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By Phil Stevens
Goals, Progress, PRs, advancement.
We all want them and strive for them in some form. The largest road
block is surprisingly not a lack of focus on our goal, on the end
but a lack of focus on today, the starting point.
We spend the majority of our time
milling and pondering over the ending, Point B. Never occurring
to us that most plans fail not for a lack of identifying the ending
point, but from not accurately identifying the starting point. Point
A. It would much like if you were to get blindly dropped in an unknown
location with an Atlas and your instructed to make your way to New
York City.
Well what the??? It aint going to
do a damn bit of good to map backward from New York City to your
current location when you dont know where the heck that current
location is. Mapping, and any planning you is all for not, just
wasted time.
The number one priority after picking
your general goals is to identify where are you now? In training
and nutrition this is what I describe as finding your margins.
What are margins. Much like
a piece of paper its our limits, boundaries, a clear definition
of our abilities. Its your zone of comfort, your current ability
in varied attributes that play a role in your goals. For instants
an athletic goal will have multiple margins. Of course one for training,
you may even break that down further into varied strength attributes
that lend to your goal, cardiovascular ability, limit strength,
endurance strength etc.. Nutrition and supplementations. Rest and
recovery, among others that you need to honestly address and identify
your current state. In order to then make a plan of attack.
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For example well to individuals
and ID their margins.
#1 total beginner to training
and nutrition, a desk jockey who has never trained in any
aspect or taken part in any real athletic endeavor in a serious,
or semi serious nature . Along side this total beginner we
have a seasoned gym rat.
Maybe he grew up playing sports
and living an active lifestyle. He has lifted, built a decent
base of strength. Has a decent knowledge of eating habits,
and training. They both happen to sit down and see the same
broadcast of Worlds Strongest Man and decide, Thats
IT!!! My passion is to be the Worlds Strongest Man.
Neither of them has ever once
touched a strongman implement let alone ventured into this
type of training competition at all, but both now have a passion,
a goal, an end point thats clear in their mind. Whats
Next?? Identify their Margins.
Sit down, take an objective
and honest view of yourself in contrast to what you want to
become or achieve, and then make note of your current status
or abilities.
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For simplicity were going to narrow
it down to three simple attributes that each will need, Training,
Nutrition, and Rest and Recovery. The blue lines are the current
newbie margins. The red lines, the gym rat. Anything inside the
margins equals their current ability or comfort zone. Anything lying
out side these lines equals the potential for growth and progress.

Times a wastin you got your
goals now go ID your Margins. Next week Ill discuss the next step
Action, How one uses these defined abilities to progress toward
their goals.

About The Author
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Phil, while attaining both his
Bachelors and Masters degrees in studio art found another
passion, that of training and nutrition. A constant student,
his real-world under-the-barbell and behind-the-fork approach
has led to many an opportunity, experience, and change in
his life as well as those he has worked.
Phil currently, aside from his
varied work with Team Staley, is a working and showing artist
(http://www.philstevens.com).
His current personal fitness goals are to become a competitive
force as middleweight strongman competitor, while building
upon his power lifting experience in which he has seen as
high as a top ten national ranking; with a two year goal of
obtaining an elite ranking as a 242 or 275lb weight class
RAW power lifter.
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