I have in my head a saying, well more so an acronym, although PPPPPP doesn’t really spell anything that you can say without people thinking you have a major stutter.
Apparently PPPPPP stands for
“Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance”
I take it as meaning that if you properly plan (in advance) you can or will prevent poor performance.
On the other hand, the way I remember it (and I’m sure it was told to me this way, because I didn’t invent this one!) is that
PPPPPP stands for
“Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance”
I take it as meaning that if you properly plan you can or will prevent poor (or worse…) performance.
Take home point? You have to Plan and Prepare!
1. Have a plan – The worst plan in the world will be better than no plan at all. And chances of having the worst plan ever are pretty darn slim! Your plan will be a roadmap on how to get to your goal. There’s no point having a plan if you don’t have a goal you are focusing on.
GOAL –> PLAN –> ACTION
2. Identify your time wasters – Too many people tell me that they don’t have time to follow an eating plan.
HELLO?!?! It saves you time.
In the time it takes you to decide what you want for dinner, walking aimlessly around the supermarket, you could have made a double batch of the pre-planned meal and had tomorrow’s lunch or dinner sorted as well. The same goes for snacks. Grab your ziplock bags and portion out the nuts, protein powder or other non perishables you are going to use for the week.
Making 7, 14 or 21 bags of something in one hit takes a lot less time that doing the same thing everyday, or two to three times per day.
If you can’t get around the food analogy, think of it like this. It takes you 3 minutes a day to check the mail. You check it 5-6 times per week meaning it takes you 15-18 minutes per week to check the mail. If you only check it once a week, you probably aren’t going to miss anything and it will take you only 3 minutes.
Apply this principle to your food preparation and you can see that all that PPPPPP stuff makes sense!
I am exactly the same as you. If I prepare my food in advance and follow a plan, my results are 10 times better and I don’t waste time fluffing about. If I don’t plan and prepare, I have to think and this isn’t good!
Less thinking, more doing = Better Results For Everyone!
There are a number of acronyms and tools available when it comes to goal setting. The tried and true method of S.MA.R.T goals will work as will the modern I.N.S.P.I.R.E.D method. There are also some pretty powerful goal achievement programs such as the Magic Hundred which can accelerate your progress in many areas not just your fat loss. The main point here though is to have a structure, have a goal, know what it is and then have some way to you manage and achieve it.
Have a Plan
Once you have a goal worked out, you need to work on a plan to help you to get there. Hopefully you have set your goal just outside your comfort zone so that you can achieve something special and worthwhile. This is why you now need a plan. Anyone can work their way to mediocrity without a plan! But to rise up to the next level you need to know where you are going and how to get there.
Remember that you don’t need to go it alone at any stage. There are specialists that can help you at any stage and their help will also accelerate your progress.
Remove Negative Thoughts
The quickest and one of the easiest methods to getting you on the road to success is to instantly remove any negative thoughts and barriers from your mind. These will be thoughts such as why you can’t do what you are trying to do, why you couldn’t do it in the past, reasons that will make you efforts harder etc. These mental barriers will slow down or even completely halt your progress. Once you manifest these thoughts, they are much more likely to play out and become a reality. If you do have a negative thought follow it with a positive question…..
Ask Positive Questions
Instead of replacing your negative thoughts with positive thoughts and trying to tell yourself how good things are and how easy it is, ask yourself questions that lead to positive answers. What’s the difference you might ask, well consider the following. If I were to tell you that the sky is green and get you to repeat it time and time again so that you believe it, what do you reckon the chances are that you will actually believe that the sky is green? Pretty much zero. If I was to ask you what colour is the sky, you are already thinking blue. Why? Well you brain is programmed to answer questions, but remember it will try to answer all questions bot negative and positive.
So instead of asking yourself “Why am I so fat?” (in which case you mind will automatically thinking of all the reasons, over eating, not exercising etc) ask “Why do I find it so easy to lose weight?”
Your brain will automatically be thinking of the reasons why weight just seems to fall off (it’s because I exercise regularly, eat well, I’m focused on my goal etc). These positive answers are embedded deep in you mind and if you can bring them to the front you will actively believe the answers and won’t have to force positive thoughts onto yourself.
Exercise With Purpose
Exercise is great for a whole heap of reasons. One of those reasons is fat loss! If anyone questions the role of exercise in any weight loss program, question them!
The whole thing with exercise though is that there needs to be a reason why you are doing it. Some people just like a challenge and will push themselves to the limit with every workout because that’s what they do. If that’s not you then you need to be thinking of your goal, your plan, removing negative thoughts (yes exercise should be hard at times where you question why you are doing it!) and ask positive questions (Is training this hard going to make me fitter, leaner and stronger? YES, YES and YES! – Positive) (Does I want to stop because its hurts – Yes – NEGATIVE!).
Exercise with purpose and intensity. You will be amazed what you are capable when you have a crack and remove your pre set self limitations.
Putting it all together is easy. Work from the top down and reuse each step as often as you need to. There may be a number of goals you want to achieve. You may need more than one plan, but these plans need to be supportive of each other not conflicting. Change your thought habits, one thought at a time, and start lifting that training intensity TODAY!
We’ve all been there before. Looking for the holy grail of programs. We find it and give it everything.
Great results follow and you are chuffed that you have finally found THE workout.
But then things change, all of a sudden your trusty workout isn’t delivering the same results as it was before.
You decide to have a break and start seeing other programs, thinking that ‘grass is always greener…’
You get the drift anyway! Find a good workout, go hard at it, but know that it will need changing sooner or later to keep delivering results.
Personally I think 3-6 weeks is the sweet spot for changing your gym workouts. Less and you may not get any progress, any more and you may be holding your progress back (compared to if you changed).
You can go for wholesale changes (as in completely change the workout) or you can make smaller adjustments that will keep you rolling for the next 3-6 weeks.
1. Have a goal weight or reps on a certain exercise. Push yourself extra hard to hit this goal and then set a new benchmark. For instance, you might want to be able to do 50 pushups with your body weight. Once you can, either aim for 60 or use another exercise as your focus. This will get you motivated to work harder on all of the exercises that help with pushups (upper body pushing exercises).
2. Train with odd shaped objects. Still use the same exercises but instead of using the traditional barbell and dumbbell try using kettlebells, club bells, sand bags, aqua bags etc. The movement will be the same, but the training object will provide your body (and mind) with a fresh challenge. For example, bent over rows can be done with all of these objects but will all give you a different workout on the same ‘movement’.
3. Try cables or bands for different angles. Similar to the previous point, but here you just want to make small changes to the angles you are using. If you always do cable presses on the same setting, move it a peg higher or lower. It doesn’t matter which way, as long as it is different than before. Same goes for the bands, change the height of the anchor point (or your body relative to the anchor point) and you’ll be challenging your body in a different position to before.
4. Start supersetting if you aren’t. Pick two exercises and do them back to back. THey can be the same muscle group, opposing muscle groups or completely different muscle groups. It doesn’t matter! What matters is the intensity and the slight variations you are doing. If you normally do squats followed by presses, do presses followed by squats. Simple yet effective.
5. Sweat in the warm up. You shouldn’t lift your first ‘real’ weight until you are properly warmed up. This means you should be warmed up! That means you should be sweating. It doesn’t have to take forever though. Some skipping, rolling, mobility swings, kettlebell swings and presses will get the heart rate up, body temp up and have you ready for your workout in less than 10 minutes.
There you go, 5 quick ways to spice up your workouts. Let me know what you are doing to keep your workouts alive and kicking by leaving a comment below.
