Way too often we go to the gym and do what we have always done. Do you know what you get? That's right, You get what you already have.

It takes no effort to get jazzed to squat, bench, or deadlift. Heck, even the accessories for those lifts are easy to be motivated to accomplish. Do you know what takes discipline? Yes...Those supplemental exercises that you know you should be doing but always seem to run out of time to do.

Here's what I've found to be useful...

Do those things you know you need to do, but "I'll do them later" never comes, do them as a part of your warm-up or cool down.

Example: I HATE to stretch. So I back burner those until I tweak something from NOT STRETCHING. Then I say, "Oh yea, I need to do..." and stack the stretch at the end of the training session. Yep, 10-15 minutes SCHEDULED. Even if I have only an hour, I'll make sure I cut something in the middle of the session short, you know, one of those fun exercises to assure I have time for the much-NEEDED stretch.

I know I need a shit ton of lower back work. Guess when those bad boys get done? Yep, at the beginning during warm-ups. Glute/Hamstring, Reverse Hyper, and Back Extensions are synched up. Not to the point that these exhaust me, but as a warm-up. Two sets of ten reps DAILY and regardless of what else I'm doing that day.

It warms me up and allows me to address weakness, AND it's what I NEED to do. Scheduled and in the program.

Now the question is, "How hard do you push?". This can be subjective, but I use "Precieve Rate of Exerction" or PRE.

On a scale of 1-10 how hard was that exercise? 1 being very simple and can go all day doing to a 10 which means you'd have to hold a gun to my head to get another rep, NO...pull the trigger! It isn't happening kind of hard!!!

I would keep these extra exercises INCLUDING the stretches between a 4 to maybe a 6 hard.

40%-60% so you aren't dying but you are getting something out of it.

So let's start addressing what you NEED to do. Now all you have to do is identify your weakness.

Perhaps we should take a look at how to do THAT, next.

Today's Training:

Run: Sprints; 16x50 yds.

Cycle: Commute

Deadlift: 6 RM

GHR: 4x10

Reverse Hyper: 4x10

Fwd Stepping Lunge: 4x25

4 Way Neck: 1x12x6.0

Abs: Side Flexion: 3x11

Cycle: Commute