One of the most frustrating things we see our members face is lack of progress (or perceived lack of progress). It can be very disheartening to feel like you are doing everything you can to achieve a goal and are not getting close to achieving it. I want to walk you through the steps I would take someone through to get to the bottom of why they aren't making the progress that they feel they should be making.
1. Consistency
The first step I take when someone is frustrated about progress is to look at their attendance history. Generally this is as far as I have to go because it tells the story. We want our members coming AT LEAST 4 days a week. Anything less than 4 days a week and we can't guarantee that you will make a lot of progress. A member with no training background might be able to progress with 3 days a week for a while but it will not be sustainable. When you aren't coming 4 days a week then maintenance or modest progress is the most likely outcome.
From my experience most people think that they are being more consistent than they are. They will remember the two weeks that they came 4 or 5 days but forget the six weeks when they came 2 or 3 days. Your mind typically has trouble accurately remembering how consistent you have been but your body ALWAYS remembers. If you are frustrated with your progress then check your attendance history. If you have been averaging less than 4 days a week for an extended period of time then lets bump those numbers up.
2. Diet
If consistency of attendance is in place then the next thing I will look at with a member is their diet. This generally shows itself in the following way: we have a member who is at class almost every day of the week, week in and week out. They are getting stronger and fitter, but their body composition isn't changing that much. The conversation always goes to diet at this point. Typically this person doesn't track their food. We talked about how we have trouble remembering how consistent we are in the previous section, and the same thing applies here. Most people, when asked about their diet, say it is "pretty good." This, however, is not the case for most people. Diet recollection is generally terrible for most people. What did you have for lunch last Monday? Dinner last Thursday? If you don't track then you probably have no idea. If you are consistent in the gym but your body composition isn't changing much then take a good hard look at your diet.
Another aspect of diet is alcohol. Over the years I have seen a lot of people sabotage their progress by drinking alcohol just about every night. One or two drinks doesn't seem like a lot but it can completely derail your body composition goals. I have talked extensively about this in the past and won't go into too much detail here but suffice it to say drinking will seriously hurt your chances at making any significant body composition change. If you are drinking more than one or two nights a week then DO NOT expect any type of major body composition change. It's not happening.
3. Mindset
If you are consistently coming to the gym 4+ days a week and have your diet dialed in then you are most likely going to see great progress. We have seen a few instances, however, when this isn't enough, and it's generally with higher level athletes. The next thing (and hardest thing) we need to look at is your mindset. What kind of attitude do you have when you come in the gym? Typically these type of people are very negative. They complain a lot and are always looking for the bad instead of looking for the good. When talking about a workout, instead of being proud of their effort, they say something like "Yea, but so and so did better" or "Yea, but I used to be able to lift more", or something alone those lines. Negativity is a way of life that is very hard to break for them. This manifests itself in the effort given during the workout, the quality of reps, and just overall attitude. Instead of focusing on giving their best effort, this person is focused on someone else's rep quality, time on the workout, or one of a million other things outside of their control.
This area can be very hard for us to pick up on in ourselves. It typically takes a close friend or coach to be able to call you out on this aspect. Complaining and negativity are extremely contagious and are something that people feed off of. If you are still struggling to make progress even though you have your consistency and diet locked in then take a good hard look at yourself, or even better yet ask someone you trust, and determine what your mindset looks like. Do you have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?
If you have one of these categories in place then you will most likely make progress. If you have two dialed in then you will definitely make some progress. If you have all 3 then we can guarantee that you will really be killing it. Look around at the fittest people that you see in the gym. They most likely have all 3 of these categories dialed in. This can be tricky, however, because sometimes people get to a certain point in their own fitness journey and hit a plateau. They might be super competitive every day at the gym but are not reaching their full potential because of one (or more of these categories). The people who are MAKING PROGRESS consistently over years, however, are locked in on these.
There are some other areas that we will look at to fine tune an athlete. We can look at their sleep (this is arguably the most important of all but I have seen over the years that the people who have these 3 categories locked in always have their sleep dialed in as well). We can look at your outside stressors (work, family, finances, etc. that your body treats as stress just like a workout). We can look at your recovery practices (massages, contrast baths, stretching, etc.). We can look at your mobility. We can look at your training history, injury history, and many others. We can look at supplements. We can look at a lot of things that will definitely move the needle. However, if the top three things aren't in place then we are wasting our time looking at other things. We have to get those locked in first before looking at other stuff.
I hope this article will help you if you have been struggling to make consistent progress in the gym. Troubleshooting is something that I feel is incredibly important to do in our health and fitness journey. If you aren't happy with your progress then sit down with a coach or a trusted friend and ask them to be honest with you on these categories. You might be surprised at what you find out, and you also might be able to finally make that progress that you have been wanting to make for so long.