The Pyramid (of the Maximum Results) - Training, Recovery, Nutrition

By the Dotto: Andrea Dotteschini

Everyone now knows by heart the ingredients that make up the magic triangle of results in sports: training - rest - nutrition.

It is repeated like a mantra in gyms: from instructors to clients, from muscular and expert clients to novice ones and from the latter to their mothers, who do their utmost to cook a different meal than the rest of the family for the child who, for sport, decides to lift weights for a fee (always better than being a drifter, the parent usually thinks).

Everybody understands that training hard is important, even the most negligent of neophytes sees that there is a correlation between raised weights and muscles. It is nutrition, a factor that is not directly observable, that is often underestimated by children who, bombarded by media and advertising, are afraid of eating too much and gaining weight, especially those who have also registered for weight loss in the gym.

Not even resting is a variable taken too much into consideration and is usually reduced to the fact of feeling or not the post-training pains (doms).

Sometimes, however, it happens to meet someone who - while saying to train well, eat adequately and rest 100% - exhibits a physique that does not demonstrate this dedication (perhaps because it is not really dry or because it has not grown properly at all). In general, these people give explanations such as: "That belly layer I always had, it will never go away", or: "More than that I don't get big, unfortunately it's genetic".

Now let's take the case that these guys are really sincere and that they are not part of particular cases (for example that our friend with the "pancetta" was not obese), how can we explain this situation?

The answer could lie in that variable that is common to all 3 sides of the triangle: TIME. It transforms our beloved triangle into a pyramid with COSTANZA at the top.

The longer the sides dedicated to time are, the lower the pyramid will be and the fewer the results obtained by us.

Let's go back to the example of our friend who can't get his stomach off and go into the history; we will probably find out that from Monday to Friday I line up in the diet like a Mister Olympia in the weeks before the race but: "Friday? I went to the disco and a 3 mojito was granted to me. Next week, then, Luca has his birthday at home his and he has already bought a couple of kegs of beer! ".

In the second case the constancy in the "training" variable could be lacking. Remember the guy who breaks the gym without too many results? "No, generally in the summer I give up, it's too hot to train."

I hope that with these simple examples you may have realized that the maximum return triangle is a concept, in my opinion, a bit short-sighted as it does not take the time factor into account and this can lead to an incorrect assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of the your efforts.

If we then leave the area of ​​gymnasiums, failure to include constancy among the primary factors for achieving results certainly leads to failure in the sports field and to the failure of the program drawn up by the coach.

In sport practiced at a competitive level, in fact, constancy is an essential prerogative to reach certain objectives and, even further upstream, it is the basis of the relationship of trust between the athlete and the trainer.

Whether you do sport for wellness, for beauty or to become champions, you must not transcend from being constant. In doing so, no result can be unattainable!