
To declutter your programs, try choosing one isolation exercise per training session. While they’re useful for building muscle and attacking weaknesses, you don’t get a lot of bang for your buck and they shouldn’t take precedence over the big stuff like squats and deadlifts. Isolation exercises (movements that train only one joint at a time, like biceps curls or leg extensions) create the most clutter of all. PICK ONE ISOLATION EXERCISE PER TRAINING SESSION

Simply adding more sessions per week gives you room to hit all these exercises without turning each workout into a 3-hour marathon.ģ. It’s easy to see how trying to pack all this stuff into three training sessions can get messy. planks, rollouts, loaded carries)Īnd what if you want to get jacked and tan? It’s obvious that you want to hit the big stuff:īut you can’t forget the “functional” stuff: If you train using full-body workouts, it’s tempting to try to fit every muscle group or movement pattern into each workout. Four or five sessions per week allows for much higher volume and greater exercises variety than two or three sessions per week. The more often you train, the more stuff you can pack into your program without cluttering each individual training session. Only choose what will actually help you get where you want to go. Be ruthless with your selection of exercises. Stick with exercises that fatigue the target muscle(s) and let you perform high reps close to muscular fatigue.īe honest with yourself about what belongs in your program and what will help you reach your goals. If the goal is to add 10 pounds of muscle in 20 weeks while adding 2 inches to your biceps, don’t clutter the program with heaps of “functional” exercises that don’t work well for hypertrophy. Don’t clutter the program with tons of heavy lifting when the focus should be on metabolic conditioning and strength maintenance.

The more specific your goal, the more you can focus on what really matters in your training. You can objectively evaluate every aspect of the program by asking, “Is this directly helping me reach my goal?” If the answer is no, take it out.įor example, if the goal is to lose 10 pounds of fat in 12 weeks, you probably shouldn’t be focusing on increasing your 1RM squat.

“I want to increase my bench press by 20 pounds in 16 weeks” is SMART because it’s got a realistic and specific focus with a timeline. For example, “I want to get stronger” isn’t a SMART goal. Make your goals SMART ( Specific, Measurable, Attainable/ Realistic, Time-Based) and write them down.

The simplest way to declutter a program is to clearly define what really matters to the lifter. Whether you’re the lifter executing the program or the coach writing it, it’s important to keep things streamlined and focused. Here are four ways to declutter your training programs for fewer distractions and better results. And that got me thinking that many people have too much clutter in their training programs. Too many fancy exercises, overly complicated set-and-rep schemes, too much emphasis on a physical quality that doesn’t matter for the given athlete these are just a few of the things that add clutter to a program. Clothes, books, kitchenware – it was therapeutic to declutter my life. In the packing process, I was able to get rid of tons of stuff I didn’t need. Paperwork, packing, meetings, packing, phone calls, more packing. It’s super exciting to have a house that’s completely our own, but moving was NOT an easy process. My wife and I just bought our first home.
