If you’ve been following along with Purposeful Strength, then you’ve heard me mention that results (stemming from action) come before motivation. As a Personal Trainer, one of the keys to helping clients reach their goals is to help you identify progress markers in your training. 

One of my favorite questions to ask new clients is “what has to happen for your goal of ______ to be successful?”

Progress steps from expectations, and expectations require awareness. In this case, awareness in your training, day to day, week to week, month to month. 

Though that may sound like a lot “Man, I’ve got to be on my game every workout?!” 

Nay, my fellow comrade in fitness, nay. 

There are a whole bunch of different ways to create progress markers in your training, some require some thinking, but many require just a touch of brain power, and those are my favorite.  

When it comes to your training session, you can make progress by…

1. Performing the same workout in less time. 

2. Performing more sets in the same amount of time. 

3. Performing the same workout with shorter rest intervals.  

Most people think you have to perform more weight with the same number of sets and that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

You can always adjust the variables. For example,

1. Instead of reps, perform all of your sets for time. 

2. Instead of sets and reps, look at the total number of reps and look to do more reps each week with the same weight. An example- 3 sets of 10 reps is 30 reps. Next workout, do 35 reps in as many sets as needed. Progress up to 45-50 reps and then drop the reps down and go back to 30 total reps. 

3. Using the same total sets concept as above, if you’re doing 30 reps, you can do some reps with a challenging weight and then use a less intense weight as the rep count increases. 

If you train with me, you know I love REPS workouts!

But before you add weight, I would encourage you to…

1. Do the same workout with a more challenging tempo- my favorite is to control the weight 2 seconds down, pause for 1 second, and then push up for 2 seconds. 

2. Do the same workout with a pause on each rep. Good pause times range from 1-3 seconds. 

3. You can also add pulses and pauses in different parts of the training session. 

When it comes to your cardio training, I like to make progress in a few ways. Let’s say you start your workout with working (run/jog) intervals starting at 10-20 seconds and rest 10 times as long. For example, jog for 20 seconds, walk or jog  for 200 seconds (that’s 3 minutes and 20 seconds) to make progress. 

Progress could be…

1. Make the rest interval shorter - instead of  x10, work down to x9. 

2. Make your work interval longer. I typically start by adding 5-10% of the total time. 

3. Increase the work interval, and decrease the rest (this is super hard). 

4. Do the same workout, but in a different incline. 

5. Do the same workout, but vary the speed of each working and active rest period. Example, run and walk, then run and jog and then continue to cycle. 

The most overlooked aspect of progress are the internal variables. Think of these factors next time you’re trying to quantify progress 

1. You felt more confident during the whole workout. 

2. You felt more confident with specific moves that were once uncomfortable. 

3. You set a goal for the workout and accomplished it. An example of this could be as simple is not getting distracted by your phone or timing all your rest intervals. 

4. You didn’t think you were going to get the workout in but made it happen. 

Progress in your training might not even be directly related to your training…

1. You set a consistency goal - example, workout 3 times a week or 20 times in a month- and crushed it!

2. You focus on getting quality sleep to help you feel refreshed for your training. 

3. You set a time in your work schedule to workout and kept that promise. 

4. You proactively grocery shopped to have your food and snacks readily available. 

Trainer trip: if you’re struggling in your training, find something related to training, like the list above, to focus on and you may find that your training and exercise indirectly improves!