“The pain you feel today is the strength you’ll feel tomorrow” – Unknown

So this week I thought it would be a nice change, from me preaching, to bragging about my clients and how well they are doing.

But I also won’t bore you with every lift that every one of my clients is doing.  But I would really like to share some of the highlights.  Like Ricardo, who since June has gone from a 36 inch waist down to 33 inches.  I also started him with squatting 95lbs, and in his last session he did single leg squats with 100lbs of resistance.  His bench press has gone from 85 lbs for 17 repetitions to 135 for 12 in 16 work outs. Not too bad if you ask me.

Another client of mine, Emely, has gone from a size 4, to a 2 petite since she started training in May.  In just 9 work outs her squat went from 65lbs for 30 repetitions to 165lbs for 12.  During her last session she single leg squatted 115 lbs for 19 reps with her left leg and 20 with her right. Her bench press started out at 45lbs for 20 and got as high as 95lbs for 12 before we backed off because that was getting pretty heavy and she does enjoy the higher rep ranges. She also does Calf raises and in just 8 work outs she went from doing 85lbs for 20 all the way up to 155 for 15 reps.

Jorge went from deadlifting 165 for 15 reps to 225 for 12 in 8 work outs.  With Bicep Curls, he started out doing 25 kilograms for 20.  Now he is up to 50 kilos for 18 repetitions.

Jeane started in August with me. I had her start out doing single leg squats with the 45 lbs bar. 5 work outs later, she did 75lbs for 26 repetitions with her right leg and 27 with her left. Her deadlift was a conservative 45 lbs, but 9 work outs later she broke 100lbs and did 105 for 20.  Her pulldowns went from a feeling very heavy 45lbs to a strong 75 lbs.

Lastly my client Naiomi, who has been training with me since January has seen some great things happen.  Where we started learning squats with just the bar, she worked her way up to 160 lbs before we made the switch to single leg squats. When we did that we went back to just using the bar. But, very quickly, she worked her way up to 90lbs for 15 repetitions respectively. She also pulled that off in 10 work outs. In just 10 weeks she double her leg strength! This is pretty typical of all my clients. It is typical of most who train in this manner. So if you have been training and reached some plateaus and seem to have stopped making gains, you might want to consider taking a week or two off and let your body heal and recover.

It is true that even with this training, the improvements will come slower the longer you are training, but they still come, and they often come by spending even less time in the gym, not more.  Doing fewer exercises in a session, not more. An added bonus, for my beginners, is they do see their initial improvements in strength happen seemingly so quickly, that it creates a great reward mechanism to keep coming back and seeing those numbers continue to improve. As their body’s adapt and can handle more intensity, they push themselves even harder. They have more to give, and they do, and they love, despite not being able to feel their legs, how good it feels to give their best every work out.