Cory Hudson has done what you want to do.

 

He’s done what every person that’s ever lived has wanted to do.

 

He’s transformed.

 

Cory’s lost 40 pounds since joining Beyond Strength in November 2021. More than that, he’s improved his performance during all of our testing weeks, shaving significant time off of his rows, jumping farther, as well as improving on the other battery of tests.

 

Cory is badass.

 

 

You might have expected Cory to say he did something drastic. Maybe he found some kind of magical secret that helped him to lose the weight. Or maybe he only ate lettuce while screaming at himself naked in the mirror. But there’s no magic. He didn’t do anything drastic.

 

Cory just did what most people don’t do.

 

He showed up…over and over again. Then he kept showing up and doing it consistently. And he did little things, step-by-step, to overhaul his lifestyle. Then he did those things over and over again.

 

In small stages and in simple ways, he became who he had to be to transform.

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Then there’s the training he consistently did.

 

It had what most “training” lacks – continuity. That means it was layered, it built on itself in stages, and it had common threads running through it year-round.

 

Continuity is what make Cory stronger, fitter, and allowed him to recover from training so that he could maintain his consistency.

 

Now Cory is a different person.

 

Whether you want to lose 40 pounds or crush a mountain trail race, we want you to transform to the same magnitude as Cory. And we want you to understand that it’ll take two things:

Consistency and continuity.

 

 

Thinking Big and Acting Small: The Bookends of Consistency and Continuity

So, how do you start nailing your consistency and training with continuity to transform like Cory? We’ll get to the steps in just a minute. First, you need to gain some understanding so you can shift your mindset.

 

Start by thinking big. That means a few things in this context. First, it means that you must stop thinking in terms of workouts and instead think in terms of planning and programs.

 

See, most folks think in terms of workouts. They want to do a HIIT workout. Or they search the internet or magazines for a strength workout. Then they do a HIIT workout one day and a strength workout another day. On yet another day they might go for a run. But it’s all discombobulated because they were thinking small. They thought only about the individual workouts and not how workouts string together in a meaningful way to create a program. That program should fit into a bigger string of programs that composes a year-round training plan. This, sports fans, is how you create training continuity. You think big about training rather than small. You think about how each training day fits with the others. And then how each program leads to the next program so you’re doing the right things at the right time. It’s akin to thinking long-term and seeing the big picture.

 

Now, you don’t need all of the subject knowledge to make it all fit together an work as it should. That’s our job. You just need to know that is how it’s supposed to work. Folks that sell individual workouts don’t understand training continuity. That’s why you get fast results with them that fade quickly. They don’t know how to program so that you maintain, and build on, your results. We’ll talk more about that in the section on improving your consistency and continuity.

 

Once you’ve thought big, you must act small. That means doing the little things day in and day out to maintain your consistency. Rather than trying to act too big and do too much, you focus on the little actions you can manage every day like showing up to the gym, drinking enough water, and getting in enough activity.

 

That’s a nice segue into our last section on taking action to improve your consistency and continuity.

 

 

5 Steps for Improving Your Training Consistency and Continuity

Train in a Way That Promotes Them:  Consistency and continuity are built on the bone structure of a progressive, year-round training plan. Now, this plan has the right balance of intensity and volume, giving you the ability to maintain consistency because your body isn’t beat to hell. And it keeps you engaged in the process because you consistently see, feel, and get objective results. This plan maintains continuity because it builds and revisits physical qualities. That’s where the “progressive” part comes in. Each training block is designed with the other training blocks in mind. One leads to the next so that there are threads that run through the entire training year. It’s important because the body doesn’t adapt at random. It adapts to the stimuli presented to it. That means physical qualities must be layered to get the most out of your training because some adaptations are necessary before you can make the most out of others. And you must revisit those adaptations throughout the year to maintain them. This is impossible without training continuity.

 

Make it Easy: You can’t overestimate the value of making it easy. You do this by creating an environment that promotes consistency. Examine your life for all of the friction points that would stop you from training consistently. Then design solutions for each of those challenges. For example, buying a couple kettlebells to keep at home can keep you on track during days you can’t make it to the gym. Meal prepping or investing in a meal prep service can keep your nutrition consistent. Dialing in your schedule so that you don’t have to worry about life or work getting in the way of your training.

 

At points of friction, we often do the easiest thing. So, set up the environments in your life so that it’s easy to stay consistent.

 

Use Your Calendar: Chris has a fishing trip coming up. Chris also likes to build his running plan on three-week builds followed by a one-week taper. Well, thankfully, Chris got out his calendar and laid out his entire running train up that leads to his next ultra-marathon. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have noticed that his fishing trip fell on what would have been the first week of a new cycle, meaning he should be building run volume when he was standing on a boat deck all day. So, Chris decided to plan a four-week build followed by a one-week taper for that cycle. It saved him a lot of frustration and prevented him from getting out of sync with his training progression. You might not be training for an ultramarathon, but you definitely have things on the schedule that could mess up your training consistency and continuity.

 

 

Get out your calendar and mark down all of the dates that you’ll be on vacation, traveling for work, etc. Mark off anything that will interfere with your regular training schedule. Now you have a visual. Use that visual to either plan your training or to envision the necessary solutions to stay consistent and maintain continuity instead of getting knocked off track.

 

(Re)Define Success: We need to give ourselves a success toggle switch that flips our perspective from long-term to short-term. Focus on the long-term never diminishes. But sometimes we need to reevaluate our short-term goals and actions to stay in alignment with the long-term goal. And that sometimes means redefining success in the short-term.

 

Let’s say your idea of success on a given day is to use more weight during your deadlift sets. Well, wouldn’t ya know it, your recovery is poop and when you grab the bar everything feels like a million pounds. Now, you could keep that same goal and attempt to push your deadlift weight. Or you could hit the toggle switch to long-term thinking. That will help you remember that your long-term goal is to maintain your strength and health for as long as possible. With that in mind, you toggle back to the short-term to reconsider your goal. Increasing the weight when you’re not in a place to do it doesn’t align with your long-term goal. It’ll likely put you even further behind the recovery curve, lengthening the time until you’re able to push your strength. So, you change your goal for the day. You decide that checking the box and getting the lift in with lighter weights is the outcome you want.

 

Toggling back and forth between our long-term aspirations and our short-term actions keeps us consistent while maintaining training continuity. It allows us to check the box when that’s all we need to do. And that keeps the necessary threads running continuously through our training.

 

Know Your Purpose: Last month, I wrote an article about the importance of finding your why. It’s important for so many reasons, from happiness to longevity. In our current context, knowing your purpose keeps you steady through the trials and tribulations that would otherwise knock you off track.

 

There will be days when your motivation fails you. There will be others when you’re tempted by the incubus or succubus of seductive, short-term pleasure at the expense of long-term gain. If you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, you’ll plop your ass on the coach during those days without motivation. You’ll choose the easy pleasure over the harder good when tempted.

 

Like Cory said during his interview, “Do it over and over and over and over and over again regardless of the weather or how you feel…”

 

If you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, dreary days might knock you off track. You’ll let your feelings get in the way of your commitments to yourself.

 

So, really, it all begins and ends with making a commitment to yourself, one that’s meaningful and gives purpose to your actions. It’s the fuel you’ll need for doing it over and over again even when you don’t feel like it. It’s the fuel you need for consistency and continuity.

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