On occasion I will wear my Howlin’ Wolf t-shirt.
It’s designed in the style of the famous Obama “Hope” poster. With that very graphic blue and red imagery.
But rather than Barak (or Barry as I refer to him on our weekly catch-ups) it’s Wolf that’s pictured. Big smile on his face.
I’m actually wearing it as I type this.
Almost no one knows who Howlin’ Wolf is and I can’t blame this one on my age. Even people who grew up before Nirvana t-shirts were even a thing do not have intimate knowledge of blues singers from the 1950s, of which Wolf was one.
The reason I bring up Howlin’ Wolf is because the title of this very blog post is a reference to an early Muddy Waters song. Muddy, who was one of Wolf’s contemporaries, may be slightly more famous. But you probably still don’t know the words to any of his songs. Unlike Kelly Clarkson. You can recite every lyric of her first two albums. Don't deny it. There's no reason to be ashamed.
Don’t fear. This blog isn’t about long forgotten blues singers at all. Or, at least, it won’t be moving forward.
Nope, this is all about satisfaction and, more specifically, training satisfaction.
Because satisfaction is the real goal of any training program. Or any endeavor, actually.
Can you partake and feel satisfied with the outcomes?
Speaking of outcomes, most people think there are endless goals when it comes to training but as far as I can tell there are actually only four. And even these four have tons of crossover.
The first is health.
People want health markers such as bone density, VO2 Max, blood pressure, cholesterol, hormonal balance and a whole host of factors to be improved by training.
The second is performance.
They want to become stronger, run a faster mile, be able to jump to a certain box height, squat a particular weight or hit atime in the 40 that qualifies them for a scholarship.
The third is aesthetics.
They want to appear more muscular. Have a lower body fat percentage. They want visible abs and sleeve-splitting biceps. They want to tighten their belts by one notch or fit into the sundress they wore in college.
The last is how they feel.
They want mental health improvements. They want to increase confidence. They want a sense of accomplishment and to make themselves proud.
Like I said, many of these have crossover. One could successfully argue that body fat percentage could fall under both health and aesthetics. That mental health can fall under both feelings and health.
Of course these goals will get decorated with someone's own unique wrapping paper. "I want to be able to get on the floor and play with my grandkids" or "I’d really like to be more successful on Hinge" or "I’d like to qualify for Special Forces". But these are just personalizations of the four main goals.
To play with the grandkids you need health and performance. To get more “right swipes” you need to improve aesthetics and confidence. To become a Navy Seal perhaps you need all four.
But whatever your particular cocktail of desired training outcomes might be, it not only falls into one or a combination of these goals, it can be only measured by one thing. Are you satisfied?
Is your training meeting the outcomes that got you to engage with it in the first place?
Hopefully the answer is a resounding “yes”. But I fear for many people it isn’t. I’d even venture to predict that the majority of people are so far away from this being a “yes” that they aren’t even willing to ask themselves the question.
But that cannot describe you, dear reader. Because if you’ve survived years of Dad jokes, Dad stories, pot shots at Justin Bieber, mindless lists of the best movie dialogue and all my other successful and not-so-successful attempts to be simultaneously tender, thought-provoking, vulnerable and humorous, then for sure you have been brave enough to ask yourself if you are satisfied with your training outcomes.
And if the answer is “yes,” congratulations. We will renew your membership immediately (see, I told you the humorous stuff wasn’t always successful).
If the answer is “no” then I implore you to dig deeper and ask yourself these follow up questions.
Question 1: “Have I given it enough time?”
People always want to know how long it will take them to reach their goals and, even more so, they want it to be faster than it realistically will be.
Fair enough. I would have wanted “Gladiator 2” to come out about 12 seconds after I finished watching “Gladiator” but they made me wait nearly 25 years.
How long it will take until you feel satisfaction is tricky to say as everyone has a different starting point, training history and about a dozen other factors that can be thrown into the equation.
But in general you should start to feel changes in two to three weeks and you should start to see noticeable changes - aesthetically, performance and health - after roughly 50 sessions.
If you are not feeling any level of satisfaction - even if there is still work to be done - in this amount of time it’s probably time to reassess.
Question 2: “Did I keep up my end of the bargain?”
Sure, you signed up for the gym, downloaded the program and spent half a paycheck on the latest Gym Shark gear. That’s a great start.
But did you train with any kind of consistency? Or was every week an excuse of how this work thing came up or you just couldn’t miss that Melrose Place marathon on Tubi or you just had to follow Taylor around Europe for the end of the Eras Tour (okay, this last excuse is actually acceptable).
And when you did show up, did you put in a solid effort? Were you using challenging weights and focusing on form and trying to PR your mile time? Or were you hiding in the corner scanning the front page of Reddit during 15 minute “rest intervals” between sets?
Just because you’ve thrown time and money at the thing doesn’t mean it’s magically going to work.
Question 3: “Are you being realistic?”
This is a tough one because your level of satisfaction cannot be qualified by someone else. Sure, I might think that a 5% improvement in your back squat is tremendous in a 16 week training block. But if your only path to satisfaction was doubling your PR, who am I to tell you that you should feel good about your progress?
But with that said, your satisfaction should lie within the realm of reality. Just because I think it would really be awesome to play power forward for the Knicks and play lead guitar for the Rolling Stones on my off nights doesn’t mean I have any business measuring the success of my life against these essentially impossible outcomes.
These days people are encouraged, now more than ever, through a barrage of social media positivity and impossible standards, to shoot for the moon and not be satisfied with any other destination. And while I love the spirit, you do yourself no favors by denying reality. It’s okay to have high hopes but most of us fall within the averages. Just continue to make progress at a steady rate and you will be amazed how far you will go.
I like the idea of an internal scorecard.
Most people judge success by external factors. Do I have enough money in the bank? Are my legs lean enough? Will people be impressed with my job title?
But the internal scorecard is really all that matters.
Are you happy with the amount of money you are making? Are you pleased when you look down at your legs? Are you pumped to go to work every morning?
What do you think?
Are you satisfied?