The Ultimate Workout Program and System in Notion
As Simon Sinek puts it in his book Start With Why, beginning from the reason for which we do something is of pivotal importance, in order to communicate our values and vision. This is true for business and personal endeavors alike. So, I will follow suit and begin from the why behind this training program and system for planning and tracking our fitness journey.
First of all, I truly enjoy crafting fitness training programs, and have been doing so for the past 3 to 4 years, both for the sake of it, and to practice the knowledge about fitness accumulated over time. I believe practicing fitness or any kind of physical activity can make the difference in living an examined life. It can bring mental clarity and the ability to focus deeply, which Daniel Goleman argues is one key characteristic of effective leaders. Moving our body through space provides us with the possibility to step out from our own wildly thinking mind, gain some perspective, and feel physically good. Fitness and resistance training is the way I like to train. There is a mindfulness and focused awareness component to fitness. Executing exercises properly, while pushing ourselves to the limit and beyond, requires distinct focus, in order to be done in the right manner.
This page does not merely contain a resistance training program. It also encompasses a system for planning and tracking workout sessions. This is due to the fact that one of the factors which makes athletes (or in general successful people in any field) stand out is consistency over a long period of time. There are days in which willingness to train tends to be completely inexistent. Those are the days in which mindful discipline makes the difference. Those are the days in which having a clear direction and system in place are of pivotal importance. Disposing of a clear program and set of actions allows us to merely do it, as Seth Godin would put it. And results will compound over the long run, thanks to consistent effort.
On a more personal note, I have been using Notion for programming and tracking training sessions for about one year at the time of writing. I think that keeping track of progress and using a Calendar view to see visually how the program unfolds and what exercises to perform on any given day is very useful. It is useful because it removes the guesswork from what movements to do, or how long to train for. This, in turn, is beneficial to reduce the cognitive load associated with coming up with a set of exercises to do right before working out. And it saves time, laying out a clear path to follow right in front of you.
Be aware that I am not a certified personal trainer yet. I have been striving to improve my physical fitness ever since I was 15 years old. I played football at that time. And improving my physical fitness would mean training for sport-specific purposes. Then I began to become interested in training to improve strength, hypertrophy, conditioning and fitness in general. I have spent innumerable hours informing myself in the last 4 or 5 years of my life. This has allowed me to design training programs for myself just because I enjoy the process of crafting a thoughtfully-organized list of exercises to be repeated over time whose progress can be tracked in order to be aware of the improvements happening. As I have no certification and official competences in the sport science field, this training program is just the result of a lot of research and experience I have accumulated over time.
2023 Update
I have recently developed a new, much improved, and advanced version of this system. You can find it here.
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