Rebecca was no stranger to fitness. She worked as a personal
trainer in her 20s. She did Crossfit for almost a decade, even
competing in some Crossfit competitions at one point.

Things changed for Rebecca a few years back. The workouts
were taking a toll on her physically. She was under-eating and
over-training. She experienced debilitating fatigue, and didn’t
understand why.

She thought she was working out the right way and eating
healthy, but she hit a brick wall.

Eventually, she had to stop working out all together in an effort
to combat the fatigue. Unfortunately, this only made things
worse. She experienced some weight gain, felt worse physically,
and the fatigue persisted.

About two years ago, we formulated a plan. We were going to reintroduce exercise slowly.

We agreed on the following plan:

• Strength training 2x/wk, for 30 minutes each session.
• Aim for 10,000 steps per day.
• Eat bigger meals, comprised of whole foods like chicken,turkey, pork, greek yogurt, rice, potatoes, fruits, and veggies.

We’d run this play until the results plateaued. At that point, we’d
either increase the frequency of strength training to 3x/wk, or
lengthen the sessions to one hour.
It’s been over two years. The results haven’t stopped coming.
Here’s why:

Relentless Consistency. In 2 years, Rebecca has only missed
workouts if sick or on vacation. Even then, she plans ahead
to reschedule those workouts and maintain her average of
one dedicated hour per week to training.

Abundance Mindset. These workouts are hard, and require
fuel. When she stopped “dieting” and started eating more
high quality food, the body fat started melting off.

Effort. With very limited time in the gym, every set needs to count. We
generally have time for just three exercises each workout, completing 2-3
sets for each. Because we only have time for roughly 12-18 TOTAL SETS
each week, Rebecca makes every single one of them count. She’s not
stopping her sets when it starts to get uncomfortable. She’s stopping
when she can no longer move the weight with good technique. Click the
above video, and notice the last few reps moving much more slowly than
the first few. If your reps aren’t slowing down, even though you’re trying
to move them quickly, you’re not getting everything you need to out of
your exercises.

I want to touch on that last piece a little further. Your schedule dictates your
approach to fitness. If your schedule allows you to work out 4-6 hours/wk,
you likely won’t need to take every single set you complete close to muscular
failure. You can work at 80% effort, because you are accumulating more work
across a given week.

If you’re schedule only allows for you to get to the gym 1-2 hours per week,
you will do less total work. If you’re doing less work, the work you do needs to
be at a higher effort level in order to see results – closer to 95-100%.

It is absolutely possible to see real, tangible results in just 1 hour of training
per week if effort levels are high, you’re consistent with your work, and you
check the boxes outside of the gym.

Rebecca is proof of that