How Long Does It take to See Results of Training

I have been seeing motivational pictures like the one above about
how long it takes to see results of training on social networks for while now. They are
really popular especially on twitter and Tumblr. I just want to share a few
words on the subject of results. We all train for different reasons, so we
would all be looking to get different results. One person may want to lose
weight, another to gain muscle whereas another person may seek to improve
athletic ability for a particular sport they play.

What kind of
results do you want?

Losing weight

If your aim is to lose weight then you will start to see
results pretty early on if you are over weight, you will find you will lose a lot of
weight in the first few weeks. However this weight you lose at first is mainly
water weight and losing weight will get harder after you lose the water weight,
but if you are consistent with both diet and training you will continue to see
results. At some points you will have weeks where you lose no weight, do not
let such disappointments deter you from your goal, use such failures as
motivation to push forward.

Gaining muscle

If you aim to gain muscle then it will not be as soon that
you start seeing results, patience is key when it comes to building muscle, it will
take a few weeks before some people start to see improvements and longer for
others. Muscle building is a patience and dedication game, a lot of Johnny
Bravo wannabe’s flood the gym every year in January only to give up when they
fail to gain muscle from a few workouts. You will start to notice strength
gains before you notice physique changes every week as you get stronger and
workouts or weights that you used to struggle with start to get easier to do or
lift. Strength gain in its self is a form of results if that is what you are
aiming for.

Also when it comes to muscle gain most people will
experience the most muscle gain when they first start out, this is often
referred to as “beginner’s gains”, and you will find that if you are consistent
you will get the greatest growth in your first year of lifting then things will
slow down from then on-wards  You experience the most growth in your first year
because your body has never had to deal with such force before, and in order to
adapt your lifting of weight will break down muscle and the muscle will grow
back bigger and stronger than it was before. This does not last forever though
as your body is always adapting it will get harder to stimulate muscle growth
so you have to find new ways of pushing it to the limit, many people do this by
changing their rep ranges, change their entire workout every once in a while
(use different lifting styles) , increasing weight lifted etc. The point is to
not give up and keep pushing yourself to grow those muscles. Giving up is no
option.

Improving sports
performance

To see results for sports performance the best way to go at
it is training, the more you train the better you will get, the results you get
will be proportional to the work you put in. If you want to be able to run a 70km
marathon and you cannot even run 10km comfortably yet, you need to start small
every week increasing your distances by 2km everyday for example then at the
end of the week you will have improved your distance by 14km, imagine you write
this down on a chart somewhere during the run up to your big marathon, adding
2km per day until you can feel confident that you can run a big marathon (not
that anyone can really say they can run over 70km’s comfortably).

Results do not always come as fast as we want them to but
with consistent work they come, getting into top shape is the hard part once
you are there it’s easier to maintain. I am telling you that you can do it.
Stop doubting yourself, lose that giving up mentality, a loser is a person who
gives up not a person who pushes till the end, that’s a fighter. You must choose
to be a fighter…let’s do this fitfam!