3 Strategies to Removing the Negatives

There's one thing I've found that consistently leads to improvements on the training room floor and in competitive performance.

And the thing is this is nothing new.

And it works in all areas of life.

For example, this approach will lead to a higher GPA in school. It leads to better fiscal health when it comes to your finances. And it improves your relationships.

So what is this magical approach that appears to make life better across the board?

Well, it's quite simple actually. And unfortunately it's something many people skip past.

And here it is.

Remove the negative.

What? Really? That's what is going to lead to new gains? This will lead to more weight loss? This will reduce joint pain and allow for more efficient movement?

Absolutely it will.

So how do you identify what your negatives are? Are they the same as your training partner? And how do you go about eliminating them?

With these questions in mind here are 3 Strategies to Removing the Negatives.

Step #1 - What Do You Not Enjoy? Do you love chin ups? Or pull ups? Maybe you're a huge fan of Turkish Get Ups?

I'm guessing 0-for-3 on the above. Which would be no surprise. We tend to steer away from the more challenging movements and exercises.

In order to separate yourself from the average gym-goer you need to do the things the average gym-goer won't do. Find out what it is you struggle with and prioritze this in your workout.

Step #2 - Add More Glutes, Hamstrings and Lats Question...what do the above muscle groups have in common? Answer...you can't see them when you face a mirror.

But most people go the gym and want flat abs, bigger biceps and a more powerful chest. So they do crunches, curls and bench press.

The interesting thing is the more people focus on these the more back, elbow and shoulder problems that tend to follow. And worse they don't make huge gains with respect to their lifts or their physique.

Want to be pain-free and stronger? Follow step #2.

Step #3 - Listen to Your Body Although you have left and right sides to your body there is usually a dominant side. And you may have experienced an injury on one side. So then we tend to shift emphasis on our lifts to let the strong side pick up the slack.

Whatever the reason might be our body will find a way around any aches, pains and restrictions in our movement patterns. So sometimes we need to break compound movements done into simpler parts. Sometimes we need to isolate the deficient part, address it and then re-introduce back into the mix.

Yes, that's right. I said you may need to isolate. This is contrary to what 99% of fitness pros will tell you. They will say everything should be compound, multi-joint exercise. And the more movements, muscles and joints involved in an effort the better.

But here's the thing.

You don't fix a squat by squatting. And you don't fix a deadlift by deadlifting. You determine what it is about your squat that is not working the way it should, fix that then go back to squatting.

Case in point...our staff just finished a strength training phase to increase our loads in the squat, deadlift, bench press and chin up.

And we put up some amazing numbers. By amazing I mean increases of 50-110 lbs in every lift by everyone that participated.

But here's the craziest part of the experiment....

We made these improvements without training these lifts at all during the 2 month program. More to come on this.

Summary Sometimes we can plateau. Sometimes we feel achy. And sometimes we are at a loss as to how we can shake up our program. Follow these 3 steps for untapped progress and improvements.

Chris