|
 By: James Chan
As a trainer, I always get the same questions from people over and over. How many sets should I do? How many reps should I do? What kind of training split should I do? I've realized over the years that most people just don't know some very basic stuff when it comes to constructing their exercise programs. People lack knowledge, but what is much worse than ignorance is that most people can't differentiate good information from misinformation. When your BS detector isn't functioning, then you're susceptible to a lot of bad training "advice" and marketing scams. I'm going to review some common training myths and frequent questions that I get as a trainer. To achieve your physique potential, you'll need to let go of some common misconceptions. Where the mind goes, the body follows.
General warming up is when you get the blood flowing through light non-traumatic movements: arm circles, jumping jacks, light jog, light biking, etc. Stretching is stretching, and doesn't warm your muscles. In fact if you stretch while your muscles are cold, then you'll likely injure yourself.
   Click To Enlarge. Warming Up Is When You Get The Blood Flowing With Light Non-Traumatic Movements Like Arm Circles.
Here's a simple no-brainer warm-up to cover the whole body: The great thing about this warm-up is that you use short rotational motions with these exercises to get the blood flowing into your joints and muscles, but it's not anything exhaustive or traumatic.
Ask him what he'll do for his next chest workout, and he'll say, "Uh... bench press, incline press, dumbbell press, flyes." Ask him what he'll do for his chest workout after that, and he'll say, "Bench press, incline press, dumbbell..." DEAR GOD! Somebody put this guy out of his misery!
One of many ways to make your routine different from workout to workout is to rotate your exercises. So rather than do four exercises for each body part at every workout, just do one at each workout and change it up from workout to workout. This is a much better way of training, because each exercise comes off as fresh at each workout.
In my experience of training people, I've found the 8-12 rep range to be crappy for mass. People can get big on this rep range, but if they stay in this range all the time, they'll stagnate. Related Plateau Busting Articles:
Your muscles have a wide variety of fiber types, each responding and growing to a different weight and rep range. So if you're interested in full hypertrophy, then use a wide variety of reps. It's like playing the piano: you're not playing a song if you're hitting the same note over and over. Most people (again, newbies) imitate others in the gym and pyramid their weight to hit a wide variety of reps. The classic pyramid of 10/8/6/15 is used quite often and to great success because of its simplicity. The only problem with traditional pyramid training is that the rep range is too broad. Your nervous system gets confused, because you're waking up every muscle fiber, but you're not following up with repeated effort to make them grow. Your body likes to narrowly focus on one rep range at a time. Instead of pyramid training, try periodization:
This is a far better way of training for both strength and hypertrophy.
Of course, it's much more complicated than this. Although people can be categorized as either fast or slow, each muscle group has it's own individual characteristics, each with it's own peculiar way of training. Some muscles respond to explosive lifting, some respond to constant tension. To further complicate things, different exercises require different tempos. Olympic lifts obviously require explosive movement while many bodybuilding exercises (not all) require constant tension. To make things simple for you, just go with the goal you have in mind. In other words, your goal dictates your method, genetics be d@mned. If you want to look good for the beach, then steady constant tension in your lifting is the best thing for you. If you want to perform athletically, then speed is king.
I will say this though: I have found speed and explosiveness to be largely a genetic thing. You can teach somebody to slow down a lift, BUT teaching someone to be fast is difficult. Either you're fast or you're not. Most people are not. But if you discover that you're built for speed (a martial arts striker, Olympic weightlifter or track athlete), then maximize that advantage and train accordingly.
H#ll yeah, it's great for size and strength! The definition of high frequency training is when you train a body part 3 or more times per week. Most people will say that's overtraining, but that is fear talking. Strength is a skill that needs to be practiced. And like any skill, the more you practice perfectly (i.e. workout), then the greater your strength gains.
Would you gain muscle at a faster rate? OF COURSE! One of the keys to making HFT work is active recovery. Active recovery sets are light sets of 12 reps and beyond (15, 20) to pump blood through your muscles to flush out the lingering waste by-products (indicated by muscle soreness) from the last workout and transport in nutrients and circulating hormones to facilitate recovery and growth. People from different bodybuilding and powerlifting camps have called these sets by various names, such as feeder sets, flushing sets, pump sets, etc.
Misinformation and training myths have a life of their own and can breed in the minds of young lifters. If you want to train smart, then you've got to unlearn what you have learned and do your homework in and out of the gym. About The Author: James Chan is a police officer for the University of California. His latest book Strength and Physique Volume 2: Neo-Classical Bodybuilding is available at Amazon.com. For more of his insights into strength training and bodybuilding, visit his blog at http://strengthandphysique.blogspot.com. Recommend this article to a friend by e-mail here! Visitor Reviews Of This Article!
Related Articles
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sign in for more FREE features and tools!
|
|
Give Us Feedback:
Report A ProblemSite Feedback |
Follow Us:
|
Bodybuilding.com Newsletter
Receive exciting features, |
