“The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, 80% of the effects comes from 20% of the causes. Business management thinker Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of income in Italy went to 20% of the population. It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., “80% of your sales comes from 20% of your clients.” “
How does this relate to training? Well, I believe that in training 80% of your results come from 20% of the things you do. The key is to make sure you are doing the 20% stuff, and doing it often.
As an example, I happen to like squatting. When I am stuck for ideas what to do, I squat. I believe the squat is an 80% results exercise, and this has allowed me to get away with a lot. For instance, if I enjoyed using the leg extension and leg curl instead I really doubt I would have the same muscle mass, power, metabolic rate, bodyfat %age etc. I know that if I go in the gym and do squats, the little things will tend to take care of themselves. My legs will stay strong, my abdominal region will stay strong, my back will stay strong and my shoulders will stay strong. Every muscle that is under the bar will HAVE to maintain a certain level of strength, even if all I did were squats.
If you are smart you can use the 80/20 rule to your advantage. For instance, if you choose to do more of the 20% that is most important to your training, you would likely make faster progress. People around you could work as hard as they liked on the 80%, but would not be able to match your results. The key is to find what is the most important action to take which will improve what you are trying to improve, do more of it and do it well.
To find your magic 20%, think of the following - if you were forced to drop 80% of what you are doing in training, what would you do? In weight training you might be left with squats, deadlifts or weighted pullups for example. In MMA you may be left with sparring, or technique work. Now ensure that whatever happens, that gets done and you will see much faster rates of progress.
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