| If your goal is to exercise in a way so as to maximize your results without wasting valuable time, you’ll want to pay close attention to the following principles. Absolutely ANYONE can get and stay fit, increase their lean muscle mass and burn their stored body fat provided they employ smart and efficient techniques in the gym, stay consistent and follow a sound nutrition plan. INTENSITY In every workout, we need to strive for the absolute most intensity we can get our bodies to generate. We need to lift the most weight we can (in a given REP range) for a given exercise in the shortest amount of time. So, for all prescribed SETS in a workout, we should aim for MOMENTARY MUSCLE FAILURE (MMF). That is, the final REP we perform should be the last REP we are able to complete while still maintaining strict form. ADAPTATION not get bigger or stronger. Think of the first time you go out in the sun in the spring. The sun damages your skin, and it not get bigger or stronger. Think of the first time you go out in the sun in the spring. The sun damages your skin, adapts by making itself darker so that the same amount of sun will no longer damage it. If you go out in the same sunlight the next day, for the same amount of time, your skin does not need to protect itself any further so it does not darken the pigment further. That brings us to the concept of… further. That brings us to the concept of… PROGRESSIVE RESISTANCE In each successive workout, we must lift more weight for a given exercise or the same weight for a great number of REPS if we want to make progress. If we do not do so, the workout is essentially wasted, with no new lean muscle tissue added. If your goal in workout one is 1 SET of 20 REPS and you reach MMF at 18 REPS with 20 pounds, then the next time you workout, you must be able to complete at least 19 REPS with 20 pounds. On the other hand if, on the first workout you were able to complete 20 REPS, on the next workout you should increase the weight to 25 pounds. Either the weight or the number of REPS should increase on each workout. OVERTRAINING When you reach a point when you can no longer lift more weight or do more REPS than you did on the previous workout (or you can lift less, and are effectively weaker), you are overtraining. This means that you either need more rest between workouts or you must change your workout. VARIABLE FREQUENCY In order to ensure that you are not OVERTRAINING, the workout frequency must be variable. If you are training with maximum INTENSITY and using PROGRESSIVE RESISTANCE in each workout, you will get stronger and add lean muscle mass in every workout. Because of this, you will be lifting heavier weights which will require that you rest for a longer periods of time between workouts. If you have been working out 3 days per week for one year and have been doing similar numbers of SETS and REPS in each workout, chances are VERY good that you HAVE NOT made appreciable progress in at least 10 months. Think you have? Are you writing the sets, reps and weights down every workout? If you are, great. Now, look at your notes – have you made progress from week to week? From month to month? If you have, then you are not overtraining. Otherwise, it’s time to re-think your exercise program. CYCLE TRAINING Humans are incapable of continuing to get stronger in a linear fashion for long periods of time. If this were not true, we’ d just keep getting stronger and there would be guys lifting garbage trucks over their heads. If you continue to try to go heavier and heavier beyond your bodies capacity, you will either get weaker ultimately, or set yourself up for a potentially serious injury. It is for this reason that all good training programs should be CYCLED or PHASIC. To learn the best exercise programs that follow these principles and make the kind of progress in the gym you’ve only imagined before, contact me by email here or by calling (212) 691-5905. I also present this information, along with debunking exercise and nutrition myths in order to help people understand how to start living in the bodies of they’ve always imagined for themselves in my fitness seminars. |
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| emPower Fitness Studios. (212) 691-5905 |
| The premier Personal Training Studio in New York City's Greenwich Village |
| Foundations of an Effective Strength Training Program |
| Greg Rothman, MS PT |
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