The Strong Me

Pillar 01

How do you actually get stronger?

Turning up is not training. The difference between the two is a few decisions, repeated.

In progress

• How many sessions a week is the line between getting stronger and just showing up
• What progressive overload looks like on a real calendar, not in a diagram
• Machines, free weights or classes: what each one is actually training
• What twelve weeks realistically add, and what changes before the mirror does
• Training with the body you have today, not the one the programme was written for

Pillar 02

The thing you like, and the thing that works

Pilates, running, climbing, dance. You should not have to give it up to change your body, and you do not have to.

In progress

• What Pilates actually builds, what it does not, and which gap has to be filled by something else
• Two lifts and three classes, or the other way round: laying out a week that does both
• How hard a class can be the day before a heavy session, and the order that ruins both
• Reformer, mat, or a barbell: what the same hour buys you in each
• Doing it because you like it is a reason. Which parts of the plan that is allowed to decide

Pillar 03

Eating enough to be strong

Most people training seriously are undereating, not overeating. This block is about fuel, not shrinking.

In progress

• How much protein, and how the people who hit it actually arrange their day
• What a week of cooking once looks like, and which parts do not survive to Thursday
• Eating out, travelling, and the version of this that holds up in both
• Supplements: the short list with evidence behind it, and the long list without
• What it costs a month once the food is counted

Pillar 04

Rest is part of the training

The work happens in the gym. The adaptation happens afterwards, or it does not happen.

Next

• What a bad week of sleep actually costs, measured in the gym rather than in mood
• How many rest days, and what to do on them
• Sore or hurt: telling them apart before it becomes expensive
• Deload weeks, and why backing off makes the next month better
• The signs you are training hard enough, and the ones that mean you went past it

Pillar 05

When the change is not the change you wanted

Twelve weeks in and it does not look like the plan said. That is information, and there is an order to reading it.

Next

• What to measure so that eight weeks from now you can tell whether anything moved
• The order to change things in: food, sleep, load, or the programme itself
• Why the scale is the worst of your measurements, and what to read instead
• Stalled, or just slower than the internet promised
• What a coach is worth, at which point, and what to ask before paying for one
• Expectations that no programme can meet, and how to tell which of yours they are

Pillar 06

Keeping it when life gets in the way

Nobody loses this in one decision. They lose it across three interrupted weeks.

Next

• A hotel gym and forty minutes: what is worth doing and what to skip
• Coming back after three weeks off, without starting from the beginning
• The smallest version that still keeps what you built, for the months you have no time
• Training around a schedule you do not control
• What the whole thing costs a month: gym, food, coaching, hours