The Slight Edge

About a year ago, I was gifted a book call the "Slight Edge" by Jeff Olson. It's a quick and short read, but very impactful when I absorbed and implemented the information it contained.

The idea behind the slight edge is the principal of compounding and how baby steps compound over time to become something profound.

many a time, people will tell me; "gosh you must workout a lot! How do you find the time ?"

well, I don't workout a lot, I just work out consistently, it's a part of my life, just like eating and sleeping (which I don't do enough of).

I remember being back in High school and being able to cram for an exam the night before and end up with stellar grades. Sadly, fitness doesn't work the same way, trust me, I've tried.... I've tried gaining a whole bunch of muscle in a short time and I got fat and injured myself, I tried losing a couple of pounds of fat in a short time and I got smaller, probably lost some muscle and probably retained the same amount of fat percentage wise. There are some caveats here, I can teach you to lose all subcutaneous water in a matter of days and make you look better right away, but it will take a toll on your body.

Basically, your body doesn't like to change, it needs to be shocked consistently and be forced to operate a higher level. Every time you change something around in your diet, exercise or lifestyle you physiology can change positively or negatively.

Small changes don't show up for a while though, since the Body resists them. A couple of small changes over time show up faster. For example, cutting 300 cals and keeping all else constant should result in approximately a pound of weight loss every 2 weeks or so. Thankfully however, going out for dinner and eating 1000 calories via creamy pasta, bread, steak, wine and chocolate cake, won't result in a 2 pound fat gain overnight.. YAY.

Many a time, people wait around for the "best time" to start working out. They psyche up for a month, then go all out the first day in the gym. Then they are sore for a week, don't work out and spend another month psyching up. A better approcah is to slight edge it....

hit the gym or your favorite activity and go for half the class or less, go back again the next day and add more time.
With weight training, reduce the weight or reduce the total reps and sets, then build up to what would be ideal for your goal.

As one gets more conditioned, the same princial applies. For example, i do not spend more time in the gym, what I do is ensure that every time I hit the gym, I'm lifting a little more than last time, either a little more weight or a rep or two more.

This is called Escalating Density Training. You keep the time of the given workout constant, but continually increase the amount of work that you do in the time interval as you become more conditioned. Of course this does not apply for athletes training for endurance events which require longer duration training sessions.

So, moral of the story, start whatever it is you are going to start TODAY. Just to a little and then do more the next time :)

Don't diet.... fix one thing at a time, do it 21 times and the fix another, this is one of the principals behind why Advocare's Commit2Fit program is so effective.


links:
http://www.topachievement.com/slightedge.html
EDT: http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459765