I don’t know anyone who has ever stuck to a training program for an entire year.  It may have happened, but I haven’t met this person.  Most people do a program for 12 weeks, and IF they even make it to the end they move to something else.  Usually they will be all over the place with their goals.  First it’s a Delorm Hypertrophy Method cycle for 12 weeks.  But then they got too fat so they hop on P90X for 30 days, not quite making it the full 90.  During PSUX they screwed up their shoulder, so it’s 4 weeks of light kettlebell get-ups, windmills, and resistance band rows.  Back on the wagon again, it’s 8 weeks of Enter the Kettlebell.

And so on.

Most people make piss poor progress.  This is an observation I have made, but I have some interns working on some data to demonstrate this fact.  Look around though, are you seeing people making fantastic progress?  I bet not.

One year and 14 days ago I started my journey of training with the Gym Movement protocol.  I already knew that I would never need another program again, but of course only time can truly tell.  Many people just flat out said “Biofeedback training won’t work.”  Many people said that the gains would stop coming “in a year”.  Well, we can now confidently say they were all wrong.

Here are some numbers I pulled out of the training tracker database:

• Total pounds moved in 1 year: 5,030,523
• Deadlift increased from 450 to 562.
• Number of training sessions: 201
• Total working time: 110 hours (pretty small investment if you ask me)
• Average improvement per movement per session via blended metric: 46.4%
• Body composition changes: ~185 at <8% Body Fat.  Leaner & more muscular.
• “Cardio” – best KB snatch 3/26/2010: 35lbs 100 reps in 4.6 minutes.  Best KB snatch 2/14/2011: 62lbs 101 reps in 9 minutes.

I don’t know if the numbers speak for themselves or not.  I can tell you that the improvements are astounding.  I do not know of many people who are moving this quickly.

I’ve been on the same program for a year now. I go to the gym, I do what tests well.  I make everything easy.  I work within my limits.  I expand my limits.

But some of things can not be measured.  What value do I put on the fact that I never really have a “bad” training session?  How much value can be attached to setting new Personal Records every single time I train?  Studies have shown that strength training in general has a cognitive carryover – how much greater is the carryover when you are literally becoming better than you ever have been EVERY day?

If you are interested in training with Gym Movement there are a few places you can get started.  The road isn’t as well lit as it should be, yet.  But it will get better.

I’ve heard all sorts of arguments for why Gym Movement won’t work or why it won’t work for <insert population here> people.

Every day we get emails from around the world from people who are out of pain, stronger than ever, feel better than ever, etc and so on.  I now have a gym full of people who span populations from hardcore tri-athletes to middle-aged women who have never trained a day in their lives – every one of them is making perpetual progress with Gym Movement.

What’s your excuse now?

It has been brought to my attention that some people think it’s weird that I post these #PReveryday updates or other gym PRs on Twitter and Facebook.  Some people don’t understand what they mean, and I’m sure others think that it’s just bragging.  Here is why I post these things:

The reason I post these updates is that I believe in leading from the front.  I think that if you are going to pay a professional to show you how to do something, they should be able to demonstrate that they are competent and able to do the same for themselves.  What exactly do I mean by that?

A few months ago I opened a gym, and tossed myself head first into the fitness industry.

So if people are going to come to me to learn how to improve themselves, I need to demonstrate to them that I am always moving forward, always getting better myself.  Believe it or not, this is not the norm in the fitness industry.  The point of this post isn’t to get into negative details about how other people do things, but suffice to say that it is a rare thing for a fitness professional to practice what they preach.

PReveryday (a Personal Record, every day) actually represents a lot of things, but the core of it is simple.  My friends and I share a belief that you can get just a little bit better every single day.  Is that a hard pill to swallow?  Just think about it for a minute.  What if you could get a tiny bit better at something every day.  How much better would you be in a week, a month, a year?

The thing is, if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse.  It doesn’t matter what the subject is.  The only way to make sustainable progress is to always get better.  If your training program isn’t making you better every single time you train, it is making you worse.  There is no way around this.  If you blindly follow P90X, it will hurt you.  If you blindly follow your personal trainer at Lifetime, he will hurt you.  That is why every single one of my members at The Movement Minneapolis learns how to be their own scientist, their own best personal trainer, and how to PR every day.  Whether it be experimenting with their movement training, their diet, or their social environment, they all learn how to make themselves better every day.

So here is my challenge to you….try it.  Get better at something today.  Crush a sales call.  Find a new strategy to teach a kid something new (my mom uses this concept to teach kids who have never held a pencil how to read & write in English).  Set a PR in the gym.  Be a better partner.  And then be proud of it.  Shouldn’t we be proud of our accomplishments, even the small steps?  I think so.

P.S. I want to write more specifically about the training side of things and why setting a PR every day is such a paradigm shift, but I’m going to save that for another post.

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