Nick Bare

They're hard, right?

But 80% of your training when it comes to endurance work is this easy stuff.

You're kind of just going through the motions because the volume creates the adaptation that you're trying to achieve.

That same philosophy doesn't necessarily correlate to strength training.

I believe that when you're going into the gym and you're strength training, you should be training really hard.

You should be pushing it.

If you want to get bigger, you want to get stronger, you want to grow, you want to stimulate adaptation within the muscle, you got to train hard.

Now, it's not training uncontrollably hard that puts you at risk of injury, but it is controlled discomfort and effort.

Like today when I trained lower body, I pushed those sets, many of those sets to failure.

Even leg extensions and leg curls, extremely uncomfortable and painful.

Like the lactic acid that was building up in the muscle hurt so bad.

But it's really easy to go into the gym and apply the easy run philosophy and mindset to the gym.

hop on a machine, do a movement, rest for a minute during that rest period, get your phone out, scroll, text, email, Slack, do another set, same thing, phone out, scroll, text, email, Slack, another set, move through the moments or the movements and the motions and just before you know it, after an hour, workout's done, didn't really put out much of an effort, didn't sweat at all, easy.

That is not going to stimulate the growth that you want.

When we go into the gym, when I go into the gym and I train, I want to put out a big effort.

Every workout has the ability to propel me forward, to grow, to stimulate adaptation.

I love strength training.

but not strength training just to go through the motions and just to get it done, but to really work.

So my mindset, my philosophy, my approach in the gym this year is every workout matters.

Every workout I'm going to train with intention and effort and intensity and hard.