Boredom gets the best of us all. We get bored with school, work, hobbies, and especially exercise. Health magazines count on this, this is why there are always “new” exercises each month and why health fads come and go. Change is good sometimes, but sometimes boredom has to be overcome to reach mastery. To master an exercise you have to repeat it many times with deliberate practice. This is true with any activity you want to master and has been the subject of many books such as The Talent Code and Talent is Overrated. To bench, deadlift, or kettlebell snatch well you have to do it many times. In exercise we have to have some variability for adaptation which can come in the form of weight, sets, reps, and implements. The fact still remains that deliberate practice will allow you master a complicated lift. Pavel Tsatsouline uses an effective tool called “grease the grove”. This is a method to add volume without over training. In this method an exercise is practiced through out the day. A good example for improving chin ups is the door chin up. You perform a chin up on a sturdy door. You may have to pad it to save your hands and grab the top of the door. You can do one chin up every time you pass that door. This will build volume throughout the day, and the friction against the door will provide extra resistance. Now you can do many without fatiguing and every time you perform a chin you can focus on certain parts of the exercise. Focus on where you carry the tension in your shoulders, if you pull with you lats enough, where you neck moves. Over time you will reform you technique while you build strength. This will allow for quick improvement. Turn boredom into a challenge to over come plateaus.
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