The 7 Principles of Training You Should Know

In order for our daily training to be 100 percent effective, it's necessary to have some basic guidelines or principles in mind. The first thing to consider is the formation of an exercise plan, combined with a healthy diet.

There’s a lot of talk about miracle diets and focused training. Social networks and magazines are full of information about these topics. However, it’s useless to follow a plan if we don’t understand the principles of training.

In practice, physical conditioning follows a logic that’s marked by human muscular behavior. There are different ways of doing things, but they’ll only give results if we guide them properly. After learning these fundamentals, you can choose the right path to building the body you want.

The 7 principles of training

1. Each body is different

Body training is usually custom-made. Trainers are well aware that not all bodies respond equally and that each one needs different stimulation. Therefore, your routine may seem demanding and convenient, but perhaps it isn’t.

Overall, there are three body types: endomorph, mesomorph, and ectomorph. For example, it will be useless to do many repetitions with little weight if you’re ectomorphic.

On the other hand, endomorphs should reduce their body fat before strengthening. Lastly, all training should focus on the individual deficiencies of each person.

2. You must train continuously

The continuity in exercising suggests that our musculature forms due to regular and repeated stimulation. The conditioning remains as time goes by, even if the exercises necessarily change.

We won’t achieve anything by going to the gym for a month and then skipping it for two. The evolution of significant changes requires dedication; perseverance is the key. People who sculpt their bodies will continue to do so for the rest of their lives.

3. The principle of progression: what’s it about?

All training pays off progressively. Likewise, our efforts should increase as our workouts progress. If we don’t subject our muscles to new demands, we’ll simply stay stagnant.

Sculpting our body is based on a program of efforts that are mastered and then increased. This means that the activities must be more challenging every day. Therefore, everything you do in your workouts increases over time: the weight load, the repetitions, or the duration of physical resistance.

4. Recording each advancement is a priority

Even if we advance to a higher level, people don’t internalize their progress if they don’t track it. This brings us to the principle of periodization. The habit of being aware of the weights we lift and the goals we achieve allows us to set new goals in terms of the activity we perform.

Keeping a daily record of what we do in the gym will help us understand our current condition. Thus, we’ll see if we have improved or if we’re stagnant. This will certainly help us set specific objectives.

5. Routines always change

Muscle memory is powerful and infallible. Hence, when we stop training for a certain period of time, it’s often easier to get back in shape. Although, this also has its downside: muscles get used to the same exercises and stop growing.

When we keep repeating the same movements, weights, and routines, we tend to stagnate. While in training, our muscles need variation, the change causes muscular stress. Therefore, the principle of variation reminds us that we must alternate our activities every so often.

6. Recovery is vital

This is one of the most important training principles. It may be hard to believe, but we don’t build muscles through effort alone. After stress, the muscles must rest to encourage their reconstruction. Without this resting period, we won’t achieve significant changes.

When we continue to train without resting, we simply tear the tissue. Under such conditions, it’s impossible to shape our figure into a more slender and compact form. To do this, we should sleep, rest a few days, and relax.

7. Principles of training: specialization

Generally, our first workouts start with fairly basic routines. By doing them, our bodies become accustomed to performing cycles during the beginning stages. Subsequently, we understand that the larger muscles will work the hardest.

With the passage of time and by mastering the exercises, this reality changes. We’ll look into specialized workouts in which each muscle is worked in a different way. This is a certainty at the gym: we go from global to the specific.

We’ve gone through the principles of training which will guide our whole life in fitness. Everything else may vary, except our regard for this logic. Now that you know this, you can forge a better judgment on how to become fit.