PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD is the one key principle behind all results and is of paramount importance if you want to move your training forward. This technique is recognized as the foundation for progression and, if used correctly, is the key to unlocking your true potential in any form of training.
What is progressive overload? It refers to gradual increase of stress on the body through physical activity. By consistently challenging your body with more than it is used to you will initiate physiological change in the form of greater strenght, power and speed, to name just a few.
Here are seven keys to unlocking powerful results
1. Increase resistance. Up the weight you are lifting with each workout as you progressively get stronger
2. Increase repetitions. By increasing the reps, it will ensure that muscles are working under tension for longer during each workout. This is the key component to muscle growth, although it must be noted that when performing too many reps you may hinder muscle growth and strength. However, it will benefit substantially if training for muscular endurance.
3. Increase sets. Again, it will increase total time under tension for each workout.
4. Increase the amount of exercises. Add more exercises to help fatigue a certain muscle group or overall to help expend more energy for each workout.
5. Increase training frequency. Be extra careful when increasing your training frequency, each muscle group needs at least 48 hours to 72 hours before it is ready to be trained again. Doing too much with not enough rest will lead to over-training zone.
6. Be progressive with exercises. If one has been doing machine chest press for a while, it's maybe time to step up to barbell chest press or dumbbell chest press. Then upscale it to cables press etc. This will ensure that the body gets new challenge and figuring out new movement patterns.
7. Decrease rest time. Decreasing rest breaks between exercises will ensure our body is working at a greater intensity.
Give it a try and Good Luck!
How To Avoid Overtraining
Over-training implies that the participant is exercising too hard, for too long, and with insufficient recovery time in between training sessions to allow adequate body regeneration and repair. And what this eventually leads to is ongoing fatigue, poor results, injury and eventually dropping out of their fitness program.
One of the most common injuries that can occur in the over-trained weight trainer is chronic shoulder pain, especially if the participant is in their first 12 to 18 months of training.
Additionally, if the person is also on a split routine (a system where the workout is divided into exercise movements) you need to ensure the movements selected provide adequate recovery time between each training session.
In the early days of formal exercise prescription it was common to design split routines to work specific muscles (e.g back, shoulders, chest); however, some current program design focuses more on the actual movements, rather than the muscles. A split routine may include squat and push movements on day one; bending and pulling movements on day two; and on day three lunge and twist movements.
Here are some tips about how to avoid overtraining:
- Get to know your body well enough that you know when you are at the peak. If you are dragging your bag into the gym and falling asleep on the leg press then you are most likely better off at home resting
- The actual recovery time needed between exercise bouts is usually longer than you think and is affected by such factors as the intensity of your exercise session, your nutrition, quality of sleeps, and overall stress level
- Hold off on those split routines and multi-exercises per body part routines until you see your results plateau, and certainly wait for well over 12 months before even contemplating these more advanced programs.
- Resist the temptation to do your weight training on consecutive days. There is a lot of benefit to be had from following a simple full body weight training program done on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for example
- Lethargy
- Lack of Training Motivation
- Loss of strength and exercise performance
- Loss of appetite
- Loss of libido
- Chronic joint aches and pains
- Irritability and tiredness
Good Luck!
Superset Training
SUPERSETS BENEFITS
Spice up your boring old workout routine with an innovative workout style known as super setting. But what is super setting you may ask? Superset training involves combining exercises, (usually two) and performing these two exercises in a row without any rest in between sets.
There are three major reasons why Supersets are so effective for training (and there are many more specific reasons that apply only to specific Superset types):
TYPE OF SUPER SETS
1. The Single Body-part Super set
This is the typical type of Super-set where you use two different exercises for the same body-part. An example of this doing a pull-down for the back then immediately doing a seated cable row for the back.
The benefit of this is to hit somewhat different fibers of the muscle from different angles but without giving the bodypart time to recover from the first exercise. This forces the body-part to work that much harder to complete the second exercise.
It’s a powerful increase in intensity and one that can dramatically ramp up muscle development.
2. Antagonistic Super-sets
Instead of doing two sets in a row for the same muscle, you will do two sets for directly opposing (antagonistic) muscle groups. An example of this is doing a bicep exercise then a triceps exercise.
Antagonistic Super-sets are excellent for allowing you to compress workout time while maintaining high strength levels. When you work an opposing muscle group directly after the original muscle, studies have shown that the nervous system activation can actually increase strength in the second muscle group when you work it.
The shoulders don’t technically have any direct antagonist muscle groups, but you can work with the specific shoulder exercise movements to do the opposite movement. For example, you can do dumbbell shoulder press then go directly into pull-downs for the back. You can also do rear dealt lateral then dumbbell flies.
The antagonist muscle to the two major calf muscles is called the tibial anterior. It’s a small and relatively weak muscle compared to the major calf muscles (the gastronomic and the coleus) and not particularly useful for doing Supersets with.
3. Pre-Exhaust Supersets
This type of Superset focuses on first utilizing an isolation (single joint) movement to "pre-exhaust" the target muscle group before doing a compound (multi-joint) movement to allow the secondary mover muscles to push the target muscle harder.
In English, that means you start with an exercise that works just the target muscle, such as a dumbell flye. When you’re done, you use an exercise that works the target muscle with help from other muscles, e.g. the bench press.
The net result is that you first exhaust the pecs with the flyes. When you move to the bench press, the pecs get help from the triceps and shoulders to help keep moving the weight, pushing the pecs much harder than they would normally have to work when doing the bench press.
The result of this is much faster muscle development!
4. Post Exhaust Supersets
The opposite of pre exhaust is post exhaust. In a post exhaust superset you would again choose a basic compound movement and an isolation movement. This time, however, you would perform the compound movement first and the isolation movement second. The advantage of the post exhaust superset is that you will be fresh on the compound movement so you can use more weight.
5. Compound Supersets
This type of superset is reserved for very brave people. Supersetting two compound exercises together can create amazing muscle growth in a very short period of time, but it's incredibly demanding and exhausting. It takes all the energy you can muster to get through a series of compound supersets. If you use relatively heavy weights, it is also very taxing on the nervous system and requires that special attention be paid to recovery after the session. You DO NOT need many sets when you use compound supersets.
Spice up your boring old workout routine with an innovative workout style known as super setting. But what is super setting you may ask? Superset training involves combining exercises, (usually two) and performing these two exercises in a row without any rest in between sets.
There are three major reasons why Supersets are so effective for training (and there are many more specific reasons that apply only to specific Superset types):
- Supersets increase Lactic Acid production, which helps boost Growth Hormone (GH) levels in the body. The body responds to the reduced pH (increased acidity) in the body from the production of Lactic Acid by secreting GH. GH is a powerful fat loss and muscle building hormone.
- Supersets are time-efficient. By doing sets back-to-back, you reduce your total workout time while still doing the same amount of total work. If you’re in a hurry in your workout, Supersets can get you out of the gym faster.
- Different Superset combinations can help increase muscle fiber activation. Essentially, this means you can use specific exercise combinations to increase the intensity of work on a specific muscle, helping to develop it faster.
TYPE OF SUPER SETS
1. The Single Body-part Super set
This is the typical type of Super-set where you use two different exercises for the same body-part. An example of this doing a pull-down for the back then immediately doing a seated cable row for the back.
The benefit of this is to hit somewhat different fibers of the muscle from different angles but without giving the bodypart time to recover from the first exercise. This forces the body-part to work that much harder to complete the second exercise.
It’s a powerful increase in intensity and one that can dramatically ramp up muscle development.
2. Antagonistic Super-sets
Instead of doing two sets in a row for the same muscle, you will do two sets for directly opposing (antagonistic) muscle groups. An example of this is doing a bicep exercise then a triceps exercise.
Antagonistic Super-sets are excellent for allowing you to compress workout time while maintaining high strength levels. When you work an opposing muscle group directly after the original muscle, studies have shown that the nervous system activation can actually increase strength in the second muscle group when you work it.
The shoulders don’t technically have any direct antagonist muscle groups, but you can work with the specific shoulder exercise movements to do the opposite movement. For example, you can do dumbbell shoulder press then go directly into pull-downs for the back. You can also do rear dealt lateral then dumbbell flies.
The antagonist muscle to the two major calf muscles is called the tibial anterior. It’s a small and relatively weak muscle compared to the major calf muscles (the gastronomic and the coleus) and not particularly useful for doing Supersets with.
3. Pre-Exhaust Supersets
This type of Superset focuses on first utilizing an isolation (single joint) movement to "pre-exhaust" the target muscle group before doing a compound (multi-joint) movement to allow the secondary mover muscles to push the target muscle harder.
In English, that means you start with an exercise that works just the target muscle, such as a dumbell flye. When you’re done, you use an exercise that works the target muscle with help from other muscles, e.g. the bench press.
The net result is that you first exhaust the pecs with the flyes. When you move to the bench press, the pecs get help from the triceps and shoulders to help keep moving the weight, pushing the pecs much harder than they would normally have to work when doing the bench press.
The result of this is much faster muscle development!
4. Post Exhaust Supersets
The opposite of pre exhaust is post exhaust. In a post exhaust superset you would again choose a basic compound movement and an isolation movement. This time, however, you would perform the compound movement first and the isolation movement second. The advantage of the post exhaust superset is that you will be fresh on the compound movement so you can use more weight.
Post exhaust supersets can also be used as a very effective variation on the heavy-light system (specifically, it's concurrent periodization where you use multiple rep range training in the SAME workout).
For example, instead of just doing the regular sets of 8-12 reps, choose a heavy basic movement for the first exercise and do about 6 reps. Then, follow it with a lighter isolation movement and go for 20 reps. This gives you the best possible of both worlds: a) size and strength increase, and b) isolation with a wicked pump.
5. Compound Supersets
This type of superset is reserved for very brave people. Supersetting two compound exercises together can create amazing muscle growth in a very short period of time, but it's incredibly demanding and exhausting. It takes all the energy you can muster to get through a series of compound supersets. If you use relatively heavy weights, it is also very taxing on the nervous system and requires that special attention be paid to recovery after the session. You DO NOT need many sets when you use compound supersets.
An example would be supersetting squats with leg presses. Another is the bent over row with a romanian deadlift (absolutely KILLER!... but avoid if you have low back problems). Combination like these can easily leave you lying flat on your back gasping for air, but the results are well worth it!
Good Luck and Happy Training!
Circuit Training
Many of you may have heard of this term before but don't have a clue what is a circuit training, how to perform them, and what their advantages and disadvantages. This article will cover a little bit about circuit training to help you widen out the knowledge.
Circuit Training is a combination of high-intensity aerobics and resistance training designed to be easy to follow and target fat loss, muscle building and heart fitness. The exercises provide a good basic workout, which works the entire body, and can be done at varying paces depending on the fitness levels of the participants.
How to perform a circuit training? First thing first, one will need to design sets of trainings (3 to 4 exercises) - mix between aerobic exercises and light weight training. And then one needs to perform it sequentially without rest in between exercises to complete a set of circuit. Repeat to 3-4 sets of each circuit with 1-2 minutes rest between each set.
Circuit Training is a combination of high-intensity aerobics and resistance training designed to be easy to follow and target fat loss, muscle building and heart fitness. The exercises provide a good basic workout, which works the entire body, and can be done at varying paces depending on the fitness levels of the participants.
How to perform a circuit training? First thing first, one will need to design sets of trainings (3 to 4 exercises) - mix between aerobic exercises and light weight training. And then one needs to perform it sequentially without rest in between exercises to complete a set of circuit. Repeat to 3-4 sets of each circuit with 1-2 minutes rest between each set.
Weight Training = Bulky Looks?
Many of you maybe hesitated to do weight lifting because of being afraid that you might look bulky by doing so. As a matter of fact, weight training does not give you the bulky look if you do the right training.
According to Wikipedia, "strength training can provide significant functional benefits and improvement in overall health and well-being, including increased bone, muscle, tendon and ligament strength and toughness, improved joint function, reduced potential for injury, increased bone density, a temporary increase in metabolism, improved cardiac function, and elevated HDL (good) cholesterol."
Also according to Wikipedia, "Due to the androgenic hormonal differences between males and females, the latter are generally unable to develop large muscles regardless of the training program used. Normally the most that can be achieved is a look similar to that of a fitness model. Muscle is denser than fat, so someone who builds muscle while keeping the same body weight will occupy less volume; if two people weigh the same (and are the same height) but have different lean body mass percentages, the one with more muscle will appear thinner."
Whether you want to lose fat or change your body, one of the most important things you can do is lift weights. Diet and cardio are equally important, but when it comes to changing how your body looks, weight training wins hands down. If you've hesitated to start a strength training program, it may motivate you to know that lifting weights can:
- Help raise your metabolism. Muscle burns more calories than fat, so the more muscle you have, the more calories you'll burn all day long.
- Strengthen bones, especially important for women
- Make you stronger and increase muscular endurance
- Help you avoid injuries
- Increase your confidence and self-esteem
- Improve coordination and balance
So for some of you who always do the cardiovascular training whenever you go to the gym thinking that it will shed your fat, you may want to change your habit. You may want to start combining those cardiovascular training with light weight lifting to help increasing your metabolism level.
Good luck!
First Time Gym Goer
It is assumed that you've decided to join the gym. For people who have not been to the gym before, they may feel intimidated at the thought of joining one.
It is a common issue that the first time gym goer doesn't know what to do at the gym. They ended up choose to walk on the treadmill for hours because they are afraid to use the other equipments.
Then, what should we do as a first time gym goer apart from running on that treadmills for hours? These are some tips you may want to try if you are a first time gym goer:
a. Most of the gyms offer new member orientation, either in the form of the so called “free personal training” session or more formal type of walk through. The staffs will show you where the locker is and what gym etiquette is. Usually you will be guided by a personal trainer during your free session. The personal trainer will ask about your goal, your previous trainings, take measurement of height and weight and also body fat percentage.
During this free sessions, it is suggested to ask the personal trainer everything you want to know about the gym. How to use the equipments, how to train properly, the correct form to lift weight, or about nutrition. It's not to make fool of yourself or anything, but to avoid serious injury in the long run.
b. Once the free sessions are over, the personal trainer usually will ask if you want to continue to train with him/her. Most of the personal training sessions are costly but it is suggested to join few sessions to get more familiar with the equipment around the gym. But if you are confident enough to train on your own, it's your choice.
c. At the end of the first visit, do not expect you have got a good workout. While that day may seem like a waste of time, knowing the gym more will make your next workout better. When you walk out of there, at least you have learned something new and you will be more comfortable next time.
d. If you sign up the gym membership with your friend, go with him. Get someone who share the similar fitness goal with you. You will find it easier to walk into the gym with a supporting buddy.
e. Do not forget to pack your soap or body shampoo if you plan to take shower there after the exercise. Some gyms provide basic toiletries free of charge. Commonly forgotten items are clean clothes or towel. You can borrow shampoo from others, but I doubt they will want to lend you their underwear.
f. Do your research over the internet or books about the training methods and moves. You can get a lot of useful information over the internet about gym training as well as from the books.
g. Always ask a question if you are not sure about how to use the particular equipment. Go look for a guy with "Personal Trainer" thing on their clothes. However, do not interrupt others when they are in the middle of lifting heavy weights.
All the above tips are practical and I certainly hope that you will not be scared. Gym is often less awful than you thought.
Mental Edge For Success
How we think about ourselves and how we think about food plays a huge role in long-term weight management success. Do you eat whenever you feel anxious? If food one of the few things that makes you feel better? How we feel can often be a result of what we eat but what we eat cam also be due to how we feel. For many people, food is more than just nutrition. Eating is something to do when you're bored, anxious or avoiding-dealing with emotions.
For many of us, raised from different background of families, learned that you maybe punished for not finishing our food, possibly comforted with food,rewarded with food, or even a guilty feeling if we didn't eat what was made just for us .
I remember when Mum used to say "We're going to cancel our trip to the Disneyland unless you clean your plate", "Behave yourself while Mum is shopping, I'll buy you a handful of candy later on", or "Here is a chips to make your skinned elbow feel better". I bet all of you remember having one of those situations before.
As we got older, this pattern of using food as the comforter become a habit and harder to break. This will eventually put us into a pattern of food being a cure for many emotional situations of life: stress, happy, boredom, anger, frustration, etc. And the end of the pattern is feeling guilty after ruining a healthy day within 5 minutes and throwing away all the hard work that preceded it.
What should we do about this?
Step one is recognizing the difference between hunger and an emotional craving. Many have abused food as an emotional fix for so long that they no longer recognize the difference. Hunger is when your body has to have something, almost anything. An emotional craving is "I'd feel better if I had this". If it is truly hunger, you will eat the available green beans. It it is an emotional craving, you will be drawn to eat fattening, comfort foods.
The biggest culprit of emotional eating is stress. In these times, food can be used as a tranquilizer. Stress is not something we can eliminate from our lives, but we can learn to better respond to the stresses that come our way. To help break the habit of turning to food when emotions begin to take over, find other things to do, such as:
- walk around the block
- take a bike ride
- play with your pet
- call a friend
- listen to the music
- read a book
- take a deep breath
- write a journal / blog
- play a computer game
Give it a try! Good Luck!
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