StrengthTrain

Bodybuilding to Strength Training

2014-09-17T04:24:00.001-07:00

When I first started lifting it was just in my bedroom, I had a couple of dumbell handles, cast iron weights and an ez curl bar. I was always interested in moving more and more Weight but realised at the time that the sets and reps were what made me look better and I vainly
plucked away for years not really knowing what I was doing.
I had read the odd mens health or muscle and fitness magazine and had a go at the workouts they had set out but never really stuck to anything for any length of time.
The catalyst for change in my opinion early on was when I started to use a little book to keep track of everything I done. I took the odd posing pic I look back at now and laugh but If your aims are to change how you look that's how you track your progress it was my original aim but only for a short period now it's simply a bi-product of the strength I am continually trying to gain.
Obviously both strength training and bodybuilding are both done in the gym but that's kind of where the similarities stop,
If you have a bodybuilding background or are an aestethically driven gym goer you will no doubt have spend some time doing sets and reps a rigid routine of a warmup then 3-4 sets of 6-8 reps for each exercise.
The movements you will be used to in the gym are probably mostly isolation of One muscle at a time, one or two muscle groups per session.
The difference with strength training mainly lies with the warm ups and sets and reps but also the isolation movements in the gym while sometimes lift specifically utilised serve as more of a post compound movement exhaustion or a fault correction exercise for a particular compound movement.
Incase you didnt understand that last part I'll give an example you may be used to training your lats (ie lat pulldowns or rows or pullups) as a Main staple in your back training. However in strength training it would be used a supplementary movement to be performed after your working sets for your chosen compound movement that session. (I.e Deadlifts to aid with keeping your shoulders back and fight back rounding)
Your main lift layouts for strength training would be more like 12-20 reps with an empty bar, warmup slowly increasing the weight and reducing the reps till you are achieving single sets of 5-1 reps increasing in weight until the load becomes to much ( that's right if you are working towards a 1 rep max you will be doing multiple sets of singles and doubles) this is the main difference reduced reps increased loads.
With a powerlifting type "split" we will call it so you bodybuilders can relate. It would look something like
Mon- squat + supplementary exercises
Wed- bench or pressing + ''
Fri- deadlifts + "

HOPE THIS HELPS ANYONE TRYING TO MAKE THE CHANGES FROM A BODYBUILDING TYPE TRAINING TO A MORE STRENGTH BASED PROGRAM. :D

Lats the way to do it!

2014-06-17T09:35:00.001-07:00

In my last post, I wrote about importance of mind muscle connection with strength training of any kind in this post I will speak about the lats and how simply you can create this mind muscle connection and begin to see isolated results even with compound movements in your training which should then show you how important and effective this "connection" is.
To someone who doesnt train this is quite probably jibberish. Your lats will become like an extra limb between you shoulders and spine and a supporting platform for your triceps.
Once they get to a reasonable size you will completely understand the last sentence.
And this is how you get there.......

When I started training my back a couple years after I started training ashamedly :s
I was training all wrong of course at the time I had no idea I was using the lat pull down wrongly. I was tugging down 100kg
For 6-8 reps and wondered why only my arms seemed to grow from it, because I wasnt a bodybuilder or interested in growing the aesthetic look of my lats I was training them very ineffectively.

All I cared about was shifting the weight because I was under the illusion proudly that a strength athlete should only care about moving the weight. It wasn't ego... It might be with some but it wasn't with me I just wasn't interested in moving light weights and squeezing reps because I thought it was a bodybuilders training for a bodybuilders body.
But let's get something straight bodybuilders target the muscles they are working very well!
They are the best at this because they want to isolate the muscle to cause it to grow.
So instead of being proud I should have watched them and learned since I trained in a gym surrounded and owned by some very very succesful bodybuilders.

Once I learned to
1 roll back my shoulders..
2 tilt my ribcage so my chest was out as far as possible.
3 and pinch my shoulder blades together to the point where they were nearly cramping.
My lats started to grow!!! And the mind muscle connection along with that growth helped me correct my deadlift form, create a good arch for bench and use the size I had created in my lats as a platform to push my triceps from in all varieties of benchwork even standing dumbell press.
All of which allowed me to start moving greater loads in these areas!

I hope this shows you the importance of mind muscle connection in the lats and training with proper form and not wasting your time in the gym with ineffective training!

MIND MUSCLE CONNECTION, ESSENTIAL IN TRAINING.....

2013-07-30T04:57:00.002-07:00

While I am a huge believer in using heavy weights in the gym, I'm also aware of the risks it involves for inexperienced gym goers. If you are new to strength training, chances are you haven't really made those strong mind to muscle connections that are required to properly overload your muscles.

What do I mean?

Lets use Lats for example, Training middle back seemed very vague to me in the first years of training, as I hadn't developed the size in the muscle and that mind muscle connection needed to advance. To explain further movements like Lat pull downs, Pull ups, Dumbbell and barbell Rows didn't quite feel as effective as they do now, there was a vagueness I wasn't fully aware of the muscles I was engaging and the shape my body had to retain to engage those muscles through these movements. This applies to ALL parts of the body and even compound movements. You may think you even have a movement like deadlift or squat or benchpress down to a T.

There is almost always something else to learn to advance. A muscle you may not be fully utilizing which could bring one of these compound lifts on.

Bodybuilders have excellent mind muscle connection because they Often watch themselves as they lift in a mirror (obviously some lifts are impossible for this) They Physically see the muscle fibres engaging and squeezing on demand this is mind muscle connection and it is ESSENTIAL TO GAINING STRENGTH IN ANYTHING.

You need to know the muscles that are required for a specific movement and you need to teach yourself to REALLY FEEL them engage.

It is essential then that to avoid injury also, you do not train overly heavy if you have 'this VAGUENESS present while doing any movement.

In my next post I'll use pull ups/lat pulldowns to explain how to properly engage the lats and how it carries over to every Lat movement, as well as helping with bench and deadlift AN ESSENTIAL set of muscles to know how to properly engage in training.

Don't Let Your Body Forget What Hard Work Is

2013-06-17T09:41:00.004-07:00

You may have a desk job, where the hours in a day merge together in a head-spinning pile of words and numbers, graphs and calculations. You might work in the wind and rain, picking up and moving large weights all day constantly moving to the point your body aches. By the end of any given day you are so drained that you cannot think about any sort of physical activity, even standing in front of the cooker to prepare a meal that you are desperate to eat seems a task.

I am not about say either job is harder than the other, I'm not about to say that either of the two different job types make a better or stronger individual in the gym. There are certain obvious carry-overs that come from a physical job but there are also advantages from the physical "rest" that a seated job gives an individual particularly in energy levels come gym time. Whatever your situation come gym time,when your geared up to go, Its ultimately important that you have not let your body forget what hard work is....

What do I mean? Recently I competed at a national level in my sport. I definitely consider myself a novice at it if I didn't before, mainly because of the unexpected intensity of the competition. I have competed before but this events laid out for this day were for guys at the peak of strength in this country. I was genuinely honored to be involved. I would definitely say my intensity in training has dropped noticeably. I never have a problem motivating myself to get to the gym but sometimes mid lift that is another story.

STAMP OUT YOUR WEAKNESSES

I have spoken before about positiveness and negativity in the gym and how greatly they affect performance.

The Two are hugely related You need to always tell yourself 110% because if you are always lifting 100% you are not edging on to new ground. Every time you enter the gym, Every time you approach the bar,

Every Time a Lift Sticks!!! Thats when you need that intensity!! tell your body its time to remember what hard work is. IF YOUR NOT SURPRISED BY WHAT YOU ACHIEVE, MAYBE YOUR NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH!!! and if on reading this your reflex thoughts are along the lines of..... but its hard when your tired from work ..... or thats easy for you to say .... or something like that. Give up now!

BECAUSE YOUR IN THE WRONG PLACE!

Eat nothing...lose weight?

2013-02-02T06:36:00.001-08:00

Go into any newsagents or supermarket and the shelfs are littered with magazines featuring skinny women. There are far too many fad diets out there that encourage women to eat next to no food each day on order to obtain there dream body. The truth is that a very low calorie diet and exercise can be as unhealthy as a high calorie diet and no exercise. People really need to start understanding there body Someone who eats too little is just as bad as someone who neglects there body in other ways whatever that may be. The human body is designed to feed off it's reserved when there is no other source of nutrition. Eating muscle tissue etc remember your heart is made up of cardiac muscle tissue so you can imagine the damage you are doing when you aren't taking in enough food.
Rather than starving yourself in an attempt to lose weight. Remain eating a balanced diet and exercise as often as you can. Find any physical activity you enjoy and get better at it. If you are physically unable to exercise. Reduce your meal portions slightly and eat more often. Sounds strange but eating smaller amounts every 3 hours keeps your metabolism at its optimum performance, maximising ur body's built in weight loss system.
Hope this helps people to understand a bit better. If it helps even one person understand that starving yourself can be more dangerous that you think then I'm happy. Thanks for reading ;)

Deload to Reload.

2012-10-01T09:51:00.001-07:00

For those of you who like myself have been training for quite a number of years you will be familiar with the aches and pains that heavy lifting brings along. U can supplement to prevent too much damage to your joints and connective tissues but when u are training with weights. Deloading is just important as rest between workouts. If you aren't incorporating some sort of Deload work in your training begin now. Deloading can be time off from weights or an allocated time which your training takes a step down in intensity. It can restart growth stop, niggling pains give you a boost in calories (as long as you still eat like your training) you will be burning less calories. How much less obviously depends on how you choose to Deload. Replacing weight training with cardio sessions can also act as a Deloading phase. DON'T NEGLECT THE DELOAD. Use all the tools available to you to achieve your goals.

Overtrain To Restart Gains!!

2012-09-28T07:17:00.001-07:00

Ask yourself how often you train. You might answer 3 maybe 4 times a wk. If you are training for strength and you are training heavy this is great! Commend yourself If you are training intensely enough and eating and resting right you are going to make great advancement as long as you remember to VARY YOUR ROUTINE.
One way to do this is to train every day for one or 2 wks!!

That's overtraining!! You might say?...
And I would agree with you if this was advice for prolonged use....But it's not!
This is another plateau destroyer!! Not to be used for prolonged periods but to shock your body into growth and gains.

Pick your heavy days these will likely be the days you already train or maybe the days between. Use the days between heavy days to train lighter weights and smaller muscle groups. Such as abs, forearms, calfs for instance. These muscle groups heal faster and won't cause top much disruption to your heavy workouts in the following days. This platuea buster is best used when cutting or trying to lose bodyfat as the extra 3 or 4 routines every week boost you calorie consumption greatly and help you reach your fat loss goals while building lean muscle.

Follow my blog regularly I will be posting more thanks to the blogger app on iPhone :D

The largest enemy in the gym! NEGATIVITY!

2012-02-02T01:56:00.000-08:00

You walk into the gym and you aren't feeling your usual self. You are full of complex carbohydrates and a pre-workout protein dose as usual but you feel less energetic. It cant always be explained by how well you have eaten previous days or how much sleep you had over the weekend. Sometimes you just feel lethargic. This is a killer. NO MATTER WHAT you need to step out of this frame of mind.

Everyone is different in this respect someone might think about there goal and dwell on that as a remedy for lethargy. Others may think of another persons training maybe a friend or even a competitor, DO NOT forget although everyone has off days this might just be your competitors PB day!!

That spurs me on.. as I say everyone is different. So find your motivation and use it when you most need it. I have seen myself on a second or third set struggling with a weight and when your motivator comes into mind suddenly you feel stronger.

Stay positive always lift like AN ANIMAL in the gym!!

DON'T UNDERESTIMATE POSITIVITY IN TRAINING. Its what will always help you to finish that last set or get that final rep. don't let negative thoughts creep in about how you lifted more last week or you don't feel as strong. it doesn't help anyone apart from maybe those who compete against you!

ALWAYS THINK POSITIVE THOUGHTS , ESPECIALLY THROUGHOUT A LIFT!!

DO NOT STAGNATE IN YOUR LIFTING

2012-01-04T04:32:00.000-08:00

Anything too familiar to you in your training is likely to be holding you back. Try to take a fresh look at your training every 3-4 weeks ideally. You can do a routine longer than this and still achieve results, as long as you are constantly pushing the weight up slightly or increasing reps or sets.

Don't underestimate a small change in the exertion and timing in the same exercises to reignite muscle growth.

By that I mean concentrating on power in the positive phase of an exercise or slow steady reps over a 3 or 5 count. Try to apply at least one change like this to the dynamics of your workouts and you will notice a difference in muscle soreness in the days following. Do it for a few weeks and you will notice your body becoming less and less tender. The comfortable feeling in the following days after a workout IS good because it means your body is changing to adapt to the load but it should also raise alarm bells to bring about a change. No one likes to stop doing an exercise they have became adept at but unfortunately it may be necessary to put that specific exercise on hold for a few weeks for best advancement.

When we are not sore we are content as humans....... but as lifters we need to turn that on its head post workout muscle tenderness should be a permanent thing if we are training correctly.

Forearm Workout!! ADVANCED AND BEGINNERS

2011-12-15T15:44:00.000-08:00

Solve your forearm aches and pains by producing strong, powerful forearms. Even if it isn’t something you are suffering from you can only benefit by training forearms on the days between your training of the larger muscle groups.

I sometimes train forearms twice weekly, I feel it really improves my chest, shoulder, bicep and triceps workouts. I should point out that you should maybe train forearms on a training day when starting out at it, you will quickly get used to it and when your recovery improves you can slot it in between days at the gym or training larger muscles.

The reason I say in between the gym is because I train forearms at home in front of the t.v on the days between gym days J. You can train forearms at home as easily as you can in the gym. BUT!! You NEED!!!.. to be sure that you are not going to over extend your wrist in either direction when wrist curling heavy weights. To be sure of this set up something like this..

..Obviously you should imagine /\ Samson /\ is holding a dumbbell or a plate or something but the illustration is just to show that you need something in place to stop you over extending at the bottom of the movement and injuring yourself. DONT THINK YOU CAN JUST DROP A WEIGHT.. if you do, the damage could be done before you even let go of the weight because as you open your hand (palm up) the weight will roll out of your hand opening it quickly and forcing your wrist into a vulnerable position.

FOREARM INJURY CAN POTENTIALLY DESTROY THE REST OF YOUR TRAINING SO TREAT IT WITH DUE RESPECT AND DO IT CAREFULLY.

You can also over extend at the top of the movement and cause injury if the weights are heavy enough so be careful of this aswell.

Start light with your workouts and keep the reps high

10kg dumbbell wrist curls (palm up)

20 + 20 + 20 (3sets20reps)

Curl your wrist through the whole range of motion slowly and squeeze at the top for each rep

2.5kg Reverse curls (palm down)

20 + 20 + 20

Sounds very light but to begin with you will only need a very small weight. Even when you are advanced this exercise does not require alot of weight.

You can lower the reps and increase the weight once you are familiar with the movements and performing them safely but don’t drop the reps to less than 12 unless you plateau and even then not for a long period of time, a month at the most. Just to get you out of the rut.

Also you can incorporate POWERBALLS for warm up and warm down operate them for 2mins or so at the beginning and end of your workouts.

And GRIPPERS like Captians of Crush (other grippers available;) I would recommend you use grippers at the beginning of your workout after your warm-ups. You can do closes, partial closes, inverted closes, holds, inverted holds.

Or hang from a pull up bar for time build up to hanging with one hand. Be inventive with your workouts and try not to do the same thing for longer than 4-6 wks

TRAIN FOREARMS SAFELY BUT TRAIN THEM HARD FOR GREAT RESULTS THROUGHOUT YOUR WORKOUTS!!

Forearm pain specifically when training BICEPS

2011-12-10T06:07:00.000-08:00

Alot of people ask me about this, when you are training heavy biceps you start to feel a pain in your forearm. you feel that the best way to describe the pain is that it is deep within the bone. The pain is magnified tenfold when you open your hand or release the weight, in other words whenever you take the strain of your arms you recoil in pain. You also may find that when you supinate the wrist (raise the pinky side of the palm) the pain also worsens.

I have experienced this first hand!! I know the pain and just how bad it can get.

Many people will tell you to rest biceps, Others will tell you not to avoid training biceps but to avoid supinated curls or palm up (traditional bicep curls) replacing them with movements like hammer curls, to avoid the stress on the forearm. Although this will temporarily fix the problem after your body gets used to hammers in the same way and you start to increase in weight, you WILL feel pain again.So use this method of alleviating the stress and pain in your forearms, but while you do so, make the best use of the time you have to do the following and you may never have to stop training biceps (although maybe a week off would possibly also benefit your training, But this is more for when you plateau).

The BOTTOM LINE IS...... Your forearms are crying out because they are being left behind! They have went from being the strongest link in the chain (before you began training) to becoming one of the weakest...

Why do I say this? Anyone reading this... searching for this on the internet... I would make a large wager that they DO NOT regularly, effectively train there forearms.( IF YOU DO>>STOP TRAINING AND CONSULT A DOCTOR)

''I thought my forearms would get developed when I do my back,biceps, chest ......'' correct!! BUT not enough if you are starting to lift some heavy weights for biceps... Your forearms are taking the strain of that weight.. Its like strengthening both shores in the hope that a bridge will be able to take more weight... If the bridge is weak, it itself will need strengthening! Especially if you intend to increase the load at any time!

Strengthening your forearms is probably a different ball game than you are already used to. the regularity and methods of training are very different, In fact keep an eye out for my next post and I will walk you though exactly how to train forearms safely..

If you cant wait check out some of the related videos on my main page>

I USE POWERBALLS AND GRIPPERS TO FACILITATE MY FOREARM TRAINING BRILLIANT TOOLS!! look for links on my blog for best prices.

Set goals and always advance!

2011-11-28T05:17:00.000-08:00

As someone who is interested in strength training or just looking good, you must have a goal. If we do not have goals there is nothing to push us forward in our training. You should set your self a long term goal, this might very well change all the time as you develop. You might find it is too achievable or your goal might

simply change.

200kg aiming long term for 250kg then 300kg

As well as your ultimate goal you should set small goals towards attaining your ultimate goal. For instance your long term goal may be that you simply want to add 50-100Kg to a compound movement such as deadlift. In order to do so you will train deadlift, lower back, traps, abs and legs progressively to attain that goal. This in itself will keep you busy in the gym, you will never waste time standing around wondering what to do if you always no what you want to achieve. The simple obvious steps towards the example goal have highlighted, is increasing the weight you perform in very small increments over time, in order to eventually realise your goal.

The same way many small bricks are used to build a very large building. Simple in theory yet hard to achieve. There are obviously many ways to do this all though the principal always remains the same, INCREASE REPS PROGRESSIVELY, INCREASE WEIGHT GRADUALLY.

Incorporate more challenging movements into your regime.e.g For increasing deadlifts do good mornings. deficit deadlifts. use resistance bands or chains to develop power. All different ways to make deadlifts easier by getting your body used to doing harder movements.

I like to keep posts short as everyone is busy enough actually training to always be reading long posts check back again for training advice. TRAIN HARD! REST WELL!!

Ditch Bench to increase Bench

2011-11-21T03:22:00.000-08:00

Sounds silly but we can often put too much focus on a specific movement, while the way to increase strength in any area is to give your body something new that its never coped with.
For instance... have you ever done floor dumbbell or barbell press? have you ever tried heavy single dumbbell floor or bench press. The unfamiliarity of these movements can help to increase your strength very quickly. I completely understand any apprehension in not wanting to drop a staple exercise such as bench press. If you cant completely ditch the bench press keep a decline or incline press in your routine.bear in mind you only need 4 movements per muscle group. so a heavy single dumbbell floor press, dumbbell flys (thumbs out), dumbbell pullovers. and a decline bench press, would be a great change for 2-4 weeks then go back to flat bench and expect an increase in strength.
Any question or comments don't hesitate to contact me.

P.S DO NOT!!!!! START WITH PULLOVERS BE SURE YOUR SHOULDERS ARE WARMED UP WHEN YOU GET TO THIS IF YOU ARE INCORPORATING IT INTO YOUR WORKOUT.
P.S.S FOR HEAVY FLOOR PRESS DO NOT BRING WEIGHTS CRASHING DOWN AND HENCE YOUR ELBOWS AND ARMS TO THE FLOOR. KEEP MOVEMENTS CONTROLLED FOR SAFETY AND MAXIMUM GROWTH.

WEIGHT TRAINING FOR WOMEN??? Huge misunderstandings by many women

2011-10-27T03:33:00.000-07:00

Flicking through any strength training, body-building or fitness magazine you are bombarded by huge vascular mammoths of men. You see size that in your life, without the use of thousands of pounds of steroids you will never achieve. Not to say you cannot achieve similar strength through very very hard work and huge size.

One other thing you see in these magazines is a range of different looking women, some of which are sculpted by these same steroids (anabolic steroids) these manipulate hormones for growth within the body and within a female body it is filled with testosterone because of these steroids this creates huge muscular women, who (lets be honest) sometimes start to look like men! BUT alot of women don't want to look like this and sadly because of the way the industry is going these people are at the forefront of the ads and articles.

To any woman (and I know women think this!) DO NOT BE PUT OFF WEIGHT TRAINING!!
if you allow this to put you off you are limiting your time and the results you can achieve in the gym. Using weights in the gym can give great results for weight loss, core strength will increase. MORE CALORIES will be burnt in less time than it would using just cardio. You will begin to look great and feel great.

Do not forget our bodies are designed to cope with whatever we throw at it. If you have a routine of ONLY cardio, Imagine the results you can get by throwing intense weight sessions into the mix. Stick with sets of 12 or more for 3 or 4 sets start with 2 exercises per body part. once your body becomes used to this you can throw in as much as 4 or 5 exercises for isolation techniques. I haven't even mentioned compound movements which burn calories and manipulate change in the body like no other. Do not overlook this amazing life changer you will not look back ladies.

The cheapest and most effective workout tool, BY FAR!

2011-10-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

The single most effective tool for someone with any strength goal is also most definitely the cheapest!
what is it? A NOTEBOOK! It is unreal how much people go into a gym and aimlessly pluck away, using the same dumbbells and plates, week in and week out.
If you have never used a book in your training...start now!!
And before you make the excuse if having to hit the shops and find a handy pad, don't bother. use paper and buy one at your next convenience. As humans for some reason we have an excuse to put off everything, so dismiss any excuse that enters your head.

Why do you need a notebook?

How can anyone advance if they do not know where they started? With weight training for example, if you regularly take note of 3 things then you cannot help but advance in your training. You must take note of the weights lifted the reps and sets ''achieved'' (not expected to achieve but actually completed reps and sets) and rest times between sets.
When you go to start your next workout, have a quick look at the weights the reps and sets achieved and aim to beat that weight or the reps achieved or even an extra set.
This continual checking back will always mean you are striving to advance, you may not always beat previous weeks, but then next time you will make sure you give everything you have eat well before training and take your A game to the gym with a target in mind.very simple! you can achieve this without it written down if you have a good memory but chances are you will forget some detail and that detail could just be something you struggle with week after week.

Gym Membership or Home Gym?

2011-09-07T16:01:00.000-07:00

In this a cash strapped climate? alot of people are considering setting up a gym in there own homes. In order to know whether a gym membership or a home gym is right for you, first you need to ask yourself a few questions firstly what stage are you at in your training? are you motivated? do you have the initial outlay to buy equipment?lets quickly look at each of these questions...

What stage are you at in your training?

If you are lifting very heavy weights and you live in an upper flat, perhaps a gym membership IS for you? You have to take into consideration any load, including your bodyweight, the weights being used and the apparatus, on your floors or walls or roof.(wherever the load is applied). Only lift weights at home if the load is not too great for your home, If you are a beginner then a home gym is ideal as you will start with light weights and advance. However if you have access to a garage or a basement or an outdoor area there is no limit to how far you can advance at home.

Are You Motivated?

To successfully workout at home and advance you have to be highly motivated and organised. It is very very easy to substitute a nights training for a night in front of the t.v. and there is not the same motivation once you start your workout to see it through to the end. As well as this alot of people struggle when there is no one else to motivate them or watch them as they are training. Personally I think this has alot to do with your personality and what your motivation for training is. For example if you want to become a bodybuilder and you are a very confident person, you might love the ''performing'' side of lifting in the gym and that might drive you.

Do you have the initial outlay to buy equipment?

This is alot cheaper than you might think, especially if you are a beginner you can buy things like dipping stations, squat racks, benches, barbells and dumbell handles on ebay second hand. There will always be people who have lost motivation for home workouts or people who have purchased new equipment or joined a gym and no longer need there equipment. Make use of ebays ability to localise your search and use gumtree to look for local people selling or giving away equipment. I emphasise looking for local ads to keep postage costs down, after all we are talking about purchasing weights and things are posted according to weight.

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Obviously there are considerations like, expense, how close a gym is to your home, whether the regularity with which you can attend the gym will make it worth while. Whether there are any other facilities at a chosen gym which you will also use. Hopefully this has helped anyone who is trying to make this informed decision.

If anyone reads this and wants specific advice contact me. Thanks for reading! ;)

Busy Gym?!

2011-08-27T02:51:00.000-07:00

BUSY GYM?

Too many people enter a gym with no aim, or purpose. This is only fuelled by a certain degree of fear or shyness, no one wants to be seen standing around. So sometimes one is forced to revert to somewhere they feel comfortable in the gym or forego certain exercises or machines altogether because there is someone using that machine or because they just don’t feel confident enough yet. These are the mental hurdles of the gym. They are just as important as the physical “hurdles” that we have to overcome in our training.

Always have a plan, not necessarily a plan that was put in place week before or days before but before your feet hit the floor in that gym you should have a plan. You also need a back up plan.

So for instance if I go into the gym and there is no squat racks free I would revert to the often unused leg press machine and keep an eye on the racks till they free up hopefully coinciding perfectly with the end of my leg pressing. Squatting after leg press is brutally tough but the unexpected swap around of your routine may just trigger some gains. So instead of getting annoyed when things you usually use are occupied. Embrace it and keep the gym environment positive!! Chances are you were reverting to the most familiar exercise or order of excersizes before this challenge made you alter your ways and therefore quite possibly your results.

Lift Heavy, Destroy Plateaus!!

2011-08-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

The weights that you lift are tools to your advancement in size and strength, To wield a new tool you need to first get used to the feel of it. The first time you pick it up it will feel unfamiliar. Even though the task for which you use this new tool may be the most familiar task, one that you have performed many times, Your new choice of tool or weight will make the task more difficult. You may have to initially perform partial repetitions with this new weight or assisted or negative repetitions, Just until this becomes more familiar, until you have conquered that weight.

DO NOT be put off by not being able to perform full reps with a new heavier weight. Power lifters use various methods to advance in weight including boards for bench press to improve lockouts. Bands to aid with lifting, spotters for forced reps, differing heights for squats and deadlifts.

There is only one thing you need to make sure of when training like this, you need to make sure in any lift there is some sort of safety net in place. For instance if you are squatting you would squat in a squat rack or cage, you would set the bars at a height so you didn’t injure yourself if you fail in the lift. A bicep curl on a preacher bench is no different. Have a spotter in place to catch the weight, of course many preacher benches have a stand for the barbell but this is too low to use as a spotter because if you fail with a heavy weight and your arms straighten to that extent you will almost certainly get an injury.

Of course you shouldn’t train like this all the time, unless you want to start experiencing some joint pain. You should use this as a plateau destroyer!! Trust me this will abolish plateaus.