Hey there,
Here are 3 things I’ve learned and/or expanded on this week.
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Keep The Promises You Make To Yourself
We’ve all experienced that feeling of disappointment and dread when we don’t follow through with our commitments that we’ve made.
You told yourself you were going to get in the gym 5 times this week, but you only went twice.
You told yourself you were going to meal prep for the work week ahead, but you ended up eating out at lunch instead.
You told yourself you were going to keep things tidy in your house, but you find yourself coming home to a frustrating mess most days.
You told yourself you were going to find a genuine connection with someone, but you keep getting caught up in hook-up culture.
The list goes on.
When you keep the promises that you make to yourself, you’ll not only have a greater chance at achieving your goals, but you’ll also develop a higher sense of self-respect, confidence, and trust in your capabilities.
Here are some strategies to help you keep the promises that you make to yourself:
Prioritize. Make a list of all the goals you have and commitments you want to make. They can be outcome-based or process-based, it doesn’t really matter. Once you’ve come up with this list, prioritize each one in order of importance to you. Take some time with this. You want your list of priorities to truly reflect the things that you want and not the things that others want for you.
Set goals realistically. Make sure that the goals you set and commitments you make are achievable for you. You probably want them to be just at the top or just above your current capabilities.
Make detailed plans. A goal is just a wish without a plan. Be very specific with your plans and use implementation intentions. You will do [INSERT BEHAVIOUR/HABIT/COMMITMENT] at [INSERT TIME] on [INSERT DAY]. Do this for every single goal and commitment that you make.
Track your progress. Figure out the best way to track progress for you. It could be keeping a workout journal or “X”ing off a calendar day each time you follow through with a desired behaviour. It could be hiring a coach to keep you accountable to the habit, behaviour, or commitment.
Celebrate the small wins. When you do this, you’ll positively reinforce the habit, behaviour, or commitment you want to continue with. You’ll increase the likelihood that it happens again. You’ll derive a lot more satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness from the process.
Have a plan for when things go wrong. Things are never going to go perfectly to plan all the time. WIthin your detailed plans should be plans for then things don’t go perfectly well. You can use implementation intentions in a different way to account for this. Use “IF-THEN” statements. If [INSERT WORST CASE SCENARIOS], then I will [INSERT PLAN]. Remember to be kind to yourself when you slip up.
Training Tempo
Training tempo is a big topic in the world of hypertrophy and muscle growth these days. Tempo describes the speed at which each phase of a movement or exercise occurs.
There are 4 phases of a movement/exercise:
- Eccentric
- Transition from eccentric to concentric
- Concentric
- Transition from concentric to eccentric (peak contraction)
Typically it’s written something like 3-1-2-0. This particular tempo would mean a 3-second eccentric, 1-second pause in the stretched position, 2-second concentric, and no pause or 0-second at the peak contraction.
A lot of people out there will try to give you specific prescriptions for how much time you should be spending in each phase. The reality is that it’s much more nuanced, exercise-specific, and individual than people make it out to be.
There really isn’t a specific tempo prescription you should be following when it comes to hypertrophy training. There is some advice that can be given for the total repetition duration however.
You probably want each repetition to last at least 2 seconds and up to as many as 8 seconds. Although, in my personal experience anything over 6 seconds feels awful.
My best advice on exercise tempo for muscle growth is as follows:
- You want eccentric control. Don’t let gravity pull the weight down. You have to actually resist the weight.
- You may want to pause in the stretched position. This is purely speculation as of right now and is by no means a requirement. It seems that high stimulus in a stretched position leads to more growth than high stimulus in a shortened position. I’ve also found that pausing here for half a second to even 2 seconds on some exercises has reduced the amount of aches and pains I feel in my joints (again, purely anecdote on this one).
- You probably want to move quickly but still with some control on the concentric. You want to maximally recruit motor units to provide a robust stimulus and avoid any “spastic”, uncoordinated, and uncontrolled movement.
- You probably don’t want to pause during the peak contraction. Again, stimulus in the stretched position seems to be more worthwhile than stimulus in the short position. Pausing in the short position might be adding some unnecessary fatigue and stimulus which could be used to get more repetitions in the stretched position.
Hunger Means It’s Working
At the beginning of May this year I transitioned out of a 14 or 15 week diet where I lost about 15 lbs total. It was one of the longer fat loss diets I’ve ever done. It was also one of the most successful fat loss diets I’ve ever done. Prior to this diet I could usually only go about 8 weeks of dieting before I could not handle it anymore and needed to transition back to maintenance.
Calorie deficits are inherently unsustainable. They aren’t supposed to be the way you eat for a long period of time. You want to be able to get into the deficit, reach your fat loss goals (which need to be realistic and achievable), and get out of it back to maintenance calories.
One mindset shift I made on this diet compared to previous ones was the following:
“Hunger means it’s working”.
I would literally say this to myself out loud frequently throughout the diet. It made a huge, meaningful difference and allowed me to go longer and reach goals I didn’t think were possible for me.
A lot of people feel the hunger and try to come up with elaborate diet hacks to fill that need. It’s certainly advisable to choose more filling foods that have less calories. But if you’re truly in a deficit losing a significant amount of weight there aren’t any secrets, hacks, or tricks that will get rid of your hunger entirely.
Make the mindset shift to “hunger means it’s working” from “hunger means I need to do something about it”. You’ll increase your motivation and drive to stick to the process for longer and reach your fat loss goals.
Peace friend,
Jamie
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