The Re-Allocation of Positive Effort

Training hard and maxing out your physical effort and mental capabilities is no doubt at the very essence of who you are when you walk into the gym. Leaving no plate unturned and lifting everything in sight quickly becomes the mantra and anything less is considered a failure for that day. Your goals, as ambitious as they are, may, unfortunately, have caused you to place your efforts in an unforeseen and unfortunate circumstance by which your return on effort isn’t as great as you had hoped for.

So to ensure this doesn’t happen to you, it may be time to re-allocate your efforts towards something much more beneficial to ensure you are indeed maximizing each of your training sessions.

Let Your Effort Be You

Despite the literature and videos you have seen citing the benefits of this exercise and that, don’t fall into the trap that you have to perform these exercises no matter what to ensure success. You have to take the time to find what feels right to you, what allows you to grow stronger in a safe yet highly productive way, which movements provide the best pumps and which exercise selections and sequences will further you along and get you closer to your end goals.

The last thing you want to have happen is finding out you’ve been wasting your time trying to get better at a movement that really doesn’t suit you or your structure and has been setting you up for failure and disaster the whole time. Don’t ignore the signs your body gives you and step away from strategies that you instinctively feel aren’t right for you.

Just Train Bro

The newcomers to this sport have almost gone to the extreme with being prepared to the point where they’re probably over-prepared and over-saturated with knowledge. Of course, the more you know the better, but there comes a point especially early on in your training career when knowing too much can be detrimental.

What ends up happening is you start second-guessing everything you’re doing, not allowing enough time to lapse with one strategy before changing it, making too many changes to diet, supplementation or training all at once and ultimately stressing yourself out about everything you’re doing versus just enjoying it all for what it is. Especially during the early stages of your career, just train bro.

Just love going to the gym and eating lots of food and seeing yourself grow. Don’t bother yourself with all the minute intricacies of the sport; that will all come in due time. Lift hard and heavy, eat a ton and just grow.

Learn your Nutrition

The last bit of advice that should be offered here is the fact that no matter how hard you are training in the gym, you will never be able to out-train a poor diet. If all you are doing is putting all of your focus and effort into training, eventually what you will find for yourself is that your progress will slow down and an overall feeling of frustration will set in.

Yes you’ll be having fun lifting and seeing gains in strength, but if muscle is what you’re after and you’ve neglected your nutrition, then prepare for disappointment. On the contrary, if you can share your efforts between the gym and the dinner table, then you will really see how much of an impact nutrition has on your overall goals.

So as hard as you train, the same effort should be given to learning how your body responds to nutrition and all the foods you choose to eat. By doing so you will have really given yourself a greater advantage over those who don’t.

Sometimes all it takes for you to give yourself a little nudge in the right direction to get the gains rolling in again for yourself is a shift or re-allocation of your efforts. A little tweak here and there can do wonders for your progress.

I understand how easy it can be to get fixated on one approach and steadfast in your efforts to make things happen but you have to be willing to take a step back every once and awhile just to re-evaluate things. If you can’t see it for yourself, ask for some help if you have found yourself at a dead end in gains. The first step in being in control of your destiny is being in control of the effort you put forth. Make sure that effort is in the right direction to reap the rewards of all your hard work.

Author: Dana Bushell

Gym Star Team Member