How to Know if Your Training is Working

There are guys who go to the gym regularly but always look the same. They make no progress despite putting in the time and showing up to the gym.

There are some guys I know who’ve been showing up to the gym for 5+ years straight and do not look significantly different from how they looked at the end of year 1.

Clearly their training is not working.

The question is, how do you know your training is working?

This is how you know:

If you are a bit stronger than you were last month, somewhat stronger than you were last quarter, and much stronger than you were last year, it means that your training is working.

If you are lifting the same weights as you did a long time ago, your training is not working.

What that means is:

• If you were chest pressing 80kg for 10 reps last year, and you’re chest pressing 80kg for 10 reps this year, YOUR CHEST HAS NOT GROWN.
• If you were leg pressing 300kg for 10 reps last year, and you’re leg pressing 300kg for 10 reps this year, YOUR QUADS HAVE NOT GROWN.

The same is true for all of your muscles. If the max weight they can lift is the same (assuming same form, technique, and depth), they have not grown.

The weight you are lifting is the indicator of growth.

Unless you are on steroids, the only way to grow muscle in the long run is to subject it to higher tension, which means lifting more weight.

(In the first few weeks of doing any exercise, you can increase weight simply as a function of neural adaptations in the muscle. But that ends fast and then the only way to increase the weight you are lifting while keeping the same form/depth/technique is to add more muscle.)

Always aim to make progress in the gym.

This means you try to do a bit more than you did last workout, last week, or last month.

A newbie can increase weight every workout. An intermediate can usually increase weight or add 1-3 reps every week. An advanced lifter can usually increase weight/reps at least once every 4-6 weeks.

You should always try to do a bit more than you did last time.

Now this does not mean that you have to lift more.

Sometimes you just can’t add anything and need to repeat the workout once or twice for enough adaptation to take place to allow you to lift heavier/add reps.

But you should always try to lift more.

Track your workouts.

Keep a logbook or track it in your phone. Use this format:

Exercise name:
Set 1: weight x reps
Set 2: weight x reps /rest time

Bench press:
80×9
80×7 /3′

Incline bench press:
70×10
70×10 /3′

etc.

If the rep range you are using is 5-10, then this means that you keep repeating the bench at 80kg till you can get 10 reps on both sets, and increase the incline bench press to maybe 72.5kg and do 5 or more reps with it.

This is called progressive overload (double progression in specific).

You try to do more every time you train. You increase reps till you can get a certain number of reps, and then increase the weight.

The weights should go up over time.

What to look at if you’re not making progress

If you’re not making progress (i.e. you’re one of the idiots who keep showing up to the gym but have no results for it), you need to look hard at the items in this list and see what you are doing wrong:

• Nutrition (refer my full series on nutrition for health and hypertrophy)
• Sleep (it is not just about sleep quantity but also sleep quality)
• Training program (see my recommended split and programs)
• Your overall stress levels (there is little difference between physical and mental stress as far as the body is concerned. If your stress levels are sky high from your daily life, e.g. you are going through a work deadline or a breakup, it will compromise your gains)
• Consistency (if you can’t even string together 4 weeks of consistency at the gym, don’t expect a lot of gains)
• Mentality (are you actually pushing yourself or are you giving up when the set gets hard?)
• Fatigue levels (if you are excessively fatigued all the time, you are probably compromising your gains. See How to Train Without Getting Extremely Sore and Fatigued)

Fix the bottlenecks and you will start growing again.

Hope that helps.

Your man,

Harsh Strongman