This is what you must do to take control of your training efforts and win on your own terms.

By Skip La Cour
Six-Time National Champion Bodybuilder
Owner of Skip La Cour’s Mass Machine Nutrition

Everyone hopes to have a great workout every time they step into the gym. But, if you want to be the most effective and efficient with the time you invest training, simply hoping will not get the job done.

The best way to get what you want out of your workout is to first identify exactly what you want to accomplish before you even get to the gym.

What’s most important to you when it comes to your training sessions? Have you taken the time to specifically determine what a “great workout” means to you?

There are many factors that could contribute to a great workout. Components such as the amount of weight you lift, how many reps you perform, if you set personal records, the quality of form you use, how well you stimulate the targeted muscle group, if you get a good pump, how quickly you get and out of the gym, your level of concentration and focus, and for some people, how much connection made with gym friends and getting through an entire workout without quitting could all make a workout a great one.

Which components of a workout are the most important to you and how do you prioritize those components? You usually won’t value each one of them the same. Some are more important to you than others—and that’s perfectly acceptable. How you prioritize the importance of all these factors will definitely have an impact on your results.

Have you taken the time to figure this out and aim for it during every session?

For example, if one person’s highest priority is the quality of his form and he has made the decision that he will never sacrifice quality of form for the sake of lifting heavier weight, he can expect to experience a certain level of achievement. His results will more than likely be quite different than a person whose number one goal is to lift the heaviest amount of weight humanly possible—regardless of how sloppy the form he uses becomes. If a third person strives for proper execution, with form effective enough to stimulate the muscle group being trained with the heaviest amount of weight possible, he can expect results different than the two previous training approaches mentioned.

The person who doesn’t want to socialize in fear it will hamper his focus and concentration will produce different results than the person who sets out to both connect with his friends and pound-out a decent workout at the same time.

So, after listing what’s most important for you to achieve during your workout, arrange what you’ve decided upon in their order of priority.

I evaluate the quality of my workouts by my effectiveness, performance, and mental focus:

Effectiveness. My number one priority when I evaluate my workouts is how well I hit the targeted muscle group during every set. Did I stimulate the growth process by feeling the weight exactly where I wanted? Or, did I incorporate other body parts to help me perform the repetitions? Did I give every set everything I had inside of me and work every set to absolute failure?

Performance. After I make sure I’ve overloaded the exact muscle group I targeted, my next priority is peak performance. I evaluate my performance by how much weight I lifted, how many repetitions I performed with that weight, what kind of form I used, and if I was in a groove, flow, or zone. How close did I come to the most weight I have ever lifted for each exercise? How close did I come to the most reps I’ve ever performed with that amount of weight? Was the form I used during each exercise the happy medium between very strict and sloppy that as I was aiming for? Did I feel fluent or was every inch of every rep a battle? Again, I only value these components if I have first hit the intended muscle group and worked every set until absolute failure. Who cares how much weight I lifted if I didn’t stimulate the right muscle group? I certainly don’t!

Mental Focus. The level of mental focus I achieved and maintained during my workout is the next component I evaluate when I determine the quality of my training session. How well I concentrated during every exercise, the amount of courage and determination I exhibited, and how efficiently I moved from exercise to exercise all contribute to my mental focus. Was I enthusiastic when I trained? Was my mind only on my workout or did I let situations outside of the gym distract me? Did I go for a challenging amount of weight or did I rationalize and settle for less based on a little fear or even laziness? Did I do any excess talking that broke the flow of the workout? Usually, when you are mentally focused, you are going to have a great workout—but that’s not always the case. Being mentally focused is great. You can have all the best intentions in the world but fail to be effective or perform well in the gym. I’d rather be less focused and get the job done well rather than be super-determined but unable to produce significant results.

How about you? Have you already consciously figured these things out so you can take control over your training and win on your own terms?

Invest in the quality of your workouts by taking the time to determine what’s most important to you, prioritize what you’ve decided upon, and set out to execute them during every workout—and make every one of them a great one.

Train Hard—and Think Big!

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By Skip La Cour

Oftentimes, our enthusiasm and desire to build our physiques makes us want to train as long and as often as we possibly can. This is especially true when we’re dealing with those stubborn body parts. If reaching our bodybuilding goals takes a little extra effort, we are usually more than willing to put in that extra work.

Unfortunately, that is not how the muscle-building process works. After training to a certain point, your body will no longer benefit from your effort. In fact, you will actually be doing your body more harm than good.

“Overtraining” is a somewhat difficult concept to grasp because it’s not how most things in life work. Most of the time, the amount of effort you put into a particular endeavor will directly correlate to the results you are able to achieve. However, this is not true when it comes to developing your physique. “More is not necessarily better” is what we are warned by the training experts.

When will a person know if he or she is overtraining? How does overtraining actually feel? What are the indicators that can tell a person whether or not they are overtraining? What would be considered the “right” amount of training and what amount is considered too much? How often and how much should a person train—in order to be the most effective?

From my personal experience and the training habits I’ve witnessed in others, most of us have the tendency to train too much. Although this is especially true with people who have been training for five years or less, it occasionally applies to more experienced people training in the gym as well.

Finding the “right” amount of training—and not falling subject to overtraining—is a gradual learning process. The only way you can shorten this learning process, in my opinion, is to find a good role model or teacher and put your blind faith into what he is telling you.

The only way for you to learn and truly understand for yourself what overtraining feels like is by first training with what you instinctively believe is the right amount. Then, you must force yourself to train with significantly less volume for a period of time. You can then feel the contrast between the two approaches. You can compare the actual difference and measure your results. Taking this route, however, can be mentally challenging and quite time consuming.

Some experts try to quantify overtraining by using physical indicators such as loss of strength, change in blood pressure, rise in body temperature, and loss of appetite. The experts also point to mental factors such as lack of enthusiasm and concentration in the gym.

Because of the tremendous ability of your mind to adapt to the physical and mental conditions around you, those indicators might not be reliable. In other words, your body may be just fine—but your mind may be weak. If we are honest with ourselves, we can all relate to the mental limitations I’m referring to, can’t we? I’m sure we have all experienced a lack of desire that we wanted to label as overtraining, haven’t we?

You’re into the bodybuilding lifestyle for the long haul, aren’t you? I believe the only true way you can actually feel the “right” amount of training sooner rather than later is through hands-on experimentation. Invest a month or so and cut back on the volume of your training. Force yourself to train less frequently and do fewer reps—no matter how difficult it may be. Work hard to become just as intense and effective with less work. Limit yourself to one hour of weight training during each session. If what you have planned can’t fit into that hour, then you are training too much.

When it comes to learning the meaning of overtraining for yourself, I’m certain the month or so you invest experimenting will pay huge dividends in the long term.

Train Hard—and Think Big!