The Pareto Principle

From the all-knowing Wikipedia

“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.

Wow I'm tired...

Recently I have been trying to lose fat, so calories have been a bit low. I have also been trying to get stronger, so have really been hitting the strength work. I have ALSO been trying to get fitter, so have been hammering the interval work. I have ALSO been working lots of hours and training in Muay Thai/MMA. Being the best at giving advice and the worst at taking it, I have been trying to push on through despite the fact I've been getting tired and my workouts have been grinding recently. This is a great sign of what's known as over-reaching, which is basically pushing the body beyond what it is capable of recovering from in the short term. While this is not bad, I have to finally accept that it's time to back off, have an easy week, have fun and not strain. This time will allow me to recover and hopefully *supercompensate*, a cool word meaning to improve on the situation I was in to start with. If I choose NOT to back off the training, I will just feel worse and worse, and bad things can happen. Muscle tears, viruses, depression etc etc - the likelihood of all of those and more is much higher if your body is constantly battling a huge stressor such as hard training. If you're like me and hate to have time off, do what I am doing and force yourself to listen to common sense. You will come back stronger soon, and able to kepp making progress! Remember that training is a stressor, and the body cannot take heavy stressors indefinitely. Consider the gasoline (petrol) analogy, courtesy of 'The Thinker' on www.elitefts.com -

"Dosage and duration
Dosage and duration
Dosage and duration

One eye drop of gasoline on the tongue won't kill you. Drink a litre at once and you'll die.

This is an example of dosage.

One eye drop of gasoline on your tongue every 5 seconds will kill you in rather short order. Ration the litre out over the course of 60years and it won't kill you.

This is an example of duration.

The gasoline is an irritant not so dissimilar to a jump, squat, bench, clean, fight with the girlfriend, etc.

It is the characteristics of the irritants and their effect on various biological systems that deserves our most special attention."

It never gets easier...

A few clients have made a similar comment recently to me, along the lines of (best delivered in a style similar to De Niro in the Godfather....)

"Just when I thought I was getting fit, you made it even harder!"

The fact is, to progress in training you have to be continuously pushing your limits. Go to the gym and do the same workout for a year, and you'll probably look pretty similar at the end of the year! Therefore, it is a good plan to change up the stimulus regularly to ensure you keep making progress. This is a concept my clients are only too familiar with!

This is only one of the many benefits of personal training - it's all too easy to forget how hard the workout you are doing now was the first time you did it or overestimate how hard you are working now and stagnate. If you are training with me or any good trainer you will never reach this stage. You can get all the reps with that weight? BAM! More weight on the bar, now do it again! You can do that lunge variation? BAM! We increase the range of motion, slow the tempo, cut the rest or mess with any of the many possible variations to increase the difficulty. Make sure you are always progressing.

"If you are not moving forwards, you're moving backwards"

My training plan for next few weeks

I am entering power phase of my training now, so will be incorporating the Olympic lifts a lot more than in the past and cutting down my conditioning work. I have also put heavy pulls in my routine for the first time in a long time, as I have noticed that my lower back has quickly got weak and I need to drag that back into shape! There’s more than one was to strengthen the lower back, but I quite like the thrill of standing in front of a bar with lots of weight on it with the adrenaline pumping. I am optimistic that this training block will yield good results!

Sweating the small stuff

In recent times, I have seen and received a lot of questions about the little details. Examples are:
“Do I need to have my metabolic rate tested?”
”Should I do squats or deadlifts?”
“What brand should I use for my workout shake?”
”Should I do 20 minutes or 30 minutes of cardio?”
..or the best one…
“What fat burner do you recommend?”

These questions generally reflect a lack of focus on the important things, and my answer to 99% of people is “It doesn’t matter!” Unless you have the rest of your nutrition, exercise, supplement, rest and recovery regime at 90+ percent, there is NO point in worrying about whether you should use the protein shake with 78g protein and 4g fat or the one with 76g protein and 6g fat. Similarly, if you are eating Mars bars 3 times a week because you ‘don’t have time to prepare food’, getting your metabolic rate tested to see how many calories you require is a total waste of time! If you are thinking of starting training, or even if you train currently, ask the following questions in this order:

• Am I training often enough?
- If yes, move on to the next question, if no, remedy the situation

• Is my diet good 90% or more of the time?
- If yes, move on to the next question, if no, remedy the situation

• Am I taking all the basic recommended supplements? (multivitamin, fish oil, whey protein)
- If yes, move on to the next question, if no, remedy the situation

• Am I getting enough rest?
- If yes, move on to the next question, if no, remedy the situation

• Am I moving towards my goals?
- If yes, carry on doing what you’re doing, if no, THEN think about the small details!
This process should keep you on track to achieving your goals without getting distracted by the little details.

It's March already, how is your year?

Unbelievable how fast 2007 is going isn't it? Think about it, this year is more than 15% GONE already! It's time to think about those New Year's Resolutions - how are you progressing?

If you wanted to lose 2 stone this year, you've already lost 4 or 5 pounds right? If not, guess what you'll be doing on New Year's Eve this year? Yep, you guessed it, sitting there saying "NEXT year will be the one I get in shape"! I am as guilty as anyone about not keeping on top of certain goals (although I have lost 8 pounds this year so far!) so I will be setting new targets and working diligently towards them from now on.

This is one of the reasons I don't believe in New Year's resolutions - if you have to wait until the end of a YEAR to start doing something, how important is it to you?! I believe instead we should all regularly set targets, and assess if we are on the way to achieving them or not. How many people do you know who want to do something 'one day'? And how many of them ever actually DO anything? Don't be like the rest, set your goals, find out what you have to do to achieve them, and DO IT.