Chances are you’ve seen a weight training montage at least once, and for a lot of lifters it has become a go to for motivation. Videos of people benching, squatting, and deadlifting with more plates on each end of the bar than you have in your cupboard are all over the internet. They bleed, they scream, they puke, and it’s awesome. Or is it…
Although it’s quite inspiring to see these feats of strength, it has also painted a misleading picture for many lifters out there. They begin to think that all training actually looks like that which is not the case at all. In many cases what you see in the video are clips from competition or rare moments in the gym where all the hard work culminates in the display of strength, speed, endurance, etc. This is a display.
In training the goal is to build these qualities in order to display them at the appropriate time. Unfortunately many lifters spend most of their training time displaying aka going balls to the wall and attacking every training session like they’re defending Sparta.
So how do you fix this? You gotta find the sweet spot.
In reality only about 25% of your training should actually look like it does in the videos. The other 75% should be “conservative” in that it challenges your body just enough to evoke change. Remember that the results of training come about during recovery, meaning recovering from your workout is of utmost importance. A training session which forces you to scream, bleed, and puke taxes your recovery capacity greatly and many of these in succession is sure to cause inadequate recovery. Also, a workout that absolutely destroys you isn’t likely to be one you’ll want to keep doing, and we all know how important consistency is to success.
So how do you find the sweet spot? I’ll be honest it takes trial and error, but if you’re training at 100% Spartan right now you’ll need to scale it way back. A great way to ensure the consistency of your training is to periodize it (periodize is just a fancy shmancy word for plan).
Here’s a sample month of periodization with the level of intensity building up over 3 weeks and deloading the 4th week.
Week 1 – Base week/Medium Intensity, Perceived intensity should be around a 7 out of 10
Week 2 – High Intensity, Perceived intensity should be around a 8 out of 10
Week 3 – Very High Intensity, Perceived intensity should be around a 9 out of 10
Week 4 – Deload, Cut volume in half, perceived intensity should be around a 5 out of 10
In each week intensity is increased by either adding weight or volume.
Over the course of time you will learn where your sweet spot is and be able to use it to your advantage. The more often you can stay in the sweet spot the more consistent your results will be.
