I’ve noticed more than ever recently that about 90% of people sit on their phones between every one of their sets in a hunched-over Gollum-like posture, staring at their screens while waiting to do their 10 seconds of reps a few minutes after their last set.

Now, sometimes I’m guilty of this, but it drives me absolutely insane.

Simple fix: put your damn phone down and focus on what you’re doing, even if you absolutely hate the music the gym is playing.

Longer answer: you need to be putting some actual intention into your training.

Now, is this groundbreaking information? Of course not. But apparently more people than ever really need to hear it. We have such a short attention span in society that we cannot sit still for a 2–3 minute rest period without mindlessly scrolling on our phones or talking on the phone while we’re out doing a half-assed run/walk for cardio.

This is one of my more obscure opinions, but I think the invention of the iPod was a huge blow to society and led to all of this social media craze. As soon as we started having access to any music we wanted and everyone needed to have the perfect song on to motivate themselves for one set of one exercise, we started skipping through all the songs we didn’t want to find the one that would work. Then, once we used that song for 20 seconds, we had to skip to another one.

Before you know it, you’ve got a doom-scroll algorithm that gives you 10–15 seconds of attention span at a time before your brain thinks, BORRRRRING. WHAT’S THE NEXT THING? FEED ME THE DOPAMINE!

I digress.

Use Your Tools. Don’t Depend on Them.

Now, let me clarify something. I’m not saying you shouldn’t listen to music.

Most gyms play absolutely atrocious music, and I completely understand wanting to put together your own soundtrack. Maybe you need some aggressive music to get yourself fired up. Maybe you’re a calm classical music person. Maybe you want to listen to a podcast or an audiobook.

I don’t care. Use whatever works for you.

What I’m saying is that if your phone is sitting in your pocket, be mindful of how often it’s calling to you. It’s like the Ring calling to Frodo, tempting you to put it on.

You know it’s there. You know you can check it. And eventually, you’re probably going to want to.

Maybe an old-school iPod is actually a better choice. Ha.

But I’m also suggesting that every once in a while, try doing a workout without the music. Especially if you’re working out at home, sometimes the silence is the best thing.

Think about it.

We need fancy designer gym clothes, fancy designer gyms that are the coolest places to be, the perfect motivational music, pre-workout for energy and motivation, and constant access to our phones between every set just to make it through one hour of working out.

I get it. Lifting isn’t everyone’s favorite thing like it is for me. And you don’t have to love it.

But goddamn, try being present and actually working hard at what you’re doing.

You don’t have to do this every time, and you may never become someone who loves every minute of training. But I promise it gets better the more you practice pushing yourself, improving, and being where you are instead of needing all the planets to align just to find enough motivation to get through a workout.

Think of some of these things as tools you can use when you need them, not crutches you need every single time.

There’s nothing wrong with using a tool to make the job easier or more enjoyable. But there’s a difference between using something because it helps and becoming so dependent on it that you don’t know how to function without it.

Sometimes it’s worth challenging yourself to do the work without all the extras.

You might discover you’re more capable than you thought.

And this actually reminds me of something else.

I love the training scenes in Rocky IV. Rocky out in the barn, lifting logs, pulling sleds, running through the snow, doing whatever he can with what he has. And then there’s Drago in the lab, surrounded by the most advanced equipment, scientists, machines, and technology.

I love both of those scenes.

I’m not saying one is better than the other. That’s not the point. But I do think there’s something worth considering.

If you’re always Rocky, maybe you could benefit from a little Drago. Maybe you could use some better equipment, a more structured approach, or a little technology to help you measure and improve.

If you’re always Drago, maybe you could benefit from a little Rocky. Maybe you need to get away from the gadgets, the perfect environment, and all the things you think you need. Go outside. Pick something heavy up. Figure it out. Get to work.

If you can only operate under one set of conditions, you’re limiting yourself.

Sometimes you need to use every tool available to you. Other times, you need to prove to yourself that you can get the job done without any of them.

That’s capability.

Be able to train in the lab. Be able to train in the barn. And don’t let either one become a requirement for getting the work done.

What Does This Have to Do With Training?

Intention is going to beat all of the little bullshit optimization tricks that every fitness guru is going to tell you about: the perfect cable angle, perfect muscle activation technique, perfect exercise to grow this muscle or fix this pain, and the perfect do-almost-nothing workout that gives you perfect results.

I promise you, after 17 years of training people and over 20 years of working out in gyms, the number one thing that is going to tower over all the other things is intention.

What do I mean by that?

Have a plan when you go into the gym and just be present to fucking dominate that plan and work your ass off.

Is it that simple? It can be.

We tend to do this thing where we think everything newer is automatically better than everything from the past. Currently, the science-based lifting trend and all the best recovery gadgets and optimization of your entire wellness routine—with sauna, cold plunge, sleep trackers, supplements, peptides for every goddamn thing, and whatever else, blah blah blah—are supposed to be the secret to getting everything you want fitness-wise.

Well, you know what? The pendulum may have swung too far, and sometimes we need to look to the past and tried-and-true methods.

Take a look at old-school lifters from the 80s and learn from them. They went in and did the basics and worked their asses off week after week, competing with a group of people who were completely present and locked in on what they were doing. They weren’t worried about every possible thing going wrong with “dangerous exercises” or the perfect amount of sets and reps.

What they did better than this generation was that they were completely focused and executed their plan with the intention of beating what they did last week and putting 100% of their focus on the task at hand.

You find me someone who is doing that week after week, and I promise you they’re going to get better results than the person who scrolls their phone while they rest and puts 70% effort into each lift without really pushing themselves.

Intention vs. Intensity

Let’s make a distinction here because these two things are related, but they’re not interchangeable.

Intention is deliberately directing your attention toward the specific objective of the exercise or set.

Intensity is the degree of effort you’re putting into that task.

You can have high intensity without much intention. You can work really hard, sweat, and exhaust yourself without actually focusing on what you’re trying to accomplish.

And intention doesn’t necessarily mean going as hard as humanly possible every single set. It means knowing what you’re trying to accomplish and directing your attention toward that objective.

Maybe you’re trying to move a heavy weight. Maybe you’re trying to maintain a strong core brace. Maybe you’re focusing on keeping your feet active so you can create active hips. Maybe you’re doing a ballistic movement and trying to produce as much power as possible. Maybe you’re trying to maintain tension throughout a set. Or maybe you’re preparing yourself mentally to commit to a certain number of reps.

The objective changes. Your intention should follow it.

Let Me Give You an Example

The other day I was finishing my heavy seated rows, and my goal was to increase from 3 sets of 5 last week to 3 sets of 6 this week.

First off, when you’re doing one of your heavy compound exercises, you should be resting at least 3 minutes if you’re trying to develop strength. If you’re someone who says they get so bored waiting between sets and usually waits around 60 seconds, I have news for you: you might be shortchanging your performance.

Many people feel ready after 60 seconds, but feeling ready and being fully recovered enough to perform your best aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Rest periods are a training variable. Heavy compound lifts generally benefit from longer rest periods, while smaller accessory exercises like biceps curls or lateral raises usually don’t require as much. And if you’re an advanced lifter, reducing your rest while maintaining the same weight, sets, and reps can be another way to challenge yourself and progress.

The point is to use your rest periods intentionally.

I get it. It can be boring. I tend to be someone who paces back and forth in the gym or focuses on counting breaths until my allotted rest is done. If you really cannot sit there, you can do some mobility. For example, if you’re doing an upper-body day, do some hip mobility between sets and maximize your time.

Think of it like a progress bar in a video game. You just used up a bunch of energy, and now you have to wait for the bar to refill before you can go again. Don’t keep hitting the button because you’re bored. Give yourself the time you need to be ready for the next round.

It’s three minutes. You’re in the gym for an hour. Be present and put your focus on what you’re doing to get the most out of it.

Anyway, I got my first two sets, and I could feel in my mind that I was excited. I was getting stronger and about to hit my goal.

What I didn’t realize was that this little lapse in focus before completing all three sets was my brain’s way of bitching out and telling myself, “It’s okay, you improved from last week, and we can get the third set next week.”

I started my third set, and when I was finishing my fifth rep, I started thinking, “Oh man, this is heavy. I don’t know if I can get my sixth rep.”

Sure enough, when I went to pull, I lost focus and lost the rep.

That rep and set weren’t a complete failure by any means, but I believe that rep was lost on focus and intention alone.

It’s easy to think I wasn’t strong enough to do it but that wasn’t the case.

I will not make that mistake again next week.

Intention Is a Skill You Have to Build

Now here’s the hard part to stomach. You have to build this skill of intention.

You likely aren’t going to be great at walking into a gym and, for 15–20 sets across 4–6 exercises or whatever your plan happens to be, being completely present on every set, pushing yourself to achieve your goal, focusing between sets, preparing for what you’re about to do, and executing without fail.

It’s a skill that has to be built over time.

I see this all the time with clients. I hand them a weight, and they tell me they aren’t sure if they can do it. They say it’s going to be really hard. They say I must have more faith in them than they have in themselves. They say they don’t know if they have it today.

Now, this doesn’t mean they fail every time they say something negative like this, but I promise you it doesn’t help.

The times these clients do the best are when we take a second before the set and focus on the fact that it’s going to be hard. That’s the entire point. We’re going to give it everything we have to dominate the reps we’re about to do.

The difference is simple: intention and focus so you can push yourself.

Again, this isn’t that complex or unique of a topic, but I see it day in and day out, and it matters.

Don’t even get me started on the fact that most people in the gym are using a weight that, when they finish the set, they could likely do another 5–10 reps with. They’re nowhere near the intensity they need to be working at to achieve certain goals.

Sure, I’ll do the political thing here: I don’t know what every single person is doing in their workout, whether they have an injury, or what else is going on. But I’ve also gotten pretty damn good at getting a general sense of who is in there training with intention and who doesn’t have a clue yet.

Back to intention being a skill you can build. How do you build it?

Well, like usual, there’s a mentality connection here. Fitness is the physical thing you can see, and how you talk to yourself is the gas you put in the engine to do the physical thing.

Instead of scrolling your phone or bullshitting with other people about nothing, go through your checklist of what you need to focus on during the exercise.

Get your mind right and tell yourself you’re going to get these reps and move this heavy weight like it’s light.

This sounds like such a corny motivational lifting YouTube video, but I promise you if you did this for every exercise and most of your workouts, you’d make twice as much progress as you are now.

The Other Side of Intention

But here’s the caveat: intentions are also bullshit.

What do I mean by this?

Intentions matter most when you’re about to do the thing. Most people love to talk about their intentions after the fact, when they didn’t do what they set out to do.

People love to mention that they planned on working out four days this week and only got one or two. They love mentioning that they planned to eat better this week, but this happened and that happened and something else made it really hard, so they didn’t do it.

They planned on doing cardio after their workout, but they were really tired and had other stuff to do, so they didn’t do it. But they’ll do it next week. Or maybe they’ll do twice as much tomorrow to make up for it.

It works the same way with other stuff.

Every time you fight with your significant other and say it’s going to be different next time, and then it never is.

When you say you’re going to work on your side hustle at home when you have extra time, and then you never do.

When you tell yourself you want to fix your money problems, yet you keep doing the same things.

When you say you want to switch jobs because you can’t stand all the things going on with your current job, but you just keep complaining about the same things over and over to people.

Your brain and your body don’t know what your intentions were, and they don’t recognize them. They don’t receive any type of positive boost when you tell people you intended on doing something.

Those are nothing but things for YOU to negate the feeling you have, get some sympathy, or convince people you’re going to do it next time.

An intention can either direct your behavior or become an excuse for your behavior.

And here’s the thing: repeating those intentions doesn’t cement a new habit or pattern. It can actually become the pattern that keeps you stuck doing exactly what you’re doing.

You get to feel like you’ve acknowledged the problem and made a promise to change without actually having to change anything.

Keep Your Word

This goes back to another article I wrote: Keep Your Word.

Intentions only matter when you follow through, whether it’s correcting your mental habits, patterns, and cycles or preparing to do a heavy squat.

Be present. Find that moment right before something happens where you get to choose in real time to set your intention and follow through on it.

The more you do that, the stronger you make the muscle that keeps your word and makes you present enough to do something with focus and intensity.

If you can do that over and over in the gym, I promise you that moves the needle more than all of the other little things you hear people obsessing about.

Get in there, dominate the hour or so you’re in the gym, and really fucking work hard.

Intention Is Both Everything and Nothing

Intention is everything when it directs your attention toward the thing you’re about to do.

It’s nothing when it becomes another story you tell yourself about what you were going to do.

You don’t need perfect music, perfect equipment, perfect recovery, or perfect circumstances. You don’t need to train in a barn or a laboratory. Use what helps you. Challenge yourself without it sometimes. Learn to adapt.

But whatever you choose to do, be there.

Put your phone down. Know what you’re trying to accomplish. Give yourself the time and attention to do it. And when the moment comes to follow through, follow through.

Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how good your intentions sound.

It matters what you do with them.