There seriously is no better feeling than nailing out a personal best…..while people kid themselves that a few drinks out or a that chocolate bar is a great feeling hitting a personal best in something is a feeling that will last for days to weeks and for big events months to years.
Most regular exercisers manage to rob themselves of the feelings of personal bests by not taking measurement data therefore making it hard to know if they have improved. This denies you a lot of motivation potential. I take the opposite of approaches. I have piles of fitness data, which means I have much more potential for personal bests. This could vary from weight lifted in the gym to time run on the track.
When you set a new best you feel good. It is nearly impossible not to. I have seen this not just within myself but in clients of every single description from young to old, high fitness levels to low levels. It doesn’t matter, we love improvements whoever we are and even if we “hate” exercise. It is this concept of easy personal bests multi million selling author Tim Ferris uses in his books on learning a new skill.
The key is to extract the maximum energy out of personal bests. While some people have official race personal bests, e.g. half marathon etc, the reality is your are only ever going to run one or two a year and thus it greatly reduces your potential for spending a bit of time on Personal Best street – The best place to hang out in town.
This is why I am such a fan of knowing your exercise data. If you are just “doing exercise” you cannot see yourself get fitter. The other side to this coin is that you will not only miss out on your own personal bests but also you will not spot it when you have stagnated. A common trait from exercise plans that never change and the reason periodization was invented.
The way to have more personal bests is to monitor your performance but also have a different grading, the reason I write this today is Sunday I nailed out a personal best for 400m when training alone. It is impossible to get close to my true personal best without being in a actual competitive race but this individual time is equally relevant though a few seconds slower. While I have just 4-6 chances a year to break my official race time I have 30-40 chances to break the individual training time (well, it is less than that as i don’t always open a training session with a 400m, but I have a time for other distances too).
A key point though……as I talked about before in exercise consistency, it is beyond ridiculous in thinking you will beat your PB every single week once you have attained a good level…..nor should you even try to…..the time to decide what effort level you will go in a session is AFTER the warm up…. some days hard and some days easy. That is how to keep consistent. when you stay consistent personal bests happen often and you feel great!!!
If you are a regular exerciser, what personal bests do you track? How often can you break them??
This can also be applied to your body, are you celebrating your achievements? Do you feel happy when you lose an inch on the waist or complain there are still 6 more to go?? The difference in feeling is huge and this translates directly into long term success.
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London – For Personal Training London please contact me. I am available for sessions in homes, private gyms or parks across London. Ben Wilson – London Personal Trainer
