good way either. I would do anything to see the number on the scale go down.
In doing so I probably sacrificed a lot of muscle in the process. It also lead to me feeling like I would never get to the body I desired.
Now referring to them as tools, well that's what they are tools! Just like certain tools measure fluids better than others this is the same concept. One of these tools could be in line with another and yet a totally different one could be off.
Referring to them as tools just allows me enough mental relaxation to know I have other methods to judge my progress. Measuring my progress this way, rather than relying on one particular, has lead me to a method that essentially stresses me out less in terms of progression.
So for the list of awesome ways to measure your fitness success or tools of the trade, here are the things I use.
Tool 1: Pictures/the Mirror
We all know the saying a picture is worth a thousand words......Right?
Well in this case that is so true!!!!!!!
Personally I wish I would have taken more pictures and displayed them from the very first day I took control of my life and started pursing a healthy lifestyle.
I say pictures because, for me personally, I'll see a small change around 8 weeks into a workout program and then at week 12, I can really see some changes in my physique.
So for a purely body composition and eye pleasing sense, taking pictures helps. Also If you really get into it, you will start taking pictures and be able to identify the workout program, eating strategy, and the moments of your life where you are firing on all cylinders and others when your not.
The nice thing about pictures is the ability to take several different shots, capturing various areas of your physique that you may not see everyday. For example a picture of your back!
While one body part may not be where you want it to be another area of your body could be making vast improvements right under your nose.
Pictures also allow you to keep a running time log for your own personal measurement of how well you are doing by being able to compare the same pose in the same lighting.
Again highlighting smaller differences that can't be seen in strictly just a number. That small change could be all you need to power on.
Tool 2: The Scale
Not the food Scale. lOl The body weight scale!
This one can be tricky if you are starting out. However, when you get to the point of viewing the number on the scale as irrelevant and more of gauge then it becomes magical.
For sometime I was weighing in everyday, then there was a time I was weighing in every week. Do what works for you! Personally I'm in the habit of everyday. (So much that if I'm going on a trip I'll bring a body weight scale with me if I'm going somewhere without one).
The number on the scale is a good indication of where you are and what you might want to see but it can be detrimental, in the sense of getting caught up on the number.
For me, early on, I was obsessed with getting the number to come down and it worked till I looked in the mirror and was still confused of why I still wasn't happy with my overall look.
I would do anything and everything to make the number go down. That meant over hour long workout sessions with a series of a HITT session right afterwards on 1700 calories a day.
How am I alive Idk but its true! The number was killing me. It always had to go down or I wasn't making progress.
At one point I had gotten down to 145 lbs. and looked in the mirror and realized I had no muscle on me. Only to go into a binge and pack on the pounds and see my midsection blow up.
Once I realized that combining the weight on the scale and pictures together were a better indication of my progress. I started the mental shift to the number one the scale is nothing but a gauge.
For example a person at 145 lbs can be fat or a person at 145 lbs can be muscular. They are both the same weight but look completely different.
Instead look at the gauge as a relative placeholder. What I mean by this is simply, if you step on the scale and you are currently trying to lose weight or gain weight and the number goes down or up 1-2 places in a week you are making a change!
(1-2 lbs of weight loss/gain is the recommended amount of weight to lose/gain--- Side note: However from personal experience and some research an individual that is overweight has the ability to drop considerable weight starting out. This is usually far greater than the 1-2 lbs of recommendation)
With that being said don't chuck the scale out completely. Use it for the purpose of gauge and parallel what you expect to see on the gauge to your current goal.
Tool 3: Food Intake
Everyone's favorite topic food!
For me I love food so I figured if I could combine big muscles and massive amounts of food I would win at life!! Thats how it works right!?!?
Yesssss and no.
Remember that your body is very awesome at being efficient and it adapts to everything you throw at it, kinda like a camillian. Now that being said pick your eating strategy and if you want to lose weight or gain simply add or subtract small amounts of particular food items depending on your goals. (This concept can get more specific depending on your fitness goals)
I don't recommend trying a complete overhaul from one diet to another. The body is very efficient but at the same time its complete function is survival. It is resilient and will keep your main organs functioning at all cost.
Thus, you could almost say that your body sees a giant shift from on diet to another as an attack so its like your body is going to DEFCON 1 lock down. Then it starts to get used to the new shift.... but you change it again because you aren't seeing the results you expected.
So your body stays in lock down until you give it a reason not to.
Losing weight or gaining weight is just like lifting, progressive overload down and up!
See food intake, the scale, and pictures are all go hand in hand.
Okay so how do I use food intake to measure progress?
Well lets say you wanted to be 155 lbs. At the current moment you need 2500 calories to maintain a body weight of 150 lbs. You go into a bulking phase and up your calories up to 3300 a day. At 3300 calories you maintain your weight at 160 lbs.
Say you get up to 3300 calories a day and are maintaining 160 lbs. With the proper macro breakdown and exercise routine this is doable and you maintain this weight for 2 weeks. This is all good.
The fun and progression really comes when you cut back down.
From 3300 calories a day you slowly start reducing the caloric intake and adjust macros to help hit the 155 lbs mark. After 3-4 weeks you settle in at 155 lbs eating 2900 calories a day and you maintain that weight.
When you look back 6 months ago to when you were 155 lbs and eating only 2600 calories.... ummmm Hello!!!
You have successfully ramped up your muscle building furnace, added muscle (with the right workout structure), are eating more calories, and essentially lighter than you were a month ago.
Now imagine if you do a this few times or over a few years.
Do this enough and at some point you will be eating 3800 calories a day to add weight and then when you go to shimmy a layer of fat off. You start a cut on 3500 calories instead of say 2500 calories from where you started.
Whats not to love about overall more food and better body composition.
(All numbers were used for example purposes)
Tool 4: Performance
Probably the one that is the easiest to see the fastest progression in.
I say this because there are so many ways to see your progression in a fitness or healthy lifestyle and here are a few:
-Adding weight to the bar
-More time holding an isometric posture
-Faster sprint time
-Better Stability - Mobility of a move
-Better Breathe control
-Lower Heart Rate
-Faster Lap Times
-More repetitions or sets added into a program
-An inch more of flexibility in a Yoga class
-Better Mood
-Better Sleep patterns
-Being taken off of Medication
-Throwing a football around the yard with your kid without getting winded
-Ordering a water over a soda
As you can see performance based progression of a healthy lifestyle is huge and a very easy way to measure your progress. Even when all the other areas may be lacking I can almost promise something else is on the rise.
The hardest part is tuning into all of it.
For a regular gym goer a boost in overall gym performance is a thrill within itself.
I would almost venture to say is the number one reason so any people continue to lift after they "catch the bug". There is something about lifting a heavier weight, running faster, or better overall choice that makes a person hungry to progress.
So much that progression becomes an addiction for better performance which could lead to a addiction to better enhancing life.
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The take away from this blog is simply that there are many "tools of trade" to measure progress.
How we use the tool and how we utilize the tools information can be the number one adherence in what we are trying to accomplish.
One of these tools at the moment may not really show or produce the best results however if you combine them together another particular tool can show a vast improvement.
We all have tools of the trade for what we are trying to change in our individual lives. These tend to be the ones I use most often. That doesn't mean they are the only ones or you shouldn't try others.
Keep forging your forever, measure progress, and get at it!
Hope this blog was enjoyed.
Let me know any comments/blog ideas/topics I can cover. Any and all comments are appreciated!
-The Iron Pulse
(all images are linked back to original source)
