Purpose and the "Jerry Maguire" syndrome

The purpose of training…

I often get a lot of gym regulars and younger trainers ask if I can look at their programs. They will ask for new ideas in their training, but when I ask ‘what are you trying to achieve’, many times I get a blank stare, a shrug of the shoulders, or the response “yeah, just a bit of everything y’know”. Truth is – ‘sorry, I really don’t know. These are not my goals – they are yours.’ So, as corny as it sounds, I often have to rip off a quote from the couch-jumping oddball Tom Cruise in his Jerry Maguire guise: ‘Help me help you…’

What I mean by this is that it is very hard for me to add anything positive if you aren’t sure what you are aiming to achieve yourself. I’m simply talking about ‘purpose’. No matter if you are an elite athlete aiming to improve performance, want to get leaner, want to put on muscle, or simply want to just move a little better so you can play with your kids – if you train with a purpose in mind, it will be far easier to devise a plan to meet your goals, affecting everything from frequency to exercise selection.

Often, due to a number of reasons, goals will change. That is fine. However, if you are trying to change goals every other week, chances are you may struggle to nail down anything significant. Change when necessary, if your program calls for it, or if you reach a previous goal and want to aim for the next. But if you sit down and aim for a purpose, at least give yourself an adequate and realistic time frame to achieve it.

So, the key here folks, is ‘purpose’. There are many ways to go about training to achieve a goal. I like a cricket analogy – there are fast bowlers and spin bowlers. They go about their craft in a different way, but have the same main goal – to get the batsman out. However, it is this ‘main goal’ that people must be clear about. Have a clear indication of what that main goal is, and you provide yourself with a far bigger chance of training success.

Till next time champions,

JV