Less is More

Less is More

A reflection by Coach Matt

 

People need to do less.

 

Now, the above statement is completely contingent on people’s effort. However, I’m going to assume that members (or followers) of Dad Hours are the hardworking types. After all, they are trying to fit training into their already busy lives at all hours of the day! 

 

Brandon, Founder of Dad Hours, and I have spoken about this quite frequently in the last couple of years. We both spent so much time in the past worrying we “weren’t doing enough” and would almost run ourselves into the ground in the pursuit of being the “fittest” we could be. It wasn’t until our commitments outside the gym increased, forcing us to take a step back, that we realised this couldn’t be further from the truth. 

 

All of a sudden our training time was cut in half (even more) but we were still performing essentially the exact same. Training sessions went from 3-4 hours on a daily basis to somewhere between 30min-90min (sometimes with no warm ups), 5 days per week. But how is this possible?! For one, we were actually allowing our bodies to recover from all the stress (physically and mentally) we were putting them through and two, which is the main reason, the effort we continued to give- which is the main driver of progress. 

 

In the fitness industry, there’s a common misconception that you have to follow certain protocols to achieve your goal/s. That 5 sets of an exercise is better than 3, that less rest between sets means you are working harder and the list goes on…. If this were true, power lifters performing 2x2 wouldn’t be as strong as they are and Usain Bolt wouldn’t have the 100m and 200m world records. 

 

Over the years I have sat on both sides of the fence and seen results utilising both training styles. I’ve done sessions with many sets and reps with short rest breaks and I’ve done sessions with minimal sets and reps and lots of rest. BOTH work. However, the difference between the two is one took up a lot more time and left me feeling physically sore and mentally exhausted. The other, I would finish my sessions feeling better than I started, allowing me to give my best in other aspects of my life. After all, the reason we train is it’s meant to add to our life, not takeaway from it. 

 

This is something I really want to educate those following the DadStrength program on. If you challenge yourself on the main lifts and you use movement integrity and barbell speed as a performance metric, you don’t always need to be maxing out in order to improve your strength. If you complete 2-3 sets with an RPE (rate of perceived exertion) of 7-8 and follow this up with 3-5 sets of accessories where you really lean into the difficulty- that’s a solid workout! 

 

So the next time you’re beating yourself up for missing a session or your training gets cut a little short due to other commitments, remember it’s not about how much you do, it’s about how well you do it. If you enter each session with this thought process, not only will you continue making improvements but your body will also thank you for it.