“Fitness is lifting some weights. Performance is doing some maths, then lifting weights”
Are you training for health & fitness or for performance? I love this quote, it puts things as bluntly as they an be. Yes, there are many many moving parts, but it essentially boils down to the above. However I do think there is a place for maths in the search of health & fitness. The vast majority of my clientele when Personal Training in Richmond, Southwest London, record their session and weights moved etc. While I would love them to & actively promote it, it generally doesn’t happen.
I’m Not Interested In All That
As their trainer I keep my own records of each session. Clients often don’t think they need to know what they’ve done, when, or even how much. They simply want to rock up, work out and move on. I understand this, I do. However, I try to drip feed them slices of information to grab their interest. Whilst they may not want to go about crunching numbers, they most definitely do like to see trackable evidence of their improvements!
Take a Slice of The Pie & Dig A little Deeper
I thought it would be interesting to share a few stats from various clients, simply to show how surprising they can be. In fact, I believe they can be a key tool in keeping motivated and excited to train.
In 10 sessions, “Client X” completed the following:
- 365 Squats
- 225 Deadlifts
- 405 Press Ups & Shoulder Press (Combination of both)
- 610 Banded Rows (Variations of Reps included)
- 7000m Running/jogging
The work adds up! I think it is important to note, these stats do not take into account other exercises such as Kettlebell swings, Star Jumps, Boxing etc. For client X this was during their first block of training after a 5-6 month lay off, all done in sessions that were manageable, yet challenging.
Why not try looking back at your last 10 sessions to see how much work you have done!
An Even Smaller Slice of Fitness
If you don’t want to go back and direct all of your last 10 workouts, try picking 1 or 2 and comparing them. Rather than looking at total reps, you may want to look at external loading. How much weight have you physically moved? To show this I am going to breakdown the first half of my training from Tuesday this week.
- 1,920kg Pull from the floor
- 2,445kg Press over the head
- 4,365kg moved across only 2 exercises?
Again, when you add it up, it gets pretty cool! How does this help me? Pick an exercise and go back through 2 or 3 sessions over the last 2 months. Calculate the total loading for each session, have you improved? Have you moved more weight over time? These can be used as measures of progress and/or overload/ possible fatigue.
“Fitness is lifting some weights. Performance is doing some maths, then lifting weights”
Yes this statement is true, and I love it. I do believe math can be used in health and fitness as well!