It’s Ask the Trainer day around these parts, so we interrupted our resident trainer, Dave (he was lifting massive weights with ease and with a smile on his face) and asked him the following (and read all the way to the end to see how you could win a little money):
Dave -
How do you know if you’ve done a “good” workout? Should you feel it? And should the feeling be painful or just…sore? How do you incrementally ramp up the workouts to make sure you keep improving?
It depends on the workout, but trusting in “feeling” can be deceptive, sort of like trusting sushi at a buffet. I like using a heart rate monitor for cardio workouts to ensure I’m working hard enough and setting and upper and lower heart rate limit.
For my lifting workouts, I track the weight I’ve lifted and try to improve weekly – you can use 5% as a goal. So if you benched 100 pounds for 10 reps this week, either try for 11 reps next week, or 105 pounds. For many of my athletes, I’ll test them in various lifts so we have a baseline to work from. But yes, you should feel pretty tired after a good workout and most people that think they are working out hard really aren’t, and then I have to make fun of them.
David Bauer has lots of letters after his name like this: MS, CPT, NCC, LPC, AHFS, BCWC. He owns his own gym where he runs Boot Camps, does personal training, nutrition counseling, mental/emotional health counseling and wellness coaching.
Want the chance to win a little money? All who send us a question via email OR in the comments, will be entered to win a $20 Amazon gift card -hey, $20 is $20, and will buy you some good summer reading. Ends midnight Saturday and one random winner will be drawn. If you would like to ask Dave a question to be featured here, email us at: iruinsports@att.net or post it in the comments below!
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