If I could give one piece of training advice for people to take into the new year, it would be this…
Stop. Overcomplicating. Everything.
In a world of misinformation and disinformation, it’s easy to get bogged down and lost.
It’s easy to lose confidence and become unsure of what actually works.
Especially when you’re surrounded by crazy-shit-evangelists on all sides.
The thing is, whether we’re looking to get faster or improve our health, it’s actually not that complicated.
It’s just kinda hard and boring.
And it typically takes longer than you want it to take.
The people I coach who get the best results show up week after week and do a lot of the same basic stuff.
They run hard on speed days.
They lift fairly heavy.
They eat enough to fuel their training – and they try to eat a varied diet full of things like carbs and protein and fiber and healthy fats.
They sleep.
They drink a bunch of fluids.
They understand that little injuries and problems are probably going to arise and they try to take care of them before they get serious.
They’re proactive rather than reactive – about most things.
They set big goals they actually want to achieve that are supported by work they actually want to do and they understand that it might take months or years to finally hit those goals.
And most importantly, they give themselves a bit of grace along the way for when they make mistakes.
In short, they work hard for long periods of time on things they truly enjoy doing.
Many years ago, I heard someone say something along the lines of, “What goal would you pursue even if you knew you were going to fail?”
The people I coach who seem to get the best results train as if they’re trying to answer that question – whether or not they realize it.
I’ll be honest.
It’s been a difficult year.
I’ve made a lot of changes and done a lot of work and I’m going to try to move into 2026 with a couple things in mind.
One of which is that question…
“What goal would you pursue even if you knew you were going to fail?”
I think if you do that, you end up living your life in a way that’s aligned with your deeper values and filled with things you truly want to do.
Because if you knew you were going to fail…
The journey has to matter and the ends can’t justify the means.
Because the end is never going to happen.
If you pursued goals that you found worthwhile in spite of being guaranteed a prize of failure, then you’d actually have to spend your days being a person you want to be and doing things you want to do.
Which seems like it should be a given, but I think it’s something many of us often forget.
I think we often set goals that sound good while completely overlooking the process of what it might take to get there.
(e.g., don’t set a goal to get faster unless you want to spend a lot of time doing speed work…)
I know this email morphed from a message about simplicity into some pseudo-philosophical ramblings.
Sorry.
Kinda.
In 2026… let’s stop overcomplicating things.
When it comes to training, very few things actually matter.
Do hard cardio.
Lift heavy things.
Sleep.
Eat enough.
Do stuff that actually matters to you.
Talk to you next year.