Know Where You’re At: The Importance of Benchmark Workouts
Submitted by Got Strength? Blog
In the most general sense, there are two kinds of people that exercise. There are those who are generally happy with their physique, health, and performance. The only reason they train is to maintain their current state and maybe for enjoyment. This article isn’t for them, and almost all of what I teach isn’t. If they’re truly happy the way they are, then congratulations to them. They’ve beaten the system, so to speak.
The other group, from overweight soccer mom’s to elite soccer players, are looking to improve some feature of themselves. Even if their goals are so different as to be on different planets, they’re not happy with where they are and they want to improve somehow. Sometimes this is easier to tell than others. For example, let’s look at the aforementioned soccer mom. She may have decided when she started exercising that her goal was to fit into her college jeans again. Has she been successful? Pull those bad boys out and let’s see!
What about the MLS soccer player who’s goal is to be in the best physical condition possible. Well, that’s a little tougher. For one thing, it’s hard to define “best physical condition possible” sometimes, and what he’s really looking for is to dominate his game. His body is just a tool that allows him to do that. He needs to know that his workouts are working towards his goals, just like the soccer mom, and that if they’re not then neither of them can afford wasting time with counter-productive exercise.
One of the best methods out there for maintaining the proper direction in fitness is through testing and measurements. I’m a numbers geek, and my clients know this. I generally don’t want to “think” that my clients are improving. I want to know. I measure my clients to make sure that their bodies are growing in the right direction, for example. Another thing I do is I test my clients. I do that through specific tests and benchmark workouts.
A benchmark workout is an exercise test or a selection of exercises that are performed in exactly the same manner (at times I scale the weight up or down) periodically with the results recorded and compared. I use these workouts, depending on my clients’ goals, to make sure they’re improving. If my client performs a benchmark workout and moves 5,000 lbs in 20 minutes for example, then maybe in six weeks we’re going to perform the same workout. Now I want to see more weight moved in the same amount of time, or the same amount of weight in less time. That shows improvement and that we’re on the right track.
What happens if there isn’t improvement? Well, that’s ok, too. I’m obviously not happy if there isn’t improvement, but it does give us some great information. Now we know that what we’re doing isn’t working or has exhausted itself. This is important to analyze what’s going wrong and how to fix it in order to get the client on the right path again. Now we also know something more about the client and how they respond to training and stress.
Check back in tomorrow when I go over how to design some benchmark workouts!
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