You don’t have to train like an athlete to look like an athlete
Athletes are revered for their jaw-dropping physical ability and toned appearance; the culmination of hundreds if not thousands of hard hours spent training and practicing.
But from my experience, looking towards athletes for inspiration can damage the self-belief many people have when it comes to getting in great shape themselves.
Athletes struggle with this, too. In my swimming days it was commonplace to associate a muscular physique with increased performance.
If an athlete has to train twice every day of the week to look the way they do, does that mean it’s the only way?
Must we ‘grind’ away in confinement, day after day to see even a small sign of muscle?
Whilst much of the fitness industry would have you believe it’s your lack of work ethic stopping you, thankfully there is a more efficient way.
Remember the goal
Athlete’s look the way they do as a side-effect of their training. Remember, their primary objective is to improve performance within very specific parameters that determine success in their sport. This requires the training of a large number of different physical attributes, which so happens to tick a lot of the prerequisites for building a toned physique. In no particular order:
What this means, is that if your goal is to build a more athletic and toned body, then an athlete’s training plan is a very convoluted and unnecessarily complex method of going about it.
A big differentiating factor amongst athletes is their ability to recover from outrageously demanding training schedules. So next time you find yourself trying to imitate an athletes plan, stop and ask yourself if it’s entirely necessary.
If we don’t need to train ourselves into the ground to look athletic, what do we need to do?
What it takes to build muscle tone
If you’d like to read in more depth, I have an article that specifically covers building muscle tone here.
But if you want your training plan to be as effective as possible, you should focus on prioritising resistance training for strength and muscle. Resistance training is by far the most efficient means of providing a stimulus for growing muscle. It’s a process that can take a long time, so consistency will be more important than any other factor.
Here’s your list of non-negotiables if you want to give yourself the best chance of seeing that muscle pop through:
Train each muscle group a minimum of twice per week, e.g:
Each week focus on doing a bit more than you did previously: more reps, more sets, more weight, e.g:
Work to improve the range of movement you apply in each exercise, e.g:
Measuring Progress
Knowing how to measure whether or not you’re moving forwards can be invaluable for keeping you on the right tracking and not defaulting back to a plan you can’t sustain. In your training sessions, it’s fairly simple to assess whether or not you're progressing:
Keep some kind of record detailing how many reps you did and how much weight you used. If you don’t see noticeable increases over the course of a few weeks, it’s possible you’re not getting something quite right. There are a large number of possibilities for why progress might have stalled, but generally my first recommendation would be to reduce the amount of work you perform in the next session and giving yourself a small rest before moving forwards.
Video your exercise technique. I used to think videoing yourself was vein, but there’s huge value in comparing your technique over the course of time to spot errors and see how your technique is developing. Like mentioned above, look to increase your range of motion.
