Consistency

I can’t really overstate the importance of consistency. In anything and everything. I’m not the first to say that a mediocre training program done consistently beats a great training program done occasionally every time. Extrapolate that to progression in said program. The person who consistently tries to add weight or reps (volume), over time, is going to have better results than the person who sticks with the same weights and set progressions all the time. Within reason. Changing things too often is obviously inconsistent. If you want to be more precise with your progress, keeping a train log is important. I’m sure there’s apps now but I've always used a regular notebook. I just found two old training notebooks from 2008 and 2009. I’ve literally been writing my workouts down since like 1998. Something is better than nothing. Exercising two days a week for life is a fuckload better than 5 days for one week every 4 months when you feel guilty. Yes, I’m talking to you! The reason I say 2 days a lot is because it’s a really simple way to get a beginner in the gym without much direction. Alternating one upper body day one lower body is kind of fool proof...kind of. It’s also a lot easier to stick to than some all out 6 day a week program for someone trying a new thing.

Nutrition is a huge one. You don’t need to be 100% perfect. Hitting your goal calories or macros 80-90% of the time is what leads to results. Letting the frustration of one shitty meal derail your whole diet is irrational at best. Start trying to put together a few good meals, THEN a few good days. Cut yourself some slack if you’re new to it. Is there some imaginary deadline you set for yourself? Unless you’re a competitive bodybuilder or a fitness model with a photo shoot coming up, it’s just that, imaginary. You literally have the rest of your life to figure out the right style of eating for you. If you start, stop, and restart a diet every 6 months, you’ll never make any progress. You gotta give it a shot for at least 2 months. Screw ups be damned. Stick with the plan. 

Mobility won’t improve without consistency. If you have a job where you sit all day, 5 days a week. A 5 min stretch once in a while isn’t going to cut it. Spend 10-15 minimum a day, every day. Especially if you have a specific issue or pain that needs fixing. How hard is it to get into a couch stretch while you’re watching Netflix? Not very hard. 10 minutes before bed is great. Relax, do some breathing exercises and stretch your tight shit. It’ll improve your sleep as well. Not sure what to do? There’s a million YouTube videos. Or sign up for something like Kelly Starrett’s Ready State. I’m sure there’s others out there(is ROM WOD still a thing?) On the breathing front the Wim Hof stuff is great. Read James Nestor’s book “Breath” if you want to go deeper on breath work. 

Want to start something new? 15 minutes of practice a day is a good place to start. It doesn’t have to be all at once. If you “don’t have time” for 15 minutes a day to learn something new, you’re lying to yourself. I started reading more with 10 pages a day. 10 pages a day is 10, 350+ page books a year. Imagine the things you can learn from 10 books a year. Want to make that suuuuuuuper easy? No phone in the bathroom. Read a couple of pages of your book instead. Add a few pages before bed and you’ll be tearing through books. 

You can break anything down into small parts like that. 5 minutes here, 5 pages there. Doing that every day can lead to bigger things….but you have to be consistent.

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