STRENGTHEN THE WEAKEST LINK

Sometimes, like once a year, I test my different exercises to see where my weaknesses are.

Then I know which exercises I need to train more in the future

in order to bring the ratio between different exercises to a reasonable level.

This helps with injury prevention. 

For the appropriate proportions between the various exercises,

I have created a table based on tests by Charles Poliquin.

Ideally, the exercises should all come out in one line.

For example, I'll take a 95 kg bench press.

Then all the other exercises should also be in the row where the bench press is 95 kg.

I can find out where my strongest exercise is based on my current training.

For example, if I now do 30 repetitions on the bench press with 40 kilos,

then I know exactly which row I have to look at

in order to do the other exercises with 30 repetitions as well.

For example, I find out that I'm much weaker at triceps overhead extension

and then I also know that I have to work on this weakness in the next time

until I'm there on the same row.

 

For example, with the bench press, I know that all I have to do is maintain the strength.

I work the other exercises more to get it all into that row.

 

The optimal ratio is of course wishful thinking, because we do not live in an ideal world.

However, it's always good when you get the exercises very close to each other.

 

The typical weak points are often triceps, hamstrings and lower back.

Then there is often a disproportion between the upper body and the legs.

You can always work on that.

 

 

WORK CAPACITY

How much physical work (including training) is your limit? How much work per day, week, month, or year can you handle without breaking down? Where is the point at which you get sick, injured, or "just" mentally overloaded? That limit is your WORK CAPACITY. Like any physical ability, this limit is highly individualised from person to person. Moreover, it varies from day to day.

YOUR WORK CAPACITY IS THE LIMITING FACTOR TO ALL OF YOUR EFFORTS!

How can you improve your WORK CAPACITY?

We could compare a training stimulus to a drug dose.

"Besides NOTHING" leads to nothing.

"A OVERDOSE" leads to side effects, illness, or in the worst case, death.

The OPTIMAL dose delivers exactly the desired result.

The MINIMAL effective dose delivers progress with the least effort.

The MAXIMUM Dose (your limit) usually requires 80% more effort without delivering better results than the optimal dose (usually worse).

Your daily, weekly and monthly dose of physical work including training should be in the range between minimal and optimal.

Start light and slowly work your way up to find your individual "dose".

COFFEE

I love coffee!

Dale Cooper loves coffee too!

You can't imagine how much I love coffee.

Some people can drink a lot of coffee, while others feel bad when too much Caffeine kicks in.

Unfortunately, I can't tolerate more than one cup of coffee a day.

Too much caffeine has many negative effects such as dehydration, anxiety, nervousness, insomnia, high blood pressure, prolonged QT intervals and palpitations.

Reconsider your daily dose if any of these symptoms sound familiar.

WARM-UP

I hate warm-ups, but they have an important place in my routine.

Do i need a warm-up?

The answer can't be "yes" or "no".

It depends!

Anybody who argues "yes" or "no" is wrong.

I don't have to warm-up for easy activities or 30 reps of an isolation-exercise with a light weight.

There is also no need for a warm-up before upper-body-exercises in the rep-range 10 reps per set or higher.

A warm-up is a must for any movement that could be called fast, explosive, hard or heavy.

Better warm-up a few minutes any movement-pattern with an abnormal limited range of motion, especially when pain is involved.

In this cases a warm-up extends training-time a bit for a lot of benefits and a lower risk of getting injured or unnecessary sore.  

"But i have never seen a leopard warming up before hunting down its prey!"

You are not a leopard and you will never be!

Better ask yourself:

Will a warm-up be a good and useful part of my training today?

MOVE TIRELESS

Building serious endurance is simple.

Patience and discipline are the key when you know how to do it.

My way to do it:

Every morning i check my HRV with the app "Elite-HRV" to know if i'm ready to do anything i like or if i should stay in recovery-mode.

Every day i train my aerobic energy-system, except when my nervous-system is abnormal or my rest-heart-rate is 5 beats higher than normal.

My rest-heart-rate is usually around 48 BPM, which is quite low. With the Karvonen-formula* i calculated my personal ideal HR-zone for training.

10 minutes of walking or cycling at a heart-rate of 95-110* is the minimum.

This is also my recovery-mode.

Easy activity at low heart-rate is better than resting complete. I only rest when i'm ill. 

20-45 minutes every day are doable, of course depending on the time left besides my regular life.

Being in the right heart-rate-zone for a total of

2 hours (or often much more) per week

builds not only the foundation of my endurance, but also for my good health.

I prefer low impact activities and stay in the range of 117-127* BPM.

High volume and high frequency at low intensity beats everything else.

I basically do a lot of very easy work at a low heart-rate to improve my ability to do any work at a low heart-rate.

In the past i experimented a lot with different methods.

The outcome of conditioning my body to work at high heart-rate is a high heart-rate when working, a need for more time to recover, less weekly training-volume, less fun and mediocre results.

Being able to do the same work with a lower heart-rate should be the goal.

Conditioning my body to

WORK A LOT AT LOW HEART-RATE

and

SLOWLY BUILDING UP WHAT I CAN DO IN THIS RANGE

had the surprising outcome of

being able ride my bike up to the top of a hill

at average HR 112,

instead of >140 after 4 months of different training!

*Check the right range for you: 

https://www.topendsports.com/fitness/karvonen-formula-calculator.htm