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Today I trained back and chest. It was a good session and the perfect finish was 9 minutes of high intensity intervals on the stepper.

However perfect looked unlikely as to my dismay bother steppers had been claimed… and by claimed I mean monopolised by meanderers.

A guy and a gal working at an excruciatingly low intensity who would likely be still trudging away long after I gave up pacing and left the gym.

In todays training show I’m asking: Do You Need To Train Harder?

I covered not focusing or working hard enough as the most costly mistake in the: 6 Work-out Mistakes That Keep You Stuck show (that was #074) however it’s worth a revisit.

Now I could go all techie and science’y on this one and talk about the perceived rate of exertion or working at 75-85% of your max heart rate for such and such period of time… however I can’t, I’m bored with it already and I never measure either myself.

Those answers are there for you in the land of google – instead let’s focus on,

3 common sense keys to know if you’re training hard enough:

1. Do you feel like you ACCOMPLISHED something beyond ticking the requisite minutes of exercise box?

Caveat: just because you’re not sore the next day does not mean you didn’t work hard enough. I’m generally sore when I try something very new – or return to something I haven’t done in a while.

More often than not I’m actually hardly sore at all.

I do always walk away from my work-out feeling like it was time well spent. Like I worked hard and gave the best that my body had to give today…

How much you can give to your work-out is going to vary day to day. It’s not one of those nicely predictable things where if you get a great nights sleep, eat an awesome breakfast and feel fresh and fired up to train then it’ll be a guaranteed strong session.

=> Give it your best for today and you’re going to do ok.

2. Does your routine BORE you? Boredom will set in quickly when you’re not pushing yourself.

Caveat: it’s not about a fancy new exercise every time. It’s more about the challenge. About aiming to progress – not every single time – however you do need to push beyond your comfort zone.

Training is one of those things where you don’t ever arrive at that magical place where you get to cruise on auto-pilot and it’s all easy and you can still keep your results.

=> If you have the focus, energy, breath to give to a lively conversation with the person next to you. If chatting is saving you from the tedium of your routine… then it’s time to give your exercise a serious upgrade.

3. Are you getting the RESULTS you’re seeking? 

Caveat: you need to be patient to see results and there is no one timeframe fits all. Equally you need to also be compliant and consistent to give your approach a fair chance.

4-6 weeks is a realistic timeframe to see some results – it should be enough to at least give you the feedback to continue. If your food is locked and loaded, you train 4-6 days a week, that’s been the case for the past 12 months without any noticeable results then Yes this could be the feedback that:

You DO Need To Train Harder.

It’s a tough one though right? Most often if I meet someone disappointed with their body gain results it’s a combo that is stalling their progress.

A) They would benefit from eating even better.

B) They need to be even more consistent.

C) They could certainly train harder.

=> The solution I fall back to is to MODEL what’s already working.

Let’s make that todays action step:

If you’re not sure if you need to train harder then check out the habits of the person who already has the results you’re seeking.

The way they eat. The consistency they apply to their food and exercise. AND of course how hard they train.

Online you have free access to the inner thoughts, meals, exercise routines of the perfect person for you to model… it’s just a matter of finding the person or the combo of people that resonates with you.

That’s it for me today, big thanks to you for spending this time with me and I hope you can join me tomorrow for the Friday FAQ show where I cover, How Quickly Can I Lose My Belly Fat? 

If you liked this you’ll also like: Choosing Your Curves:

If you’re yet to share the Healthification love – just click here to zip over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It’d help me out big time. With gratitude, Kate.