During a recent check-in my online coaching client was annoyed about the fact that their training program was disrupted due to the sudden bout of illness they had to deal with:
“Things have been going great, and I had all this momentum behind me, and this sudden disruption feels like a spanner in the works. These twelve weeks were dedicated to my health, and to make it my primary focus and this interruption is quite annoying.
How do I deal with such an unwarranted break? Do you think I will be able to get back to earlier levels of consistency quickly?” They asked, sincerely.
My response to them is one they weren’t expecting:
“This interruption is good for you. It will teach you two things:
1. That your health isn’t an island that is cutaway from what happens in the mainland (work, family, friendships etc), just because you want it to be so, and
2. It will teach you to bounce back from such setbacks in the future too, since disruptions are always just around the corner.
Contrary to belief, interruptions and disruptions to your schedule is less harmful to your overall progress thank you think, so long as you focus on taking the next step forward once you’re capable of doing so.”
While these conversations are common when I speak to people new to the training program, having disruptions to one’s consistency is a common concern for many of you who have been training actively for months or years on end.
There are ways to deal with this and in this post I am going help you think differently, and explain to you how you can approach your training like an athlete to get consistent and never worry about losing it.
It’s February 2024, and you likely have sketched out your goals for the coming year and chances are, in addition to some fat loss goals and skill goals, is a goal dedicated to “consistency”.
But then, this isn’t the first time you’ve set “Be consistent” as your goal, and if you continue to follow the same path you have take previously, it is unlikely to be the last time you do so.
A common mistake you make, in addition to never defining what consistency means, is in assuming that your motivation, your intensity, your discipline, and your drive are all going to be constant throughout the year.
I started training 15 years ago, and I have remained consistent with my training ever since, including a period where I could only do rehab exercises due to a debilitating back injury.
Does this mean that I have worked out at the same intensity, completely the exact same number of workouts over the past 15 years?
Quite the opposite.
There have been years where I worked our 300+days, and there are others where I completed just about 100.
And yet, I consider that consistency, because for me, consistency is not about a number, and nor is it about “repeating the same”.
This confusion of thinking that consistency is the same as being constant can lead to you thinking you’re not doing all that well, when in reality you may be doing just fine.
I used to make the exact mistake too.
For years I assumed that I need to hit the exact same workouts that I did in the previous week, month, or year.
All it did was make me feel bad about the efforts I was putting in, despite those efforts being the best I could do given the changes in my schedule and situation.
And then I changed my approach.
I started thinking like an athlete. (which I was for quite a few years)
To improve your consistency, replicate the approach of an athlete.
What do I mean by this?
Generally athletes tend to have 3-4 different seasons they cycle through in a year: Pre-season, In-season, Post-season, and Off-season.
Their training goals, their training methods, and their training protocols all change depending on which part of the season they’re in.
You can take the same framework and apply it to your training in the coming year.
Unlike an athlete, you are always in-season. What changes are the external factors that determine how often you workout, what intensity you work out at, and what your training goals would be.
Keeping this in mind, here are the four seasons of training you should plan for:
Easy Season.
Build Season.
Busy Season.
Taper Season.
Let’s go through each of these seasons and define what they are, so you can adapt them to your schedule.
Easy Season: Where you lay a platform.
“I’ve often said that starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and assembling a plane on the way down.” - Reid Hoffman.
Inexplicably a lot of people approach their training goals in a similar manner.
You want to do everything the moment you get started on your fitness goals:
You want to strength train daily, run a few times a week, do your mobility drills, count your calories, plan your recipes, walk 10k steps daily, sleep 8-9 hours, to name just a few things.
And yet, the better method is the easy one.
The Easy Season is the one where you lay the foundation for the rest of the year.
And what I’ve found over the many years of having coached hundreds of clients is that the simpler your first steps, the better.
In the Easy Season you set yourself only 1-2 goals.
The goals could be nutrition related, or training related, or both.
BUT,
It should be no more than two. Any more, and it will generally all fall down like a pack of cards.
Some examples:
Workout 10-12 times this month, and
Walk 4k steps at least four days a week.
Or
Workout 4 times per week, and
Aim to eat 2-4 portions of veggies daily.
Or
Eat mindfully, taking my time to chew food, and
Eat with no distractions, no screens.
Do this for 10-12 weeks, and you now have a solid foundation you’ve built.
When to follow this: Easy season is the best approach when you’re just starting your fitness journey, are resuming after a lengthy break, or are resuming after a bout of serious illness or injury.
Next, we have Build Season.
Build season: Where you strengthen the platform laid.
Once you’ve completed a solid 10-12 weeks in the Easy Season, it is time to build.
You would have gained the confidence to add to your workload, and to attempt new ventures as it pertains to your fitness.
In this season you will add 1-2 goals more to your existing ones. Remember, you’re not replacing them, you are adding to them.
If you only had nutrition goals in the previous season add 1-2 training goals this season and vice versa.
Some examples:
Workout 10-12 times this month,
Walk 4k steps at least four days a week, and
Consume 1g/kg of bodyweight in protein.
Or
Workout 4 times per week,
Aim to eat 2-4 portions of veggies daily, and
Walk 5k steps 3x a week.
Or
Eat mindfully, taking my time to chew food,
Eat with no distractions, no screens, and
Workout 3x a week for 12 weeks.
What you will notice in the goals set above is that they’re still realistic. Do not let the ego take over and set yourself unrealistic goals, after the Easy season is over.
Instead, hunker down, and double down on the simple approach that has been successful thus far.
Do this for 10-12 weeks (or even longer) depending on how your schedule looks.
When to follow this: Build season is always right after your Easy season. Do not look to start Build season without at least 4 weeks of Easy Season prior to it.
Busy Season: Where you maintain the foundation laid.
This is the season that people dread.
After a few months of Easy and Build season strike the demons of Busy season:
Erratic lifestyles, long work hours, late nights, last minute changes in schedule, and much much more.
This season can be debilitating if you do not know how to approach your health and fitness during it.
The good thing is that you don’t need to complicate matters during Busy Season.
What is forgotten often is that maintaining something tends to be much easier than building it.
Equally true of your body.
The objectives of the Easy and Build seasons is to lay the foundations and build your body so that when Busy season strikes you are able to maintain it.
During Busy Season you do the opposite of Build season: you reduce your goal to just one and find your MVP, your Minimum Viable Program.
Look at your upcoming schedule and then decide what is your MVP.
Some examples:
Be active for 15-20 minutes three times a week.
Or
Walk a minimum of 3500 steps 5 times a week.
Or
Hit a minimum of 1g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.
Or
Perform 4 short, strength workouts four times a week, including two on the weekends.
Remember, the goal is NOT to gain over what you already have but to minimise any losses you may otherwise incur during Busy season.
During a normal season, the above goals may seem sub-optimal, but during Busy season these goals are perfectly fine.
They will serve two purposes:
Help you maintain strength, and minimise any losses in muscle, strength, and momentum, and
Most importantly: Make it easier to ramp up the intensity once the Busy season ends.
When to follow this: Anytime there is a change to your schedule and your “Easy” Season seems challenging.
And finally,
Taper Season: Wherein you coast your way through.
This is the fun season.
This is where health is lower on the list of priorities but continues to simmer in the background.
Unlike Busy season, you will not reduce the goals you have set for yourself, but unlike Build seasons, you will not add any more goals either.
You will, however, reduce the intensity during this phase.
The idea is to coast along so as to allow you to maintain your health while you prioritise other aspects of your life.
Some examples:
Performing bodyweight workouts for a couple of weeks because you’re holidaying in a remote area with no gyms.
Lifting the same weights at the same intensity, while spending more energy on learning a new water activity like Surfing, Swimming, or Diving.
Going for small treks and climbs in addition to your strength workouts since you’re spending a few weeks in the hills.
Worrying less about the exact macronutrient composition of your meal and enjoying the local delicacies since it is a rare event.
When to follow this: During festive seasons, during holidays, and during planned travel. These are the occasions where your Social Health takes precedence over Physical health.
One Suggestion - Think of the seasons less as hard-ended weeks, but as fluid time that flows from one season to the next seamlessly.
One Question - “What behaviour am I seeking to be consistent with in 2024? What steps have I taken to address that?”
Prad Tip - Consistency is not about the metrics, it is about the behaviours. The more consistent your behaviours across different seasons, the higher the chances of success.
Happy Sunday!