The Skill Known As "Chopping Wood"
The term “chopping wood” refers to the constant pursuit of excellence and the process of skill acquisition. (You can learn more about that HERE.)
Here’s what I mean, along with a few examples:
Learning a brand-new skill.
Trying and re-trying an unfamiliar exercise.
Using troubleshooting drills to improve subpar technique.
Practising to perfect a well-known movement in strength training.
In this article, I will discuss and dissect what chopping wood means, and why it’s vital to your long-term progress.
One does not simply pick up an axe and start hacking away at something!
These are the four key ingredients you need to have, to successfully chop wood.
Skill (A razor-sharp blade)
You can’t cut anything with a blunt blade or a round, soft, edge. It must be sharp enough to cut through the toughest of textures and pierce through any material.
“Like a hot knife through butter”, as they say.
This is how good — or, skilled — you must become at a given exercise. Nay. ALL exercises, and every movement you perform.
You need to learn all the intricate details about it so you get the maximum benefit out of every repetition you perform.
So proficient, so good, and so accurate that you carve through the exercise (from the outside, what looks to be) effortlessly.
You can only build your skillset and proficiency by:
A) Learning the ins and outs of it
B) Understanding why a particular technique is best, and
C) Practising it over and over again.
I’m not saying, or advocating that you just “go through the motions”. But rather, you do every rep to the best of your ability.
You pay a high amount of attention to the smallest details.
You do the fundamentals better than you ever have before progressing.
You obsess about extracting the maximum benefit and pouring every bit of (mental and physical) energy into what you do.
From the minute you walk in to do your workout. From when you enter the gym, to do your general warm-up, then into your warm-up sets, and lastly through every single one of your ‘working’ sets.
Every rep matters.
Accuracy (A precise aim)
All of your reps should look the same — no matter how tired, drained, or fatigued you are.
This is the goal, your new gold standard to shoot for.
Average reps are not to be tolerated. Poor execution of the basics is unacceptable. Mediocrity is not to be celebrated.
This is how you must treat your strength training and gym workouts.
If you don’t, you’ll allow one bad rep to turn into two. Two becomes three, and so on…
You’ll let one ordinary set become two. And one average session to become the new standard.
You can’t let this happen.
The way you prevent this from happening is by being more detail-oriented in your lifts.
Casualness begets casualness, and precision begets precision. Which do you want more, and which do you want less, of?
Understand what is expected of you, and what makes a good lift before you get started.
If you wait until you have the weights in your hands to “switch on”, it’s too late.
If you don’t start concentrating until the bar is on your back, it’ll fold you in half.
If you doubt yourself before the set begins, you’ll miss the weight, or worse, get injured.
You must approach every single set with 100% concentration and full focus. Tunnel vision!
You can’t build a strong deadlift if you can’t hip-hinge correctly.
You won’t improve your squat if every one of them looks different.
You aren’t going to bench press more weight if your setup changes all the time.
Uniform. Replica. Identical. CLone. Exact. Same. Duplicate.
These are some keywords you should have in your mind when strength training. A carbon copy of your entire set from start to finish.
Think: Copy + Paste
If it were videoed, all the reps look EXACTLY the same.
You could cut the video, place one rep on top of another, and they would be a perfect match. From the first to the very last.
This is what it means to be accurate with your weight lifting and strength training.
Your reps should all hit the same mark, engage the correct muscle groups, involve the same joints, and be executed as intended.
Power (A strong strike)
Once you have your technique dialled in and you’ve put your blinders on to keep you from getting distracted, comes the next part.
Applying a huge amount of force and effort into every single, accurate, strike as possible.
You won’t cut a tree down with an axe if you do little love taps or barely crack the surface.
You need to smash through the bark, bursting it apart so you can uncover the deeper layers.
Pertaining to strength training and your workouts, this means being very intentional with HOW you lift.
This includes using as many muscles as possible, recruiting the maximum amount of fibres as you can, and producing the most force your body has the capacity to.
Another way to think about this is a power dial or an energy gauge.
You turn the dial up or down based on the exercise in front of you and the load you are about to lift. Lighter loads won’t require as much force or bracing as heavier ones.
This does not mean you get a pass to do things poorly or with no strategy. You don’t turn the power OFF…you turn it down.
What I am saying is that it all comes down to context. Be intelligent with what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.
Here are a few examples to paint a clearer picture:
Doing a 1RM (of any exercise) will demand your maximal effort and all of your bracing. It is close to your theoretical, and real, 100% effort, after all.
A 3-rep deadlift is heavy and places a lot of force on your spine. You must get tight and stay tight from start to finish so your back doesn’t buckle under the weight.
Performing 5x5 squats is lighter than sets of three, but still, it’s not light. You have to concentrate, stiffen your trunk, and make all your big muscles work in unison.
Hitting some high-rep DB Lat Raises will destroy your medial deltoid (image below) but it won’t tax your stomach muscles as you’ve got a backrest to lean into.
Doing 20 standing bicep curls will test your arms to a high degree. But you don’t have to work your abs that hard — maybe a little to prevent swinging and momentum.
Patience (A steady cadence)
Much like cutting down a tree, you are going to have to swing the axe more than once to bring it down. The same goes for a good workout.
Unless your training consists exclusively of doing ‘singles’ (sets of 1 rep), you will have to do many repetitions of an exercise. This usually means doing one rep after another until the set is completed.
Picking a speed that allows you to produce enough force, brace optimally, and not run out of air and gas out is the key here.
This is where varying your sets, reps, and loads comes in.
A good-quality strength training program should involve and use all rep-ranges.
Heavy loads for low reps.
Medium load for moderate reps.
Light loads for high reps.
And everything in between.
This means doing multiple reps and several sets. One rep and one set alone won’t suffice.
It’s for this reason you have to learn how to pace yourself.
When doing high-rep work, you need to still be tight and well-braced, but if you go too slow, the sets will be very long. And your cardiorespiratory system might give out before the muscular system.
When lifting super heavy (for you), understand that you will need to eliminate any and all other thinking. You will funnel every ounce of available energy to your nervous system and the target muscles so you can do what’s required — for a very short period of time.
You are working at a very high intensity but for a very short duration. See how that works?
Again, this comes back down to repeatability.
I don’t want to see only one set that is out-of-this-world and amazing. Only to have your last set look and feel like shit. I want them all to be great!
They may differ in terms of effort or output but not in terms of technique.
Your lifting mechanics never change or waver as the set goes on or the session continues. That remains a constant, always.
Instead, you modify and manipulate your lifting speed so you get the best of all worlds.
Slow enough that your technique is sound and doesn’t break down. But fast enough that you can complete all of your reps before a limiting factor forces you to call it quits.
Below are some of the most common reasons you might have to call a set short:
Grip - Your fingers, hands, grip, and forearms can’t hold onto the weight any longer.
Lungs - Your breathing outpaces your ability to do your reps at the same pace.
Legs - You get jelly legs and they can no longer support you properly to continue.
If you do happen to ‘hit the wall’ or struggle to maintain your technique, use a rest-pause, and then keep going.
You don’t have to hit cancel as soon as things get tough. This is something trainees do all the time at the first sign of difficulty, they throw the towel in.
Sometimes, you just need a brief pause, take a few breaths, and then you’re good to continue.
Moral of the story.
Get as tight as you need. Lift as quickly/slowly as necessary. Breathe effectively and efficiently, to maximise both tension and timing.
Chopping wood requires you to work methodically from start to finish. Not getting bored, lazy, or complacent when things get monotonous, or difficult.
Keep your axe sharp, be accurate and powerful with your strikes, and don’t rush the process. It’s going to take more than one good rep, set, or workout for you to make great progress.
“Do the simple things perfectly, forever”.