Most of us could make a lot more progress when it comes to training if we were willing to do a couple things.
And no, I don’t mean quit your job, sell all your stuff, and become a training monk.
I mean, yes, that would probably help you become a better athlete.
But it also requires a certain level of detachment I don’t personally possess.
I mean, I like my bed. And a good shower.
And while I don’t really mind small spaces – I mean, I lived in Korea for a couple years and East Asian apartments are not large – a van is still a little small.
And any van that actually would allow me to feel comfortable using it as a house…
Costs more than a house.
Can you tell I’ve thought about this?
Regardless, my overly romantic notions of a Kerouac-style asceticism disappeared long ago.
And thankfully, they’re not necessary to improve as an athlete.
Instead, we just need to do a couple things.
First, accept that slow progress is still progress.
A few weeks ago, I caught myself doing something really unhelpful during front squats.
The weight felt good and I wanted to add some, but I knew I shouldn’t add 10 per side.
I wasn’t even sure if adding 10 total was a good idea.
Thankfully, my gym has 2.5-lb plates, so I could just use those and add 5.
But then my brain came in saying unhelpful shit…
“That’s not enough weight to matter.”
“Why bother?”
“What’s the point of only adding five pounds?”
In the grand scheme of things, will 5 pounds make me stronger?
Great question.
Yes.
Yes it will.
Because slow progress is still progress.
Sure, it’s 5 pounds this week, but then hopefully, I can add another 5 pounds next week.
And then 5 more the week after that.
And eventually, I’ll get to those 10-lb plates I knew were a bad idea.
I see SO many people fail to make progress because they aren’t willing to make small, incremental jumps.
Yet if I added 5 pounds to my front squat every week for a year, that would be over 250 pounds by the end of the year.
That’s so much weight.
In fact, it’s so much weight I can damn near guarantee it won’t happen.
Yet here I am talking myself out of progress because it’s “only” 5 pounds.
Silly.
Same thing when it comes to running.
If you always do speed work at the same paces, try pushing it a little bit.
Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of speedwork on the treadmill – partially for schedule reasons and partially because I don’t really like running outside in the dark and cold where intermittent patches of black ice keep trying to throw me to the ground like a professional wrestler on a rampage.
And know what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks?
I’ve been running the same workout and increasing the hard interval by 0.1mph.
Not much.
In fact, if I were running outside, it would be a small enough improvement it could be a GPS error.
Yet as the weeks go by, those small increments are starting to add up and I’m seeing progress.
As I said in the beginning, slow progress is still progress.
By saying “5 pounds isn’t enough” or “0.1mph doesn’t matter,” we’re holding ourselves back.
Because more often than not, when we decide 5 pounds doesn’t matter, we either stay with the “safe” weight or we go for the big jump, fail, and get frustrated.
Then we wonder why we aren’t making improvements.
Slow progress is still progress.
If we were better at remembering that, we’d probably see a lot more improvements.
I know I said I had a “couple” things, but this post is already long enough for today.
I’ll be back on Friday with part 2.