What is TRAINING HARD?

Joel Younkins

The idea of TRAINING HARD is a very vague concept.

We hear this being thrown around quite often in this industry. Heck, I've said it a million times and I'll say it a million more. I have my definition of it, in which I'll explain very soon!

"To get good results you gotta train hard!"
"If you want to win the championship, you gotta train hard!"
"To have the body you always wanted, you gotta train hard!"

But what is TRAINING HARD???

Have you ever really asked yourself that question?

Here's what most people think it is, including myself before I got into coaching and actually learned what real training was!

Most people think TRAINING HARD, is training more than everyone else and giving it your all every single time.

And this sounds really cool, and maybe it paints a Rocky Training Montage in your head right now. You can hear the Hearts on Fire song playing in your head... But this actually couldn't be further from the truth!

People come in to meet with me to get started training. And more than half of them say things like...

"I'm ready for you to kick my butt!"
"Make sure you work my child hard to get them in shape!"
"I can't wait to be sore!"

I hear these types of comments so much that it's funny to me that people seem to be more conditioned to say that want to be tortured more than they want results LOL. 

I swear it feels like I hear more about pain and suffering than I hear things like...

"Joel, I can't wait to get the same training results like so and so did!"

So I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised that most people think TRAINING HARD is to just keep adding more time training and more intensity...

But here is what I've learned about training the human body and what actually produces awesome results!
TRAINING HARD in my opinion, is being able to train with a planned intensity for each workout, consistently over a long period of time.
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For each workout, you should have certain objectives and goals for what you're doing. Some workouts are designed to build more Volume. Some are designed to build more Intensity. And some workouts are designed to stimulate Recovery. And many more objectives can be included!

• You should be able to drop the hammer and raise the intensity when you need to.

• You should also have the discipline to execute your light workouts and recovery work with 100% focus.

​Executing the plan means executing your recovery sessions and your off days too...This is part of TRAINING HARD! 

So, if you're showing up to your workouts, and you're supposed to be given it max effort, and you can't because you've trained vigorously the past 6 days...Then in my opinion, you're not TRAINING HARD. 

If you're supposed to be performing a recovery workout, and instead you just try to do another tough workout, in my opinion, that's not TRAINING HARD either!

What most people think is TRAINING HARD, I call Training Recklessly! 

I can go on and on about this topic and how it relates to so many avenues of training for different populations and goals. But I want to leave you with 3 main takeaways to ensure that YOU are TRAINING HARD and not recklessly!
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1. Train with appropriate intensities
2. Execute your program with high levels of focus
3. Focus on improving performance in the gym

TRAIN HARD!!!

Your Coach
-Joel