Read 38 times since Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Most people put very little thought into their diet or training but systematic experimentation on yourself dramatically accelerates your progress by showing you what works for you and what doesn't. Working hard is not enough to make the fastest improvements; you have to work smart as well. This is how I develop new training plans for my Glasgow personal training clients. I test ideas on myself first and make improvements before using any new methods in my Glasgow gym. It is important to know that scientific findings are averages drawn from a number of test subjects and these may be quite varied from person to person in the study. It is not possible to know how such findings apply to you. You can only assume that you will respond comparably to the average, but you are not average, you are unique. So the only way you can know how you will respond to a new training or dietary strategy is to try it out an make you the only subject of your study.
Once you decide on a goal, for example weight loss, you should do some background reading to learn about it. Take your time and use many sources of information to get a balanced point of view. The more information you gather and the more sources you use the better your background reading will be. You will learn to distinguish between quality sources and questionable ones by finding reputable names in the field you are trying to learn about. Once you have located 2 or 3 good sources use them as signposts to direct you to other quality sources you may not be aware of.
The next step is to measure yourself in relation to your goal. So if you want to lose weight you have to know what you weight before you start. This will show you how effective the new idea you tried has been. Make sure this measurement is consistent, for example weighing yourself to measure changes in body weight is only consistent if you do it under the same conditions every time. This means you should weigh yourself at the same time on the same day and with your body in as similar condition as possible. The easiest way to achieve this is to weigh yourself first thing in the morning, before you eat anything but after you have been to the toilet. The 3 B's (belly, bladder and bowels) should be empty to get a consistent result. Women should be aware that monthly hormonal fluctuations will cause swings in bodyweight as you retain more or less water. To avoid this issue your main weigh in should happen once every 4 weeks at the same point in your menstrual cycle.
Then you take one new idea from what you learned and incorporate it into your life. It is essential to only make one change at a time as this lets you know if that change had any effect. It improvements from 2 new ideas could all be down to one or the other, or a combination of both and it is essential to know what worked. The essence of a scientific experiment is to keep everything the same apart from changes to one variable. This way you know that the results you get are most likely down to that one variable. Knowing this lets you decide if that change was worth it or not.
You must also allow enough time for new ideas to take effect. Physical changes tend to happen gradually so if the idea you are trying hasn't made much difference after a week don't automatically assume it isn't working. I would suggest trying new ideas for at least 4 weeks before you draw any conclusions about its effectiveness.
During this testing period you should record everything related to your goal. This might mean keeping a training diary, a nutrition log, when and how much you slept etc. This lets you make sure that everything else did stay the same while you tried your new idea.
After you have given your new idea enough chance to have an effect you need to redo the measurements you are using to check the effectiveness of the idea you are testing. From this you can determine not only how it worked, but if it was worth the effort. After all there is no point going through 4 weeks of hard work for very little return! This lets you keep what works and discard the things that don't. Sooner or later you will build up an army of strategies that will work for you and get you to your goal. Iain Smith (MPhil/CSCS) owns Standout Gym, an independent warehouse gym in Glasgow, focusing on weight loss. He offers small group training as an affordable alternative to Glasgow personal training. Iain is a former international decathlete with 17 years coaching experience. www.standoutgym.com.
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