Your body needs an incentive to improve.

Giving your body a reason to improve

Your body’s tissue, such as bone and muscle, needs an incentive to grow.

But, first I will put the ladies in our tribe’s minds at ease. You will be far happier with your results if you train with proper weights, than you will be by following a 19-year-old fitness influencer claiming you can be firmer and healthier with little Pink Dumbbells.

The only natural way to look bigger is by gaining a lot of fat. Which is somewhat disappointing for us men. For instance, I looked huge in 2014 when I was fat, compared to my current svelte look.

So, back to incentivising your body to improve, to growing strong bones and developing muscle.

The longer we train, the harder it is to do sufficient work to get better. To further improve fitness, strength and looking leaner, we have to do more work.

What is improving the body?

By improving your body you will lift more weight, walk more manageably, do your daily tasks easier and consistently have more energy to complete your work.

So, we all have different reasons for improving and ideas on the amount we want to improve. All it takes is a combination of building more muscle; optimising your nervous system; improving your cardiovascular system; building stronger bones; optimising your cognitive abilities as well as improving your mobility.

But, you have to get more from your training; such as lifting more weight, doing more sets and including different movements to enable your body to lay down new tissue.

Your body is content to remain stagnant; it only improves if you challenge it adequately. When you continue doing useless exercises or train too light, with five reps in reserve, your body sits back and enjoys watching Netflix, and you don’t get better.

What are reps in reserve?

Take the situation where you can do fifteen reps on a Squat. If you stop at ten; you have five reps in reserve.

Don’t worry about it too much; it illustrates that you have to train hard to make a difference for your body to improve. If you don’t, you will be disappointed three months down the line when you have little to show for the time you have invested in your training.

But, there is more to training than just MORE.

If lifting more weight or running further was the only way to improve, then I wouldn’t focus on Effortless-effort so much. I would have Nick Squatting 500 kilograms in 6 months.

So, we find other ways to improve; our technique, the quality of our facial expressions under load, we train faster…right ZOE?

Here is an example of improving our pull-ups.

You can do ten reps on the pull-ups, and your goal is to do fifteen reps.

You maintain proper form for ten reps. A pretty girl then walks in, and you decide to go for fifteen. You become a CrossFit athlete. You kip your legs, and you strain your neck and shoulders to the limit.

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…

But, now what? Your pull-ups look ugly, and you hurt your neck and shoulders.

How do you make progress now?

After you recover, you listen to Coach Will and make changes to your movements; we include other exercises and improve other parts of your body.

It is not only more exciting and challenging, but it is also a lot safer.

Nick says: “It is still hard, but there is no strain, compared to two years ago, when I could feel the strain often.”

Coach William