Beyond-Brawn-2nd-Edition

Adapting to trying circumstances
HOW TO PERSONALIZE YOUR TRAINING PROGRAMS
13.39 “Listen” to your body, be aware of changes in your lifestyle, and tailor your
training accordingly. e more demanding your life is out of the gym, and
the less rested and well fed you are, the more you need to cut back in the
gym. You only have a limited recovery ability to begin with, and if you have
had that shrunk by out-of-the-gym factors, then you will not have much to
play with in the gym. is forces you to cut your training to the bone if you
are to have a chance of progressing.
13.40 While you probably cannot control all the out-of-the-gym factors, you can
at least shore up some of them. If you cannot get time to prepare decent
meals when you are out of the house, prepare a nutritious easily digested
blender concoction, put it in a thermos, and take it with you and use it for
liquid feeds every three hours. is will keep you steadily supplied with
nourishment. Skipping feeds will kill your gains.
13.41 Try to arrange your life so that you are well rested during the 24 hours
before you train. While you can occasionally psyche yourself up to train
when you are very tired, or depend on a stimulant such as coffee to do the
job, you cannot do this indefinitely. (Do not become dependent on taking a
stimulant in order to be able to get in an intensive workout. You need to be
able to train hard under your own control.) A good night’s sleep prior to a
training day can transform you. Select your gym days so that you train when
at your least tired.
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A good training program that does not yield good results can often
be made productive by supplying more rest, sleep and nutrition.
When you are experimenting with training frequency you must
keep other variables constant. Use a good abbreviated training
program suited to you, train hard, rest and sleep well, and fully
satisfy your nutritional needs—only then should you experiment
with training frequency to discover what works best for you. “Best”
is defined as what consistently produces poundage gain on all your
exercises.
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