Progression must be part of any practice.
Progression
Over all the years I’ve worked with professional athletes, not once has one of them shown up to practice and said, “I have arrived. I’m the best in the world, so I don’t need to practice anymore.” Not even Kristina Koznick, who, when I worked with her, was the best female slalom skier in the world, with six World Cup wins and three Olympic appearances. She was the best, and still she wanted to get better. She was always challenging herself, always thinking of what was next and what she needed to improve on.
Kristina had the desire to progress because she loved alpine ski racing, she was connected with what she did. She loved the competition, the challenge, and working to get better. Winning was a by-product of all this. Kristina’s desire to always be better was something about which she was passionate. It wasn’t stressful; it was challenging and engaging. She looked forward to each day of training and competition because she wanted to see what she could do, what she was capable of, how she was improving, and what new things she would learn. Kristina’s fitness progression was a key element in continuing to develop as a skier even later in her career. I remember getting off the slopes with her at training camp in Mammoth Mountain in California. Everyone was done for the day and had packed up and headed inside. Kristina wanted to run a dryland session right there in the parking lot, so I got out medicine balls, plyo boxes, and kettlebells and we did it. At 30 years old, in her final Olympic appearance in Italy, she was still progressing.
We all have to look at our movement practice in the same way. If you aren’t chasing fitness and wellness, if there is no progression in your practice, then you will, eventually, become stuck. Maybe you’ve been doing the same thing week after week, month after month, and year after year, and it’s worked for you. That’s great! But as you age, the same thing that worked once will no longer work. At some point, your body will adapt, and you might start to get bored or not see results anymore. You will likely lose strength, gain body fat, and see a decrease in overall fitness. You might even lose the desire to train.
Once you find something you are connected to, you need a progression that goes along with that practice. Progression does three main things for all of us in our movement practice. One, it provides a clear path forward. That clarity makes it easy to know what direction you are heading and what results might be expected at each marker. For example, if I run a 10-minute mile and my goal is to run an eight-minute mile, my plan to progress has specific markers. First I have to get to a 9:30-minute mile, then a nine-min- ute mile, and so on. This is different from simply showing up each day to work out. This gets rid of any ambiguity, which helps in remaining focused.
Two, it provides motivation. Always having something in front of you to chase can be motivating if you’re chasing it for the right reasons. For Kristina, her internal motivation drove her to want to be better. She was well-grounded and connected to her progres- sion and wanted to be the best for herself. When things didn’t go her way, or she didn’t win, she was okay because she wasn’t chasing the win. She was chasing progression and improvement. This is where many of us in fitness get stuck. We are chasing a result, which makes it hard because we are connected to the result, which is outside our control. When our passion and connection are in our practice, and we truly love what we are doing for exercise, it’s easy to be present and see what challenge is in front of us. The pro- gression is just about getting better at what you do. The by-product is winning the race or losing the 10lbs.
This is not the way society portrays fitness. If you search “fitness” on Instagram, you will find images of six packs and min- imally clothed people with lean bodies. If this is what you are chasing, it’s not going to last. Find what you want internally, what is healthy, what is meaningful to you on a personal level, and your fitness will be much easier to connect with, and thus, easier to progress and sustain.
Three, progression provides efficacy. As we watch ourselves improve, we know that we are choosing the right things to do for fitness. If we don’t see improvement, we must change the path. It’s like running an experiment on yourself. It can be broken down into five simple steps.
1) have a measurable goal
2) come up with a plan
3) start running your experiment
4) see if it’s working
5) make adjustments based on what you are learning and apply the science
See you in the gym,
Aaron Leventhal
CSCS, PN1