nI have been doing some reflecting and thinking the past couple days about the American Open and the preparation leading up to it. One of the comments made to me as I consider what the next 6 months of training looks like is consistency in some areas that I was a bit inconsistent this past cycle.
I have always been a big promoter for consistency, especially in the lifts and training.
However there are three specific areas where consistency counts that are easily neglected if we allow it.
1. Training Location. It’s important to train at the same place on a regular basis. Whether that means you train in your garage in the morning and your gym in the evening that’s fine it just needs to be the same place on a daily basis. As I looked back on my training I could name 4 different places that I trained during the week and then every weekend I was in a different gym. Consistency in this area of my training matters.
2. Eyes On. What goes hand in hand with training at the same location regularly are the sets of eyes that are watching you. This took its toll over time as I had different eyes on me daily and different training partners weekly. I need to have the same set of eyes seeing the same problems on a regular basis so that my technical issues can be consistently corrected. Having four different coaches and 9 different training partners over 4 different locations only hurts that benefit.
3. Training Day. Near the end of the cycle in prep for the American Open my training days got all out of order. I usually training doubles on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday and singles on Thursday and Saturday and rest on Sunday. The last 6 weeks leading into American Open that schedule was super inconsistent. Some days I was just trying to get it all in rather than splitting it as it best fits my body and giving those training sessions precedent over other things in my life.
These three areas are places that consistency matters for my training. There likely are other areas of your training where inconsistency hurts you. Evaluate those inconsistencies and see where you can make changes to create a more consistent training regimen.