This time I wanna talk about testing in our training.
We`re not talking about special workouts you do regularly to compare times, weights you used, reps you did to measure progress.
The essence of this approach is to do something and then look if it is working. Maybe it is, maybe it is not, maybe you overestimated yourself and got injured, maybe you underestimated yourself and progress was not as fast as you wished or it could have been...
First, this is not totally my idea.
I first heard about testing via Adam T. Glass and the Gym Movement.
So the basic idea would be to test for things you are about to do in a workout prior to starting.
Somehow you would have to get yourself a tool which could tell you if some movement is good for you today.
Everybody who has ever worked out for more than a month knows you eventually hit a plateau. Your eccentric- deload- supported- water- supported- ultra- flexible- wave program could not prevent that.
The key question is: why?
I exaggerated a bit above when naming the periodization. People much, much smarter and with way more experience than myself have spent decades developing periodization- schemata and they got much stronger than I am currently in the process.
Fortunately I am still in the beginning of my training career and the internet is giving people like me a place to put their opinions.
Ok, again, why do plans fail?
There are several factors to consider:
The key- factor would be: you are planing the future and...well...you cant really do that with certainty.
You did something in the past which had a certain outcome. It is as simple as touching the hot stove an experiencing the burning sensation. This can teach you, for example, not to touch the hot plate.
The problem is you never have all the information. Either there really is a lack of information or you can not comprehend all of it(lack of knowledge, inability to translate, perceive, etc.)
So, to stick with the example above:
If you do not understand the relationship between the power- switch and the hot plate you might assume several things:t 1)the plate is hot. Period. Therefor do not touch it. 2)the plate is hot and I can not control the heat, so do not touch the plate.
There are more but you get my drift...
You made experiences in the past which taught you more or less and according to those lessons you are planning something which is only existing in your head.
Your plan will always be flawed because no one has ever all the information and/or the cognitive ability to conclude from all of it. So your plan is flawed.
Combine those actions in the now, based on the past, with the human ego, which has brought us very far, which has inspired many great things, and there is potential for personal tragedy, injuries, etc..
So we need a tool to test our plan against the now, the true capacity of the physical body, meaning what would the body do in today´s workout if there was no ego, no mind, nothing constricted by "must", "should", etc. to interfere, only the need for improvement.
This requires a tool in the "now", nothing pre- planned, just coming in with a plan and checking if it is ok.
The next part will be dedicated to the few things I can tell you about neurological testing as well as my own variation I´m using due to my conditioning through my past experiences. :-)
Train hard and enjoy every moment!
All the best,
Harald
