Instinctive Training: What Is It? Should You Do It?

What is Instinctive Training? An Introduction to the Idea

Instinctive training means matching your training to how you feel on the day you train. So if you roll up to the gym feeling like you can do it all today, that’s what you do; if you feel run down and exhausted, you might train more lightly and gently than you had planned.

That’s a point raised by bodybuilding writer Bryan Haycock, who points out that instinct often isn’t a good guide for programming selections, especially if you’re unaccustomed to using it. Additionally, Mr. Haycock observes, many people will use incorrect markers of injury or fatigue, like muscle soreness – which Mr. Haycock shows isn’t a good indicator of fatigue, or risk of injury, or requirement for more recovery.

Citing a study by Nosaka et al in 2002, Mr. Haycock states that soreness is not a sign of muscle damage – the two just occur together, there’s no causal relationship. Soreness may not be a good indicator of anything. 

Is it Really 'Instinctive'?

With that in mind, if I’m assessing how sore my muscles feel, guessing how much more rest they might need and tweaking my programming accordingly, I’m not really using instinct at all: I’m just using poor reasoning.  As such, you’d expect me to come up with poor outcomes.

Many of us have irrational lifting preferences derived from prejudice or vanity, exercises we favor because we’re good at them or we think we look good doing them or they’re easy, and as the Saturday-night parade of deformed shoulders in tight T-shirts attests, a training routine of bench presses, curls and eyeing up the opposite sex is a lot of people’s ‘instinct’ – it just isn't a very good idea.

As Dan John mockingly observes, trusting your intuition when you train doesn't mean ‘every day is going to be arm day because the Force is telling you to work your biceps.’

Mixing Instinctive Training With Your Routine

Another commentary on instinctive training comes from Jim Wendler, a strength coach out of Ohio and highly successful powerlifter. Mr. Wendler’s commentary on instinctive training is simply that it isn't applicable for most athletes, whether they’re recreational athletes, college athletes or professionals.

‘A good training program will allow you to progress with the ebbs and flows of your day and how you feel; a poor training programme rarely gives you an ‘out’ – you better be on your best game or expect to be highly disappointed.’ That’s a salient point: introducing some subjective guidance into your program isn't the same thing as just rocking up and  doing what you feel on the day.

Some of the people who adhere most closely to the idea of instinctive training are to be found in the paleo community. There, a belief in following what comes naturally to human beings can spill over into a belief in following what comes naturally to you; as such, paleo writers often recommend instinctive training as a way to avoid long, arduous and what they perceive as counter-productive training sessions.

Leaving aside the observation that our paleolithic ancestors would have often faced situations in which exertion wasn't voluntary, what sorts of results does instinctive training produce in the real world right now? Well, many paleo writers recommend short sessions of about fifteen minutes concentrating on anaerobic, anabolic activities and that does seem to deliver results. The advantage of training in an instinctive fashion in this way is that it allows you to train as and when you feel like it – but many of us, if we’re honest, never feel like it!

In fact, many of us would never go to the gym at all if we hadn't set ourselves to go and a routine is what keeps us on track once we’re there. So does instinctive training necessarily oppose routine?

Best of Both: Adapting Your Routine With Instinctive Training

What it can mean is adapting a routine to the most effective it can be on that day. 

Let’s say your gym routine looks something like this:

Power Clean – 5X3

Bench Press – 5X5

Squat – 5X5

Sprints – 4X50 meters

Bodyweight circuit – 15 minutes

Weighted carries – 400 meters

That’s a lot of intensity and a lot of volume.  What if your instinct is to curl up on the couch and not even start? Well, you’re not alone, and instinctive training is probably best used a s a guide for what to do when you’re already at the gym. That’s to say, it’s better to incorporate the idea in order to improve what you already do than to throw everything out and start all over again.

Rather than setting out a routine and sticking to it word for word, why not try breaking it up into segments?  For example, you could take the routine outlined above and break it like this:

Maximal benefit (power): Power Clean

Maximal Benefit (strength): Squat

Strength: Bench Press/Squat/Weighted Carries

Power: Power Clean/Sprints

Volume: Bodyweight Circuit/Weighted Carries

Maximal benefit just refers to the exercise that offers the most ‘bang for your buck.’

So if you hit the gym and you feel like you could do some work, but you can’t face psyching yourself up to do heavy power cleans, you could do the ‘Strength’ portion of your routine. If you feel like you can do some explosive stuff, but you can’t stand the idea of grinding through heavy squats, you can do the ‘Power’ section, or you could mix and match a couple of sections or even just a couple of exercises. 

Could you design a better training session than power cleans and weighted carries? Yes, probably; but if you can’t face doing it, what difference does it make? Planning is essential but it’s training that gets results, and the best session is the one you actually do.

The next step is to apply these ideas to your own training. Go over your routine and decide what each exercise is there to give you. If you can’t figure out what it’s doing there, what’s it doing there? Maybe you just like it: fair enough, but put it in that category. Be honest.

You should end up with some exercises that are more strength oriented and some that are more power or athleticism oriented, maybe some dedicated cardio and some mobility training. Try to build four sessions out of your existing routine, one very small and the others focused on different elements. Looking at our example above, if you’re seriously crushed for time but feeling strong you might just do power cleans and leave. That’s not the best session in the world – but again, it’s better than not training at all.

You showed up, which is a large part of the battle, and you did the ‘bang for the buck’ movement, and still got to the Bar Mitzvah on time. Sometimes training has to take a backseat to life but if you program smartly you shouldn't have to leave it on the driveway.