You're Only As Strong As Your Weaknesses

Whether you are a person with extensive physical training or somebody who is struggling to get into shape you have probably felt that specific “something” that holds you back.  You know what I’m talking about:

1.       Injury Prone

2.       Weak triceps

3.       “Slow legs”

4.       Poor stamina

The list goes on and on, but very often you can point to something concrete that holds you back from achieving your goals. Unfortunately not enough people do anything about it; they go about their training without addressing the weaknesses. I’m here to tell you that you can energize your gains if you take the time necessary to improve your weaknesses.

The first thing that I recommend to my athletes is that they do a self evaluation and try to understand what it is that is holding them back. If you never look at what is causing you difficulty you won’t be able to form a plan to improve.

Once they have their ideas of what they need to work on I get back with them and discuss where I believe that they need to improve. It is then that we form our plan to systematically take away their weaknesses. You do not have to formulate a complex plan to attack your weaknesses, you simply must do the proper exercises to target those areas that you need work on. Here are a few examples of how I would work people’s weaknesses. I’ll choose examples that I see often in my gym:

1.        “My arms are way too weak:” Once I figure out if it is more of the tricep (which it typically is) vs. the bicep here is what I would recommend to that athlete.

• Five days a week, when you wake up and before you go to sleep, do 3 sets of close grip pushups. The rep count varies with each athlete, I want you to go just short of muscle failure.
• When you go to the gym spend three of your days spending an extra ten minutes focusing on your triceps. This would include tricep extensions, stretch band “punches,” or close grip bench pressing.

2.       “My back is too weak:” This is usually a two part problem.

• Your stomach is too weak and that is contributing to your back issues: If you cannot control your posture of your chest you will not be able to maintain a rigid spine while running or lifting. To improve your abs I would, again, do sets to almost failure of situps, or crunches if your back is in pain, when you wake up and before you go to bed  If you have access to a GHD (glute and ham developer) machine I highly recommend doing situps on that.
• Your back itself is too weak and you need to strengthen it. I recommend superman movements. This is where you lay with your chest, stomach, legs and arms on the ground.  To perform a rep you then pick as much of your legs, chest, and arms off of the ground. This not only stretches your lower back but it strengthens it in a controlled setting as well. If you have access to a reverse hyper machine I highly recommend doing sets on that machine a few times a week.

I kept these explanations simple because there is no need to over think your weakness improvement strategy. As long as you are doing exercises to target those spots you are on the right track. Once you master some of the more simple movements you should try to mix in some more difficult exercises to keep your body guessing. That strategy will really show through quickly. It is important to stick with it, don’t let a weakness cripple your desire for improvement. Set short, medium and long term goals and you will begin achieving more quickly than you think!  Good luck.

Jim Crowell

www.if-fit.com

jim@if-fit.com