TRAINING VARIABLES

TECHNIQUE. EXERCISES. INTENSITY. VOLUME. FREQUENCY.

Many of you are already motivated about your fitness. You like to workout. You like to train. But are you aware of these training variables in your fitness routine? Do you adjust any of these variables to continue making progress? In this post we will break down each variable and go over what it is and why it matters.

TECHNIQUE & FORM

The most obvious and primary focus on technique for any exercise/movement is safety. The form you use should be pain free and feel relatively natural. If you are 'pushing through' a painful range of motion or a joint is flaring up, stop. This is a sure fire way to work your way into an exercise induced injury. Discomfort, soreness and fatigue are normal. Pain is not. This is usually first addressed by changing grip or stance and adjusting the resistance. If the pain is still present after adjusting, selecting a different exercise may be appropriate. More on that in the next point.

After we've ensure our technique is safe, we have to ensure it's working the correct muscle(s). If we do not try and utilize a mind muscle connection or just use too much weight it's easy to have undesired muscle help overcome resistance. Take for example a straight bar curl. Some people run through this exercise because they were trying to work their biceps. They load up the weight, start with a slight hinge, shoot their hips forward, ride the momentum, lean back to get the bar up and call it a curl. That is not a curl, that is ego. That is shoulders, back and momentum that overcame the resistance. Put aside the desire to lift more weight, if it impedes the desired muscle(s) getting worked through an entire range of motion, with control.

Last point is evaluating if the technique is suitable for your goals. You can inherently make exercises easier or harder, as we learned with the concept of tempo. (If you need a refresher, the blog post on exercise tempo can be found here) Exercises can also be manipulated with hand/foot placement or body and weight placement. A bodybuilder that is aiming to focus all the focus onto stressing the quads on a squat, may adjust their squat form to better facilitate hypertrophy. A powerlifter looking to squat as much weight as possible, may utilize a lower bar placement and wider stance to add the involvement of more back and glutes. Neither of these techniques are right or wrong in themselves, but could be absolutely wrong for the others' goals. So be sure the techniques you are utilizing are conducive to the over all goal!

EXERCISE SELECTION

We had just started touch on exercise selection in reference to pain. This is one of many reasons we would change them. Factors in exercise selection include:

Pain/Injury

Painful movement and past injuries can dictate better and worse exercises to train with. If you already tried modifying your form to alleviate pain in an exercise, it may be grounds to utilize a different one.

Exercise Experience

A newer person to fitness will have different capabilities and needs than that of an experienced lifter or athlete. Where a beginner may rely more on machines to guide good movement patterns, an advance gym-goer may prefer free weights to challenge stability or emphasis focus. These are not hard rules of thumb. Merely examples of how experience can influence exercise selection.

Available Equipment

Of course, all training is limited or near infinite depending on the equipment available. Equipment is invaluable to expand a tremendous amount of options for exercises.

Training Timeline

If you have performed a single exercise very repetitively, especially without progression, it may have lost it's ability to elicit change. The consistent repetitions may no longer challenge the muscle to make an adaption, but just become part of the normal routine. Changing out exercises could be appropriate for re-invigorating a stimulus, and allowing the body to re-sensitize to that other exercise.

Desired Outcomes

The end goal of what's trying to be achieved can also influence which exercise you may chose. Not all exercises lend themselves to all goals. If limit strength is the goal, heavy multi joint compound movements will be preferred. For someone focused on hypertrophy, exercises that isolate muscles may be in order. For a competitive athlete, there will need to be very sport specific exercises and movements. These are all wildly different needs and demands, executed with very different intentions. It is important to ensure the exercises you perform are helping you go where you want to be.

INTENSITY & EFFORT

Intensity and Effort are often used interchangeably. In the realm of fitness, Intensity refers specifically to the amount of weight/ resistance being used. Ex. 90% of a 1 Rep Max would be considered High Intensity. 50% of a 1RM would be considered a Low Intensity. Effort refers to perception and exertion. Ex. Light Dumbbell Curls to failure would be very high effort, but technically low intensity.

There are appropriate levels of both to balance. The way they are specifically balanced will depend on a long list of factors, but will none the less need to be present. Regardless of your training experience and goal, you will HAVE to increase the intensity in your intensity at some point. That is if you want to see progress. Just as much effort, must be exuded to elicit any sort of change. If you are conducting entire sets unbroken without any struggle, you are likely training too light. If you cannot complete all of the reps, starting on the first set, you are likely training too heavy. Adjust the resistance to a point where you are challenged to complete the required reps, but can still complete them. This is the arena most will want to train in most circumstances.

VOLUME

We know we need to train with the right intensity and effort. The question becomes how much of that do we do in a single workout? In a week? In a month? This variable is referred to as training volume. It accounts for the amount of sets and reps for each workout, week, month for different muscle groups, movements and exercises throughout your program. So how much volume do you need? You guessed it. It depends. Volume is relative. For one person and their goals, 5 sets of 10 reps of a given muscle group could be low volume. For the next person, that could leave their muscles thrashed for the rest of the month. What's the intensity? What's the tempo? What's the main energy system being focused? (More on this topic to come). The point is there is no one size fits all for people and all goals. That being said, if you're a beginner here are a couple generic starting points for some very general fitness guidelines:

Beginner Volume Guidelines (0-1 year of training experience)

• 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps per exercise

• 4-6 exercises per workout training day

To re-iterate, this is a very simple plan of action to get started if you have no clue where to start. From this starting point you can make adjustments by adding or removing volume in each of these areas to find your sweet spot.

FREQUENCY

The final variable for the day is Frequency. Training Frequency refers to the amount of training days in a week, and how frequently a muscle group, movement or fitness quality is trained. It is the training schedule, the routine. Most routines fit the parameters of the standard 7-Day work week for convenience. Though advanced athletes can find the need for a less traditional such as a 9-Day training week. This will certainly be less convenient as training days will consistently fall on different days, but could be necessary for some. Depending on the person, training splits and goals, frequency can range from 1-3+ times per muscle group a week. It can not be stated that everyone should squat only once a week, or do push-ups everyday, or run 3 times a week. People are too different, want different things and have different circumstances. However, here is another generic template of how you can set up your training frequency:

Beginner Frequency Guidelines (0-1 year training experience)

• 2-3x week of resistance training. Be sure to balance Pushing, Pulling, Leg, and Core movements throughout the week.

• 1-3x week of easy cardio of choice

CONCLUSION

Hopefully by now it's clear that there is no secret recipe. No one trick that works for everyone. If you're inexperienced, be very aware of following advice and workout programs that make blanket statements. You should be far more informed on what goes into a sound program and have information to start taking action! These are just a fraction of the considerations that go into ETF Programs and our Online Coaching services.

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