Efficiency is the Mother of Achievement...and Sometimes Just a "Mother".

Efficiency is the hallmark of effective organizations. Being able to quickly deliver services in less time is admired by consumers and Wall Street alike. Amazon has capitalized on this concept to completely change the retail market. As the leaders of organizations we have all been faced with the challenge of creating more efficient processes, and sometimes not by choice. 

In those circumstances when you have been asked to "do more with less" how have you responded?  Probably with some sort of value chain analysis, determining which activities are core competencies and which can be eliminated or offloaded on someone who can do it more efficiently. 

So why, then, do you insist on going to the gym or to your "personal trainer" and engage in activities that are so inefficient? "Training efficiency" is just as critical to your wellness as operational efficiency is to your enterprise. 

Simply put, "training efficiency" is the amount of work done in a fixed period of time aimed at a specific training objective. Note that the word "objective" ends the previous sentence. "Training" is not "exercising". Exercising is a physical activity that is meant to create a sense of accomplishment or well-being in the present.  Running at lunch on the same route in the same amount of time as two days ago? Exercise. Swimming the same number of laps every day? Exercising. Doing the same dumbbell curls with the same weight every damn workout?  Exercising, not training. 

Training is physical activity in which the current session builds upon the previous session in pursuit of the accomplishment of a goal. This can be how much, how many or how fast, but the key is that it is more than the last time. If it's not, then you're just exercising. 

Now match this concept of training up with time and you begin to see how training efficiency works. Let's take a common training modality: a deadlift. If in 30 minutes I lift more total weight in 30 minutes than the last time my training efficiency has improved. If I perform more movements with the same weight my efficiency has also improved. Ironically, both are also indicators of increased strength, so improving training efficiency will, by definition, increase strength.

So how do you improve training efficiency?  Do more with less. Choose fewer movements and train them by load and time.  Here's an example:

Single kettlebell swings at 16kg (35lbs) within a 15 minute period. This week you do 100 and next week you do 110. You have gotten stronger and more efficient. You can either increase the weight or the time and start again to become more efficient at that load or for that time period.  And the more you achieve the tougher you will become.  Is it easy? No, it's hard, but nothing worth having comes
easilty.

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Stay well, my friends