THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-EFFICACY
Did you know that self-efficacy is one of the most important factors determining outcomes in fitness goals? Self-efficacy is simply defined as a person’s belief in his or her ability...
Did you know that self-efficacy is one of the most important factors determining outcomes in fitness goals? Self-efficacy is simply defined as: a person’s belief in his or her ability to succeed in a particular situation.
Whether you consciously think about it or not, you are constantly assessing what you’re doing: "Is it worth it?" or "Will it truly help with what I’m trying to do?" If the sum of that equation leans towards, “I don’t think so,” you end up not giving your best effort, begin to make excuses, and typically give up when you meet any level of resistance.
The best way to boost your self-efficacy is through empowering yourself with knowledge.
Educating yourself to design and follow the right plan boosts your confidence and puts you in the driver’s seat of determining your outcome. When starting to design your workouts, it helps a lot to follow a basic structure and then fill in the blanks with exercises and parameters that cater to your goals.
- Dynamic Warm-up - 5 to 8 Exercises - 5 to 8 Minutes - This consists of a series of movements that progress from ground-based mobility movements, walking mobility movements, and finally running or higher intensity movements in place.
- Core & Activation - 3 to 5 Exercises - 5 to 8 Minutes - A good strategy is to do this work before the main lifts as it is typically skipped when it’s at the end of a workout. Core is any muscle that stabilizes the torso and Activation are the little movements that require stability and effort but don’t fatigue you enough to diminish performance.
- Main Movement(s) - 1 to 3 Exercises - 10 to 15 Minutes - Compound movements that involve more than one joint and take the most energy and focus to complete.
- Accessories - 3 to 6 Exercises - 10 to 15 Minutes - Compound or single-joint movements designed to enhance your ability to perform your main movements or further your exercise goals.
Fine-tune each of these areas to match your goals. For example, utilize tempo (slower lowering of weights, pauses, etc.) for hypertrophy; use timed sets and timed rest for conditioning to ensure you have the right work/rest ratio; and use more sets and fewer reps for power, bodyweight, and dynamic movements for athleticism. The combinations are literally endless.
Remember, "right" or "wrong" is a poor choice of words in exercise design.
Anything works if you do it hard enough, that doesn’t mean you should be doing it. The key is optimization. Determining what is optimal for you, your body and your goals, is what you should do to obtain an optimal outcome.
Clearly, entire books and seminars are written on just this subject and it can be overwhelming. If you’re still not sure where to start, put it in the hands of an expert. Right now, we've taken the guesswork out with our 30 Day Jump Start Training Program.
Recently, our Founder & CCO Bart Kwan decided to hit restart, buckle down, and follow this program to help him lose 3% body fat, 9lbs of body weight, and still add muscle in 30 days. Boost your self-efficacy with a proven program from us and let's move forward together.
Dominate Humbly,
Barbell Brigade