January 2025

One thing that I have learned from coaching football over the last two years is that things rarely go exactly according to plan. When you draw up a play on a whiteboard it may look great, but when it is executed in a game (or even in practice) it seldom looks just like it was drawn up. Sure, you have a philosophy and a game plan to prepare for an opponent, but successful coaches know how to go off script and adjust as the game goes along. In a sense, the same holds true in exercise. Both the client and the instructor may have a vision in the days or moments leading up to the workout of how the things will unfold, but we all know that there are variables in life that will impact your preparation and focus. In theory we may strive for perfection, but we must understand that it will remain just beyond our grasp.

"Life is difficult." That is the first sentence of the book "The Road Less Traveled", written by M. Scott Peck. I started reading the book after hearing former Alabama football coach Nick Saban talk about it in a lecture that he gave several years ago. The author, who passed away in 2005, was a psychiatrist who wrote extensively about personal and spiritual development, and the first line of this well-known book perfectly encapsulates what we need to understand about the nature of life or undertaking any meaningful or worthwhile endeavor. Life is difficult, and it is not meant to be easy. Any significant accomplishment in your life was likely the product of effort, focus, and a drive to succeed. Dr. Peck goes on to say that, "When we extend ourselves, when we take an extra step or walk an extra mile, we do so in opposition to the inertia of laziness or the resistance of fear. Extension of ourselves or moving out against the inertia of laziness we call work. Moving out in the face of fear we call courage. Love, then, is a form of work or a form of courage." Interestingly enough, he also makes reference to exercise in the book, stating, "No matter how dedicated we are to spiritual development, we also need rest and relaxation, exercise and distraction."

If we expect to find perfection in a workout and do not achieve it, we will become discouraged. One question I often pose to new clients is, "How do you define success?" The answer to that question will help me to understand a client's mindset and how best to instruct them. I believe one should focus more on the process than the outcome of an exercise or a workout. The process is something that is more within your control, while the outcome may or may not be. Hall of Fame basketball coach John Wooden, who led UCLA to ten national championships in twelve years, never talked to his players about the score or about winning the game. Rather, he focused on teaching and preparing his players to be the best that they could be. He was never obsessed with winning or losing; instead, he would be happy if the team played well and would be upset if he felt they did not play as well as they were capable. The score was not important, and Wooden's mindset was process-driven, not results-driven. Wooden was way ahead of his time in terms of praising effort, when most of his colleagues suffered the highs and lows of worrying about wins and losses. Total Results exercise is really no different. Confidence is built, and achievement occurs as a result of putting in great effort and doing the right things session by session, week after week, and month after month. A workout is as much a mental experience as it is a physical undertaking. If you focus on the process, the end result will take care of itself.

How you handle adversity speaks volumes. Life will throw challenges at you that you may or may not be ready for, and how you respond to those challenges will tell the tale. Very rarely in life are we going to feel 100 percent, and you can't just show up for workouts when you feel inspired. I will share a personal anecdote about my workout on January 8th, 2025. I was physically prepared: I had slept well the previous few nights, my nutrition was good, and I had not consumed any alcohol in over a week. Mentally, I was great, except I forgot to bring my workout clothes to the office! This has only happened to me one time that I can recall in 25 years in the business. As a result, I worked out in dress slacks, a t-shirt, and wing-tip shoes; far from optimal, but I still managed to achieve something meaningful. In this case, the stage was not set for a perfect workout, but the outcome was still positive. Sometimes, you just have to grind it out.

We strive for perfection knowing that it is unattainable, but we hope to fall short of perfection and achieve excellence. Seldom will a client go up in time under load or weight on every single exercise of a given workout, but that certainly doesn't detract from the effort that they put forth. Sure, I have had conversations with clients after workouts when they tell me they felt like they were totally locked in and hit all the right notes, so to speak. More often than not, they simply buckle down and give everything they have, regardless of the outcome. That is all that anyone can ask of themselves.

Many Total Results clients can relate to the following scenario. You have just completed the first exercise of your workout, which is usually either the Seated Leg Curl or the Abduction/Adduction combination. Your hip and knee joints are sufficiently warmed up (which is largely why we perform these exercises first in the routine), and now you position yourself to start the Leg Press. When given the cue from your instructor to begin the exercise, you start to gradually apply pressure to the foot board to overcome inertia and get the movement arm into motion. However, something happens. In spite of your best effort, you find that you cannot budge the carriage of the machine. How could this be?

This has happened to me a few times over the years, and I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with you if you experience this unfortunate circumstance. No, you didn't lose muscle since your previous workout. This is not an altogether uncommon situation, and there are a few possible explanations for why it takes place. The Leg Press is the largest, most challenging, and probably most important exercise that you will ever perform, and it has the greatest overall effect on your metabolism. We perform this exercise near the beginning of the workout, simply because we want to exercise the lower body muscles when your body is relatively fresh. If your body is not properly recovered due to excessive physical activity, poor sleep, or insufficient nutrition, this can leave you at less than full strength for your workout. Consequently, you might have trouble moving out of the bottom out position.

What is another reason you can't move the Leg Press? In my experience, it is largely a mental phenomenon. I have said many times that the mental component of exercise should never be underestimated, and you need to have a sharpened intellectual focus in order to optimize your workout experience. If your mind is not in the right place, then you will not be prepared to grasp how much effort is required to overcome inertia. There can sometimes be a slight delay between when your brain sends the impulse to the muscles to fire (contract) and when movement of the movement arm actually begins. In reality, this all takes place in fractions of a second, but in your perception it feels like it takes much longer. When movement doesn't happen instantaneously it can become a self-perpetuating scenario, and once you think you can't do something, you can't do it. This is why it is important to always believe in yourself, and one of the most important aspects of my job as an instructor is to provide encouragement to the clients that I supervise. Additionally, this scenario is one reason why I will rarely tell clients in advance when I have raised their weight, as I do not want to cause them to have a mental block.

How can we work around this? In a pinch I can have the client start the exercise from the endpoint rather than the starting point by pulling the carriage all the way out and handing it off to them. If that doesn't work, we can utilize a Timed Static Contraction for that workout. More often than not, this is a one-time thing and it is not an ongoing issue. If this happens for several workouts in a row, the next option is to slightly reduce the weight. More than anything else, it helps the trainee to regain their confidence in performing the movement. I would rather a client use less weight but start the exercise from the bottom out position than start at the end point and use a higher poundage.

I believe that one of the greatest privileges of life is having a challenge to overcome. Once the challenge of life is gone, things tend to go downhill. You have a tremendous opportunity at Total Results to rise to the occasion. Doing hard mental and physical things sharpens your fortitude and your ability to overcome adversity; you get the best of both worlds in our facility. Mentally prepare in advance of your workout, and accept the fact that while it will be uncomfortable, you will come out of it better on the other side. The Leg Press is the biggest challenge that we face at Total Results, but it is not insurmountable. You can do this!