How to Know If Your Program Is Working

Most people can't answer this question honestly.

They feel busy, they're tired after workouts, they're showing up consistently, so they just assume it must be working.

But that's not how you measure progress.

That's how you measure effort, and effort and progress are not the same thing.

Here are three things you can track that will tell you the truth.

1. Are your work weights trending up over 4-6 weeks?

Not every session and not even every week, but if you zoom out over a month and a half, you should see some kind of movement.

Your squat should be going up.

Your bench should be going up.

Even small jumps count: 5 pounds here, an extra rep there. That's the signal that things are heading in the right direction.

If you've been squatting the same weight for the same reps for two months, your program isn't working.

Doesn't matter how hard the sessions feel.

2. Are your easy runs getting easier at the same pace?

This is something runners understand intuitively but lifters completely ignore.

If you're running 10:00/mile at a heart rate of 155 in January and you're running that same 10:00/mile at 148 in March, your aerobic fitness is improving.

Same output, less effort. That's real, measurable progress even though nothing looks different from the outside.

If your easy pace heart rate isn't dropping over time, or your pace isn't getting faster at the same heart rate, something in your training isn't working.

3. Are you finishing most sessions feeling like you had one or two more in the tank?

This sounds backwards.

Shouldn't you feel destroyed after a good workout?

No!

If you're emptying the tank every session, you're not recovering enough to build anything between workouts. You should leave the gym or finish a run feeling like you could have done a little more.

That's what sustainable training feels like.

The exceptions are test days, hard interval sessions, and heavy singles. Those should be tough.

Everything else should feel controlled and repeatable.

The 30-second audit

Pull up your training log.

If you don't have one, that's problem number one.

Look at the last 6 weeks.

• Are your weights going up?
• Are your runs getting easier?
• Are you finishing sessions with something left in the tank?

Yes to all three? Keep going, your program is working.

No to any of them? Something needs to change, and "try harder" is almost never the right answer.

Capacity Training

I built Capacity Training to plan your running and your lifting together. Log your sets and it picks your next weights: earn it and the weight goes up, struggle and it holds or comes down.

Run faster. Get stronger. capacitytraining.app

Mike