People tend to be consistent at starting again. Imagine the results if they were as consistent at keeping going.

We, humans, are regularly driven by our emotions and we often look for extremes to feel certain things. Like; Horror movies, jumping out of planes, suspenseful TV shows, dramatic relationships, etc, etc. we tend to rely on the swings of highs and lows.

In our health and fitness, however, extremes rarely serve us well. Consider the graph below.

The opposing emotions are at the top and bottom of a peak and trough graph where at the top we have engagement through variation (exercise and/or food), at the bottom we have disinterest through boredom (exercise or food). And in the middle, we have consistency through a steady application.

The ol’ “consistency beats intensity” record has been worn thin and I imagine that by now you are numb to how that even applies to you? Trainers, coaches, authors blah blah blah have been telling us what to do and for some, that’s enough, and for others, context is needed to see the truth in it.

Range

Experientially speaking as both a trainee and a coach that there is a range. Some days you’ll benefit from engagement through variety and other days you’d be better off sticking it out in the realms of disinterest and boredom.

The application, however, is where the progress lies. And here’s a novel thought….but maybe you don’t even train to make progress and if you don’t that's fine by me. Maintaining what you’ve got or doing it for a form of entertainment are perfectly good reasons and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Just be sure not to conflate that entertainment with progress. 

The best coaches will find a way to mix doses of progress and entertainment/engagement. They know that, unless they are training high levels athletes with acute performance requirements, people will want to enjoy what they are doing because there isn’t a big fat cheque at the end of doing things they find boring so as to keep them going. Engagement buys them and their trainees time together, and as we have discussed many times before, consistent application over time is where progress lives. Not only will those good coaches find a way to DO this, but they’ll also find a way to COMMUNICATE this to their people too. More on this soon.

A final thought; If you sum up the total length of the green line and the red line, you’ll notice that although there are significantly more small fluctuations in the green line, the red line is longer in total. The red line means we travel further with less time at the top of fewer peaks. Though the green line doesn’t have as high a peak at any point, it has more total wins. This allows you to spend less effort and get more results. This is a visual of efficiency and if it’s results you want, you’d better served following the green than the red trajectory.