Theres a certain path through fitness that a lot of us have taken.
So far so good.
Newbie gainsare fun and motivating.
Every workout you run farther or lift more than you ever have before.
But soon things slow down.
Maybe you get discouraged, but hopefully you push through.
Before you know it, youre hitting PRs (personal records) again.
After all, if you train for years, you know youre going to get stronger.
It has to happen.
You just have to trust the progress.
(If youre a runner, you have a similar experience in thetaper before a big race.)
Thats a special phase of training, when youre prioritizing recovery over gains.
But that means that during other parts of your training cycle, youre prioritizing gains.
Youre working your body hard, and as a result youll come out stronger in the end.
The trouble comes when you forget the context.
Its tempting to fire your coach, get discouraged, stop trying so hard because obviously things arent working.
But in truth, youre probably in the intentionally rough part of a training cycle.
(This all assumes, of course, that your training is planned out thoughtfully.
I was reminded of this reason for rough patches when I sawthis Instagram post by weightlifting coach Tom Sroka.
You go clockwise around the circle, with progress at the top and rough patches at the bottom.
But to progress, you have to trust the process.
I quickly figured out I was doing too many workouts, so I backed off a bit.
Awesome, I thought, Im getting stronger.
But guess what happened when I ramped my training volume back up?
I couldnt hit those same numbers anymore.
That was another rough patch.
And then when meet day rolled around and I was properly rested and prepared, guess what?
I set a whole new bunch of PRs.
