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The Rule Of Thirds

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The Rule Of Thirds

Having a bad training session? Feeling like your lifts are disjointed, or out of place? Weak?

We all have bad training days, just like there’s that day in a blue moon when we are peaking and everything is coming together.

We can never really tell or plan for these events to happen, but I like to follow the ‘Rule Of Thirds’, popularised by Alexi Pappa’s Olympic running coach.

When she was facing a difficult training period before the Rio Olympics, her coach (also an Olympian) told her not to worry, this was simply The Rule Of Thirds. He said:

The Rule Of Thirds states that whenever you are chasing a big dream, you are supposed to feel GOOD a third of the time, OKAY a third of the time, and CRAPPY or not-so-great a third of the time. If feel roughly those ratios, it means you are in fact chasing a dream.

Yesterday I hit the 1KG/1% Snatch method, which is essentially a simple snatch progression that follows this format;

The Rule of thirds

Find a Method

For the 7th week in a row. In previous weeks I went 10/10, with an added handicap on myself being that if I miss a lift, I repeat that week. Every week has been a good week for me, except yesterday.

Miss, Miss, Running Snatches, they were all over the place.

Was I upset? Could I blame external factors? Sure. 

But as bad as it felt, it was humbling, I had a good run… Literally, but this day for me was just one of the crappy thirds of the time. Using this logic, 66.667% of your training won’t feel good, so being realistic, auto regulating and only worrying about what you can control will be key.

Get Addicted to the Process

Create your own Success

How can you apply the Rule Of Thirds to YOUR training?

Start by understand to have good days you will inherently have bad days. A bad day is not inherently a day with no progress, you are just developing areas you may not be paying attention too. 

People will outwork you on a day, a week, a month but you want to make sure you out work them over a year & lifetime. 

It is not about being a one off high performer it is about consistently turning up and applying effort and the rewards will come. 

Conclusion

It is not going to be easy and that is OK, applying some rules to help with perspective is important when seeking any improvement. If you found this article helpful be sure to follow us.

Thanks

@tylerjaehamilton

Coach | Beast | Trainer

Disclaimer

We are a functional fitness facility and understand we have biases like everyone else, we have attempted to be as objective as possible when creating this guide. Understand that what is valuable to one person may not necessarily be valuable to another. Thought and planned out choices always lead to better decisions. It is ok to invest in yourself and you can create your own change, you are always in control just take the wheel. If you have ay questions about Personal Training, get in touch with us today. We are happy to help!

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