(Don't) Get In Shape for the Summer

Getting In Shape for Summer – A Plan Doomed From the Start

Why do we do as intelligent human beings do this to ourselves? I see the scenario in the New York City personal training market all the time. Person A calls me to get in shape for their / wedding / birthday / beach house party in the Hamptons. They’ve got six weeks, and they just want to come in tomorrow, put the pedal to the medal, and go for broke.

And they do. They come in and start working up a storm. They have two to three days per week, and sometimes even more, to exercise, and they get into the gym and start working.

Training Continuum – The Physical Learning Process of Getting In Shape

Then they realize that there’s a little thing called the training continuum. The training continuum is the physical learning process that takes place in fitness training. By definition, you build strength, and thus fitness, by building a layer at a time.

To illustrate the concept, think of starting from a single point in space, and then draw successive concentric circles around that point. This ever-broadening circular drawing is the process of the training continuum. It theoretically never ends, or the end for each individual person is different.

Some people are only interested in drawing a few rings. That is akin to getting into a regular, if not dramatic, exercise routine – perhaps 2-3 days of training per week. Though it is certainly better than nothing, and though one certainly can make progress, even rather decent progress, in strength gains with that type of frequency of training, it is not going to produce six-pack abs or perfectly toned legs unless there was very little work to do to begin with.
 

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