This is one of the most important topics in fitness and can have a profound impact on the results you see in the gym. In your first few months in the gym, a lot of things are new and as a result, you start to see progress pretty fast. Similarly, you probably experienced a little extra soreness from doing movements you’ve sparingly or even never done before with weights in your hands.
Once you’re past that phase and more confident in the movements, the single most important thing you can learn is the idea of INTENT.
Intent is based around the idea that it’s not just about ‘what’ you do with regards to strength training, it’s about ‘how’ you do it.
For example- In order to truly progress and make changes in your strength and your body you must be challenging yourself to increase the load you’re using to match the demand of a particular set or rep scheme.
After each set, you perform you should have a quick reflection… Ask yourself, “how many more reps could I have done of that exercise?”
If the answer is around 1-3, awesome! If it was 4 or more, you need to increase the load!
The intent is to match the demand of the number of reps or sets prescribed by choosing a load that is sufficiently challenging so that you finish the sets knowing you only had a couple of reps left ‘in the tank’.
You’ll notice that the number of reps we program for given exercises changes from month to month and even between exercises. Some months you see 10 or 12, and in some months you will see sets of 5 or as low as 3 for exercises! All depending on the purpose and intent of the session
Another key aspect of intent is rather than simply mindlessly going through the motions intent helps maximize your time in the gym. We emphasize maximizing every rep you do. This means emphasizing power production over power conservation. For example in a squat with every rep, you do we are trying to engage as many muscles as possible as opposed to simply moving up and down. This allows us to build more strength, power, and better movement while spending less time training.
If you don’t begin to push yourself to match your intent and loading with the prescribed reps or focus then you will struggle to gain the benefits of the training program whether it be strength improvements or body composition cha
