The Power of Consistency and Compounding Small Progress

One thing that can be easily overlooked by newcomers to fitness and even long time gym goers is the power of small bits of progress multiplied by longer periods of time. For example, you might see a simple half inch lost on your waist over 8 weeks as a complete failure. But when you take a step back and look at the big picture and use compounding results you can see how big only half an inch can be! So today let's take a look at some real world results and some of my clients results to see the bigger picture.

There's More and Just Half an Inch

Don't let yourself get hung up on "oh it's only half an inch, I've barely changed at all" or "I only lost 2 pounds!". Often times people and clients will get hung up on one number, or one result and this can kill your motivation. But what they often overlook is the total of all the accomplishments. Sure, 1/2 an inch off your waist isn't much, but you also lost 1/4 inch from your arms, a half inch from your bust, your shoulders lost 1/8 of a inch, you dropped 2 pounds, legs lost half an inch, hips another 1/4 inch. Now suddenly you can see a whole lot of change all over!

On top of that you may have bettered your technique on lifts, found alternative foods that you enjoy and are now incorporating into your daily diet, ran a faster mile, started sleeping better or added weight on most of your lifts!

Let's take a quick look at my client Hillary's progress over a 6 month stretch in some key areas.

In august her waist was 34 inches, October only 33.5 inches and by December, 32 Inches

Her Hips went from 42, to 41 to 40 inches and her leg's lost a total of 1 1/2 inches in the same time frame. Her weight also went down 7 pounds. These results lead me into the next section.

The Power of Compounding Progression

As you can see, the difference from 8 week blocks in pretty small, but when you keep progressing and adding up on all the progression from many blocks of training, you see real meaningful and impactful results. Let's look at another client from a wider scope.

In March, Trina had a 44 1/2 inch stomach, 46 1/2 inch bust and 47 inch hips. By May she had a 43 1/4 inch waist, 45 1/2 inch bust and hips were still 47 and only 4 pounds lost. Now let's zoom way out.

By January, almost a whole year later, she had lost a total 22 pounds, waist is 40 inches, bust is 44 and hips are 44. One thing to note here is the change in the coveted hourglass shape. Her hip and bust to waist ratio has changed dramatically.

One top of the purely aesthetic changes, she also double her weight performed on movements like the RDL, goblet squat and dumbbell bench press. She reports being able to carry all her groceries in one trip, run up the stairs faster (except after leg day) and has an overall total higher amount of daily energy and improved self confidence and mood.

Main Take-Aways

While life happens and at certain times we can't always focus as much as we would like to or we have momentary periods of weakness (cookies!) it's important to always look at the bigger picture and just how far you've come and how far you will go when you continue making small bits of progress. If you're getting frustrated with your progression in one area, look at another area. Maybe the scale isn't going down but you're getting stronger and your waist shrank a bit. Maybe your arms didn't grow but they look more defined, and as always, if you're struggling with getting started, seeing results or just want someone to handle your fitness so you can focus on the rest of your life then give me a call or text and try a Free Personal Training Session at Flex Ed in Collingwood, Ontario.