How many of you guys have played StarCraft?
Hopefully everybody, because it rules. How many of you got your asses handed to you on Battle.net for the first few weeks until you figured out what you were doing? Okay maybe that was just me. I’d always play as the Protoss, have illusions of grandeur, and kinda start building this and that, without any real direction, hoping to eventually end up with a full armada of Carriers (damn I loved those things) and destroy the other guy. Of course, five minutes in, I’d get rushed by a bunch of Zerglings, I’d have no defense, and I’d get lit up like a Christmas Tree. Those were the days!
With the upcoming release of StarCraft II‘s beta, I started thinking about how much fun I used to have with the original game, and how long it took me to recognize the fact that not having a battle plan ahead of time was suicide. Obviously your plans change if the other guy rushes, but you still have a basic, specific strategy: set up defense, build an army, expand to new resources, develop your tech tree, kick some ass, GG.
Exercising is no different: if you walk into a gym with no clue what you’re doing, you’re gonna get slaughtered (not literally). Don’t wander the gym aimlessly, looking at machines and say “oooh that looks like it might work the right muscles,” sit down for a quick set of 10, and then go back to wandering. First of all, don’t EVER use machines – stick to free weights. Secondly, don’t wander: have battle plan, noob! Before you step in that gym, ask yourself what you want to accomplish, and be specific:
- Use the rowing machine for 20 minutes. Great; how far do you expect to row in 20 minutes? If you did 4000 meters last time, aim for 4050 meters this time.
- Lift weights. Awesome; what muscles do you want to work? Upper body? Okay. You’re going to do 3 sets of increasing weights of dumbbell chest presses, followed by 3 sets of pull ups, followed by three sets of increasing weights on dumbbell shoulder presses. How much are you going to lift? More than you did last time (which you’ll know because you wrote it down).
- Run – Don’t like the gym? That’s fine, it’s certainly not for everybody. Where are you going to run, how long are you going to run for, and how much faster are you going to do it today than yesterday. If you don’t know what you need to beat, you won’t push yourself, and you won’t get better.
Remember last week when I said you need to find a way to be better than yesterday? Without a battle plan, and without a battle history (what you did last time, and how you’re going to improve), you’re never going to get better. With today’s technology, its ridiculously easy to keep track of everything you do. Set up a simple Excel spreadsheet, and write down your sets, reps, amount of weight, and time. Done.
Napoleon (the guy from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure) would spend hours and hours setting up his battle plans, only to watch them become obsolete as soon as the battle began. Ya know what? **** happens. You go to the gym, and there are dudes in spandex using all the benches. You want to go for a run, and it’s raining buckets outside. You’re playing Starcraft and you get rushed but manage to fight off the first wave of Hydralisks. Things change, and some stuff is out of your control, so make sure you have a backup plan! If you were going to do bench presses but they’re all taken, grab some dumbbells and do them on that lonely bench in the corner instead. Jump rope in your house for 20 minutes rather than run in the rain.
If you’re reading this site, I’d like to assume you have an intelligent head on your shoulders (if you’re a dumb nerd, we have a lot of work to do). You are 37% more likely to get stronger and faster when you have a battle plan. I totally just made up that statistic by the way, but I bet it’s pretty close.
Now who’s ready for StarCraft II? I’ve been watching these Battle reports on IGN – this game can’t come soon enough.
-Steve
