5 Rules to Reaching Your Goals - K.I.S.S.
Like anything else in life, if you want things to go right, you need to respect the rules. You need a plan. You need to plan your work and work your plan!
When it's time to create a training plan, a lot of people try to make it too complicated and sometimes forget the basics.
Remember: You need to know how to walk correctly before trying to run or you will end up falling flat on your face.
Always remember: Keep It Simple Stupid!
Here are five essential rules that will help you out tremendously.
First things first,
Do you realize that your chances of achieving your goals by yourself are practically impossible. What you need is a professional qualified trainer. Let's be frank - it's hard to always be honest with yourself! You need somebody who will set honest and realistic goals with you. Too many people want to try to become like Ronnie Coleman yet have the genetics of Amy Winehouse. It's a fact that everybody can improve their muscularity and performance, but you need realistic and established goals. To truly reach your full potential, you need a pro in your corner. When people have problems with their car or their leaky toilet, they ask a professional for help, but when it's time to set something more complex like changing their nutrition habits and activity level, a lot of people try do it by themselves and fail miserably! You and your trainer have to write down on paper your goals and set by priorities: your training and eating plans. Remember that building a healthy and muscular body is like building a house, it's nearly impossible to build walls and decorating it at the same time. You need to set priorities and create a solid foundation to build on.
Rule #2
If you simply believe in chance, you will lose! Like everything else in life, if you think chance has something to do with success, you're all wrong!!! People who realize their dreams in life have a plan, they work hard and don't allow anyone to disturb them. If you want the body of your dreams, you have to push the limit in the gym like there is no tomorrow, every training, every set, every rep has to be like the last one you will ever do – put everything you've got into it. Look at all of the best bodybuilders. They use pretty simple training methods but they put blood and sweat into it!!!! Pain is not an option, it's necessary!!! You have to destroy something if you want to rebuild it better!!!
I have trained athletes in different sports for 15 years now and every time one of my athletes reaches his goal, it's because he is pushing the limits and has the capacity to do it every workout. A lot of people who watch a Ronnie Coleman workout video have a rush of adrenaline after it and follow up with doing the workout of their lives because of the inspiration. Real winners do it every day!
Here is a special word of advice for women:
Unfortunately, many women have little or no results because they think lifting weights will make them bigger and look like a massive bodybuilder overnight! In reality, building muscle is 10 times more difficult for women because of their hormonal environment. Don't be afraid, if unfortunately, you build too much muscle, it's very easy to lose it when you stop stimulating it... ask any male bodybuilder! Remember, muscle is the most active tissue in your body, one pound of muscle burns around 50 calories a day ...Think about it, if you put 10 more pounds of fresh meat on your bones you will burn nearly 500 more calories without more exercise. It's like half an hour of boring cardio!!
Rule #3
You need to have your log book. Why? Because when you write down something on paper you realize a lot of things. You take the time to analyze what you do. I will now tell you how to do a good log book. First, you need to write down general things like the date, what muscle group you trained, exercise names, sets, reps, rest, weights you used, etc ... The more info you put - the better. The most important part is to make an evaluation of what you have done, of your performance. Ex: ''it was good, but I can push myself more on squats, it's possible for me to put more weight on the bar and maybe do one or two more reps''. Not a lot of trainers will tell you to do this, but in reality your capacity to perform from day to day will change for a lot of reasons: motivation, fatigue, nutrition, etc... If you don't write that down in a book, it's very difficult for you and your trainer to find what is optimal for your maximum progression. And by the way, you will realize quickly why you don't train at your full potential!
Rule #4
NUTRITION! Yes, the most important thing of all! I set it in fourth place for no particular reason, in reality - this is the foundation of all. When I say all, it's ALL, because without proper nutrition your health is not optimal and if you have health issues your performance will not be optimal.
Ok, what is good nutrition?
Nearly no one knows how to eat right. A lot of people have good intentions but they don't make the good choices usually because of a lack of education. For most, the only education they have on nutrition comes from advertising on television and newspapers. A lot of people think a healthy breakfast begins with an orange juice and two toasts with fruit jam. In fact, when you eat that, you eat 81 grams of sugar. This is 9 tablespoons of sugar, 9!!! If you are reading this article on this site you are probably more informed than most people. But a lot of people do big mistakes. Here are a couple of quick tips.
Tip number one: You need protein, a lot of protein! If you train with weights seriously, ex. 4 times or more a week, your needs in protein are high. As an example a typical 200-pound male bodybuilder will need around 300 to 400g of good protein a day. If you make the count - this is 2 to 3 pounds of meat a day!
Tip number two: If you are considerably overweight, carbohydrates are not your friend! A lot of guys eat carbs like there is no tomorrow because they think it's the only way to put on new muscle. In fact, if your fat percentage is more than 10% - the only thing you will gain is more fat!!!
Tip number three: You need to eat 6 to 7 times a day with around 2 hours between meals. Eating frequently and at fixed hours is important for a proper metabolism.
Tip number four: You have to take healthy fats like fish oils rich in omega 3 (epa, dha), coconut oil , olive oil, etc. Fat is very important for a billion things in your body like making hormones, preventing inflammation, making good cholesterol, etc.
Tip number five: You need to drink water. An easy way to calculate the minimum amount of water you need is to drink 1 litre of water per 1000 calories you eat daily. Someone who eats 3000 calories a day would need to drink a minimum of 3 litres of water daily. The amount of water a person needs will depend on a lot of things but for active people who eat right this simple equation is a good way to start.
Rule #5
Supplementation. For myself and for a lot of trainers, supplements are a crucial part of nutrition. With today's pollution, chemicals, poor soil, stress, etc... your nutrition by itself is not enough for optimal health and performance. You need a minimum of supplementation. For me, a multi vitamin for example is absolutely necessary, it's your health police officer,its role is to protect you! A lot of people think they have all what they need in their plate, but let's figure you follow the Canadian food guide. You would be supposed to eat 8 to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. This is nearly 10 cups a day! Honestly, who really does this every day!?
Equally, you need help to recuperate fast after your workout. If you are like me, you don't have all the time you want to rest and many of your meals are on the corner of the table! For this first article, I will only talk about ‘'the essential''. In reality, you need a least three things in your training bag; a good multi vitamin and mineral formula, a good whey protein and BCAA. Okay, for those who don't know what BCAA is, it's a group of three amino acids leucine, isoleucine and valine named branched-chain amino acids. They are really important to rebuild the damaged muscle tissue - in particular the amino acid leucine - which is a powerful anti-catabolic agent. If you train hard as hell, you need to take 5 to 10g of BCAA during your workout. Taking leucine supplements or BCAA will prevent your body to break down your precious muscles during your workout to make energy, this is essentially what anti-catabolic means.
Ok! I think it's a good start! If you follow these simple rules you will certainly make big progress fast. It may look easy but in my experience 90% of my clients fail in one or more of these simple rules. Too many people try complex workouts and “miracle†supplements but end up eating at the local fast-food restaurant and train with no idea of what they are doing!
Be honest with yourself and make the foundation of your progress with those simple rules!
Stay tuned! Next month, I will write an article on supplements and a training program that will make you grow like hell!!!
Vincent Comtois, Coach of Champions
More and about me:
I'm a strength and conditioning coach for 15 years I made a formation of 4 years in naturopathic medicine and made over 20 formations in training with coach export, A,N,I,E ... and now I'm a professor for coach export since 2002. My speciality is sport specific preparation. In the past i helped a lot of athletes in a lot of different sports like car driver Andrew Ranger, MMA pro Dimitri Waardenburg, strong man Christain Savoie , Dominic Filiou, bodybuilders by dozens like Dave Mitchell mr Quebec over all 2008, Antoine Vaillant 2007 and 2008 mr Canada junior, Maggie Dumoulin FAME World over all fitness figure... now I'm very proud to joint this young and dynamic team of REVOLUTION nutrition. My mission is to helping you to build the body of your dream. Each month i will entertain you on diverse task on nutrition and training ...stay tune!
Disclaimer: Always consult your physician before starting a training program or restrictive diet.
