TRAINING

Accelerate Your Muscle Growth By Manipulating The Speed Of Your Repetitions

by

You’ve undoubtedly tried different programs in search of more size and deeper cuts. You’ve gone high rep, you’ve gone low rep, you’ve pyramided up, you’ve pyramided down hell, you’d do the freakin’ Hokey Pokey every day if some study somewhere proved that it packed on muscle.

One overlooked variable for many bodybuilders, however, is rep speed. The prevailing mantra is slow and steady, contracting the working muscle as forcefully as possible at the apex of each rep. Good advice, yes … but you can do better. In fact, by using the full spectrum of rep speed, from slow to fast, in your overall program, you can maximize your growth. Isn’t that really what it’s all about?

The Fast And The Furious

The speed of each rep you perform depends on the weight being lifted, the number of reps being performed and the level of fatigue of the muscle being trained. Usually, most reps are done in a slow and controlled manner, about one to two seconds for the positive and one to two seconds for the negative. Of course, as you go heavier and the muscle fatigue intensifies, the positive portion of the rep takes longer and the negative part of the rep accelerates. Generally speaking, typical speed is about three to four seconds per rep.
Training with reps that are faster than the typical three to four seconds can be beneficial for a number of reasons.

Explosive Reps

When you perform the positive portion of your reps explosively taking less than one second to complete them your fast-twitch muscle fibers are called into action to a greater degree. Fast-twitch muscle fibers produce the greatest muscle force (i.e., strength) and have the highest potential for growth.
The other major type of fibers found within your muscles slow-twitch fibers produce less force and are smaller than the fast-twitch fibers, but they have greater endurance capacity.

Targeting The Muscles

Fast reps may focus the workload more on the intended muscles.

Read more

New Secret to Building Muscle Revealed: Pump Less Iron

by

No need to strain yourself with back-breaking weight-lifting sessions involving heavy barbells. Muscle mass can be achieved just as successfully using small weights, a new study shows.

The research revealed a similar degree of muscle-building can be achieved by using lighter weights as with bulkier ones, suggesting the secret to building muscle mass is to pump iron until you reach muscle fatigue.

“Rather than grunting and straining to lift heavy weights, you can grab something much lighter but you have to lift it until you can’t lift it anymore,” study researcher Stuart Phillips, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, said in a statement. “We’re convinced that growing muscle means stimulating your muscle to make new muscle proteins, a process in the body that over time accumulates into bigger muscles.”

The findings are published online Aug. 9 in the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) and involved 15 healthy mean with an average age of 21. The men had to lift light weights (30 percent of what the participant could lift) and heavy weights (90 percent of the subject’s best lift) with varying repetitions.

Read more

Stay on Track with Erin Stern

by

By choosing track instead of treadmill, the stretch and training can be considered by itself workout if it done correctly! Athletes must warm up: to increase body temperature, increase muscle elasticity, start the metabolic processes involved with exercise, and to prevent injury. It can be compared with you wouldn’t walk out of the locker room at the gym and squat 200 lbs, you don’t want to show up at the track and just start running.

A better distance to start is 800 meter.

Then mark out 20 meters, or about 65’ on the track or on the field for sprint drills. You can use anything to mark off this distance – wherever you have at that moment. The key of these exercises is to take short, very quick steps, but cover very little ground while doing them. Each drill is executed for 20 meters, with a stride/brisk jog out of the drill for about 20 meters. After you finish with this exercise, walk to the start.

Here are a few examples of drills:
• Butt kicks
• Hi-knees
• Backward run
• Straight-leg short/shuffle

Read more

Steroids and Training

by

You should take the following factors to heart since they are absolutely necessary for a successful training. What role does the use of anabolic/androgenic steroids play- Very simple: athletes who take steroids will make clearly faster, better, and greater progress than their natural colleagues. They will also obtain a much higher development stage than would have ever been possible without taking pharmaceutical compounds. Such stupid statements that one will achieve the same mass as a bodybuilder without taking steroids -it only takes longer- is nothing but a completely absurd publicity by the authorities who in their own interest conceal the truth. Read the following lines with an open-minded attitude and try to adapt this information for your own needs.

1. High-intensity training: The human organism vehemently refuses any unnecessary change since it feels best in a constant condition, a homeostasis. In order to lure it out of its passivity, several efforts and exertions must be made. The signal that the body needs in order to build up strength and muscle mass is triggered by heavy, hard, and intense training routines. These should consist of relatively few sets. Five to eight sets for large muscle groups and three to four sets for small muscle groups are completely sufficient when every set is carried out until muscle failure.

Read more

Pressed for time, a lot on the go?

by

Getting pressed for time and got a lot on the go? That’s no excuse to throw in the towel you can still keep your body in check – and if you stay committed you can even make some quality progress.

So you may know the basics (especially if you’ve read any of my other articles) ie cardio 3 to 5 x per week, weights 3 to 5 x per week, eat 5 to 6 smallish meals per day… But this time of year it can be tricky to keep anything like this in position, so what do you do?

Take a good look at your day and work out where you can fit in your exercise. If you can’t find a big enough gap to fit a solid haul of cardio in then split it into 2 or 3 bursts per day, for instance a 15 minute walk or run first thing when you get up and then another 15 mins walk or jog at lunch time will cover it. Do this 3 x or more per week and you’re doin’ good. Also get on your feet and get moving at ANY opportunity, use the stairs, walk, run, or ride a bike to and from work, get busy.

Haven’t got time to get into the gym to do your weights? How about a circuit of body weight exercises at home (whenever you can fit it in) ie 4 sets of push ups, 4 sets of triceps dips between 2 chairs, 4 sets of squats (hands on hips), 4 sets of lunges, 4 sets of abdominal crunches… Covered! If you can dig up some Dumbbells and a Swiss Ball from somewhere then you can really get creative with your home training.

Read more

Exercise, and feeling under the weather

by

It must be that time of year. My training partner has been off training for a week. Another couple of friends are recovering from food poisoning – and the gym is looking deserted. What’s going on?

Ok, it looks like the bugs and lurgies are back in force – meanwhile I’m 100% and training as usual. Lucky me! I must admit I take some pride in always being healthy and protected from illness. I put it down to a balance of exercise, good nutrition and supplementation – or maybe I’m just lucky, either way I never get sick these days. Although I once did (up to about 4 – 5 years ago), when I was not as well organised. So what are some things you can do to protect yourself against bugs, and how should you approach exercise and training if you do get hit with sickness?

First off, if you aren’t already on a fitness program then get on one. Anecdotal evidence has shown that people who are fit have less bouts of illness, and less accidents too (the latter probably due to better coordination and flexibility, so less strains also). Another benefit – of resistance/weight training exercise (anything where you move weight against gravity) – is less bone breaks! Resistance exercise boosts bone weight and strength. A very good reason to be including some weight training in your plan – if you happen to take a spill off the snowboard you are more likely to escape a plaster cast and an extended lay off!

Read more

Training Facts Every Bodybuilder Should Know

by

There are several factors that are very individualized to body builders. Still, there are other factors that affect body builders across the board in total disregard to personal taste and goals. Some other factors are variable depending on individuals, programs, muscle mass, level of body building and so on. However, other factors are static and can only be referred to as facts about body building. The following five are such facts about body building. Each body builder must be aware of these five constant facts of body building.

The first is that better muscle gains result from comprehensive exercises. Isolated exercises can not on their own help build big muscle mass and proportional physique. Comprehensive exercises that work out the entire body and stimulate muscle growth on each individual body part are actually the most effective and fast means of achieving a masculine physique. Multi-muscle exercises stimulate groups of muscle, or even more than one group of muscles thereby uniformly distributing stress and workload to the body proportionally.

Another constant fact of body building is that the old favorite free weights still reign supreme in swift and effective muscle mass generation. When compared to machines, free weights impose more strains on the muscles and therefore end up stimulating more growth.

Read more

Double barrelled fat burning

by

For losing fat fast try the recent cardio technique from researchers at the University of Kansas. Their findings show that by dividing a 30 minute cardio session into two shorter workouts, and spacing them between 6 and 8 hours apart (ie one in the morning and one in the evening) an increased metabolic rate (approximately 40 percent higher than a once-a-day workout) will result! That’s a whopping 40 percent more fat burning effect per day!!!

Now to really fire up this fat burning furnace…

1. Cut out all carbohydrate intake after 4pm.

2. Shift the balance of your nutrient intake – minimise fat and reduce carbohydrate intake – and increase ‘quality’ protein intake, ideally from a Whey Protein Concentrate (I designed my ‘Defining Whey’ exactly for this purpose).

3. Use a powerful thermogenic supplement 2 or 3 times per day, such as my ‘TR2’ – this will increase your energy levels, increase bodyfat utilisation for fuel, and decrease food cravings.

Read more

Plan to succeed at shaping up

by

Wakey, wakey, it’s time to drag your butt up and out of that collapsing couch that you are slowly morphing into… If you’ve had visions of transforming yourself into something a bit easier on the eye then it’s time to take action. Summer sun will be here before you know it and there’s a lot of fun and partying to be enjoyed when you are fit, look the part, and are charged full of energy!

To shed some layers, and give yourself a boost read on for the first step to get on the road to turning heads.

The thing I love about Summer is it’s a fantastic fixed deadline. It’s a pity a lot of people don’t wake up and start preparing for it until waaaay too late. It’s clear that to get in shape and stay in shape the more time you set aside for getting there the better your long term outcome will be. Please remember there’s no future in crash dieting so don’t think you can rely on that, that can make a bad situation very BAD… Next time you think along those lines think of those contorted magazine covers of Kirstie Alley. Every new ‘Before’ shot from her latest ‘Before and After’ transformation seeming to get continually more gruesome. That really is a living and breathing metabolic disaster, so don’t fall for the bull and end up on the path to the same horrific fate. Haha makes you wonder about the conspiracy theory… Set people on a dieting path that will eventually rebound them into a worse scenario than they started at and then convince them to get back on the merry go round for another hit of metabolic destruction… Anyway I digress. The way to avoid this picture and reach success is through making a plan – and keep your eye on the big picture (you know, the other side of 2 or 3 weeks from now).

Read more

7 Rules Of Strength Training

by

Welcome to this SportsFitnessExercise.com guide to the seven most important rules of strength training that will show you how to get stronger. Anyone wanting to build muscle or get stronger should be following these strength training tips. If you follow this seven tips, you will get stronger and achieve more from your gym workouts.

1. Focus On Compound Exercises

Compound exercises are those that work lots of the muscles in your body at the same time. The most important compound exercises are the deadlift, squat and bench press. As an example, the deadlift is often thought of as a back exercise but it also works your hamstrings, abdominals and pretty much every other muscle in the body. Compound exercises will do far more for your body than isolation exercises and will probably account for up to ninety percent of your results in the gym.

2. Use Good Form

Good form is vitally important when you start lifting heavy weights as it will prevent injury in the long term. As the weights you lift increase, form becomes more and more important. Work on building good form with light weights before you try and achieve a personal best. An injury caused by bad form can keep you out of the gym for weeks or even months and you should never underestimate the importance of good form.

Read more

Doug Miller’s training

by

My philosophy on training is simple. If I’m not stumbling or still out of breath when its time to leave the gym, I have not worked hard enough. My training is hard, heavy, and intense.

My current offseason training consists of an 11-day, hypertrophy split which prioritizes my weak spots (chest and traps). It looks something like this:

  • Day 1: Chest/delts/traps/lats/abs
  • Day 2: Quads/hams/calves/abs
  • Day 3: Arms/traps/delts/abs
  • Day 4: Cardio or off
  • Day 5: Back thickness/traps/rear delts/abs
  • Day 6: Chest/delts/calves/abs
  • Day 7: Cardio or off
  • Day 8: Hams/quads/abs
  • Day 9: Back/chest/traps/abs
  • Day 10: Arms/calves/abs
  • Day 11: Cardio or off

My precontest training usually consists of 6 weight training days per week. It looks something like this:

  • Sunday: Quads/calves/abs
  • Monday: Chest/abs
  • Tuesday: Back/traps/abs

    Read more

Join Waitlist We will inform you when the product arrives in stock. Please leave your valid email address below.