I recently took part in some qualifiers for a decent standard competition. While I knew it was going to be tough to qualify, I was confident I had done the volume of work required. I was about to get a rude awakening. Annoyingly, it was all but avoidable and something I should have been fully aware of. With the top 35 athletes going through to the final, to find myself in 85th after 2 of 4 workouts was hard to take. However, my placement did improve but not by much. By the end of the qualifiers, I finished in 67th place. A long way from earning a spot to the finals. I had done lots of training, so what had gone wrong?
Volume and Intensity are Not the Same Thing!
I had done a lot of training. Meaning I had put a good amount of time into my training. However, when I took an honest look back, I hadn’t been training with TRUE intensity. By this I mean that I was training hard and doing lots of things but not with absolute intent and purpose. I was getting to the gym and going through the motions. In my conditioning I was working hard but I was moving through, rather than attacking workouts. When it came to skills I wasn’t very good at, I was breaking early and telling myself I had done a good set.
Don’t get me wrong, I was still seeing improvements and I was still working hard. I was just simply getting it done, rather than doing it with intent and purpose.
To mask this lack on intent, I was simply doing more volume. Unfortunately, more volume generally leads to more fatigue. So when I was training, I was probably training in a fatigued state and not getting the true benefit from the exercises.
Having A Coach Helps!
The beauty of coaching is in the relationships you form with clients. As a coach you begin to be able to spot when someone is simply going through the motions. We know when you are moving with true purpose and intent. As Leading Personal Trainers in Berkshire, we know when a client is truly working out with intensity.