A one hour training session never amounts to 60 minutes of intense training

WHEN it comes to your fitness, it’s all about achieving your goals. Whether you’re training to lose body fat, build up lean muscle or improve your physical performance, each goal is different but equally important. In order for you to achieve your goals it is important to implement measurable standards.

How many times can you lift a certain weight? How much weight can you correctly lift? How long can you sustain a certain speed for a given exercise? These are just some simple ways you can measure your progression.

Fitness, for me, is a sport and in any sport there are challenges that must be overcome in order to set your ultimate goals. Over coming challenge empowers you and should make you stronger.

I know it may be an old cliché but truer words were never spoken; ‘results are earned and never given’. Therefore before you set out on your fitness journey it’s important to understand the key factors to that can make a difference between achieving and not achieving your ultimate fitness goals.

The key factors are quality, intensity and consistency. Quality in a training session becomes the only variable that we can actually control. Quality is not time dependent, fitness doesn’t have to fit clearly into one hour sessions or longer. In fact you would be hard pressed to find anyone that can perform one hour or more of quality work during a one-hour training session.

In a typical one-hour session, the quality training may only last 20 minutes, with a 5-10 minute warm up and cool down and the rest of the session you could be dilly-dallying around.

What if we cut out the dilly-dallying around the gym for an hour? it’s no secret that we are able to perform better and more efficiently under time constraints. Working in a shorter time period often enables one to focus and concentrate better and produce better results. Quality over quantity every time.

Intensity is another important factor and performing any exercise or training session at a high intensity is tough going and requires focus, the benefit of working at a high intensity are far superior to that of a longer, more moderate workout.

Consistency is key, be persistent stick with the fitness plan and you will see the results.

Shane O’Neill is the proprietor of Dromintee Peak fitness and can be contacted on 07825 300 280.

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