Remember that old saying – ‘jack of all trades, master of none’?
It basically means that you’re pretty good (or pretty damn good, even) at a whole lot of different things. But, because you’ve spent a bunch of time working on all these different things, you’ve never spent enough time at any one thing in particular to get great at it.
And that’s just the way it is. Best case scenario is that you can either be pretty good at a lot or elite at a little. Can’t do both, though.
You’re just not gonna find anybody that can be elite at a lot. Just doesn’t happen.
Your workouts are the same way. You can either be in very good overall shape (strength, power, speed, cardio, physique, etc) or elite at one thing (like a highly competitive powerlifter, Olympic lifter, or bodybuilder might be). Can’t do both.
Now, if you know my style of workouts, I like to go the route at being pretty good at a lot. I’d rather do workouts that have you getting stronger, moving faster, having better cardio, and more – all at the same time. You’ll never (necessarily) be the ‘best’ at any one of those things, but you’ll be better than most.
(Not to mention you’ll be better than the elites at everything else – you’ll be faster than the powerlifter, stronger than the distance runner…you know the drill.)
BUT, what do you do if you’re seriously lacking in a given area?
See, if you’re starting out at the same level across the board, that’s cool – you can bring up all these qualities at the same time. But what if you’re not? THEN what do you do?
I mean, what if you’re already real fast, but not overly strong and your endurance sucks? Or if you have a pretty physique, but you can’t back it up in the gym? Or if you’re strong and explosive, but have pretty much no work capacity?
How do you balance everything out?
Well, that’s when you gotta do a workout that focuses on whatever it is you need to work on – target your weakness, bring it up, then move on from there.
Now, I know what you’re worried about – how do you do that, and *not* lose out on the gains you’ve busted your ass for so long to make, right? I mean, you’ve spent years getting strong as an ox – you don’t wanna lose it all in 4 months by trying to improve your cardio and conditioning.
That’s where program maintenance comes in. If you do a program that’s designed properly, you can focus on just a few main goals, and have that be the vast majority of the results you get. However, you can add in *just enough* maintenance work so as not to lose too much (if any) of all gains you’ve worked so hard for.
Remember back when I sent you the free sample of Body Armor – The 2nd Chapter? (It’s here if you missed it.)
The first phase was doing a bunch of hardcore complexes. This was to get you in shape, build cardio, and improve your conditioning and work capacity. But, as long as you used heavy enough weights in the complexes, you wouldn’t really lose out on strength.
Then in the 2nd phase, we switched it around and focused on getting stronger (setting new PRs every workout) and getting bigger, putting on extra muscle mass. Well, you didn’t wanna lose out on all that conditioning you just busted your ass for, did you? No…which is why there were short conditioning elements built into Phase 2 – just enough to maintain.
Of course, then when you hit Phase 3…well, that’s when you go balls to the wall on everything, and bring it *all* up.
So you spent the first phase focusing on one set of goals, maintaining everything else. Then, you spent the next phase focusing on a different set of goals, maintaining everything else. Then, on phase 3, that’s when you kick it into high gear across the board, and bring it ALL up.
See how you do that?
And, of course, the totally badass thing about Body Armor – The 2nd Chapter is that each phase is pretty self contained. If you were to have to repeat a phase to bring those qualities up further before moving on, then it would be not only easy and doable, but completely recommended.