Any routine you find, whether it be online, given to you by a friend or trainer, or one you came up with yourself, will never be exactly what your body needs. Your awareness of what your body is doing is going to be the most important, and only way to get the absolute most from your training session (I discuss this further in Watch Yourself! ). Your body responds differently to the same stimulus every day, as it is constantly adapting to what you make it do. For example, doing the same exercises two sessions in a row might not be what enables your body to grow the most. Even the amount of reps can change from day to day, so if you stick to a structured routine, you are not getting the most out of your workout. Feeling the muscles contract from beginning to end, and noting how each rep makes you feel is the key to maximizing your training efforts. You don’t always stop at 8, 10, 12, or 15 reps. Some sets might have you doing a set of 8 reps before the muscle can no longer contract, whereas the next set may have you move the same weight 15 times before the muscle is properly set up to grow. One day you may do 2 sets of an exercise and feel like your muscles have been obliterated, whereas another day you may end up doing 6 sets before you feel the exercise has been worthwhile.

Do what your body says, and then write that down. Do not take what has already been written down, and make your body do that. What you have done has lead to where you are, to the structured schedule (I speak of this in more depth in Habits are Easy). Where you are is merely a result, and not an end. Any routine or guideline given to you should be adapted to what your body wants, do not adapt your body to the guidelines. Do not ever think about the next rep, do not ever worry about the next set. This means that while you are performing a rep, you are not counting, you are not thinking about any event in the future (your next rep, your next meal, how much weight you will left next) or anything in the past (how many reps you’ve done, what weight you used last time, what’s on your grocery list). Your presence must be in the present moment, NOW. Listen and be guided by your body, it knows what it needs better than your mind ever will. Focus your entire awareness on the movement of your body, how the muscles are contracting and relaxing, what your body might be doing to compensate, what the contraction feels like. Any thoughts you have while you are performing the exercise is deterring you from optimal gains. Immerse yourself in your work. You can not know when to stop if you are not listening to the muscles doing the work.

When I am informed on how to perform an exercise, whether it be an article online, or someone else telling me how, it is usually an end result, or what the lift should look like, rather than how to perform it. For example, a common phrase to explain how to bench press, is “push the weight up using your chest.” Although the statement is accurate, it does not explain the mechanics of how the motion is started and how one is supposed to push with their chest. Someone who reads this might be inclined to go try this out next time they lift, as a means to develop their pectorals. Usually, they will end up pushing the weight up (usually in a straight line) away from their chest, using their arms and shoulders as well. This progression tends to continue for a while, until they realize that their shoulders are growing more than their chest, or they feel pain or soreness after a chest workout, elsewhere than just in their chest. The beginning lifter, or the lifter seeking to isolate his pectorals to properly perform a bodybuilding bench press movement, must know to begin the contraction by contracting the pecs, rather than pushing the weight up. A pushing motion with the chest, shoulders and triceps will move the weight up, and so will a motion beginning and ending only with the contraction of the pectorals. However, only the latter will develop the chest maximally, and use the equipment appropriately for muscle gains.

Another example would be for a rowing motion targeting the lats; just pull the weight with your lats. It is that simple, there is no need to add anything to that phrase. You contract the lats first, and the arms just hold the bar while the scapulae move closer to each other, thus pulling the bar to your chest. It begins with the lats, and ends with the lats, both the concentric and eccentric portions only involve contraction of the lats.