Tuesday, 8 November 2011

Construct Muscle & Lose Fat Easier by Manipulating Your Training Variables

By John GilbertGrant


Everybody will accidentally hit an irritating plateau in their training at one time or another. You're cruising along for a while, gaining strength, losing fat, looking better, and then all of the sudden it hits. Suddenly, you find yourself even weaker than before on your lifts, or perhaps you discover that you've gained back a couple of pounds. It happens to everyone. More often than not, these plateaus happen because people hardly ever change their training variables with time. Lots of people keep to the same kinds of exercises for the same basic sets and reps and rest periods with similar boring cardio routine. Well, I hope to open your thoughts and bring some creativity to your workouts on this article! There are many methods you can strategically modify your training variables to assure that you increase your fat loss and/or muscle building response to exercise. Many people only think about changing their sets and reps performed, if they even think about changing their routine in any way. However, other variables that may significantly affect your results are changing the order of exercises (sequence), exercise grouping (super-setting, circuit training, tri-sets, etc.), exercise type (multi-joint or single joint, free-weight or machine based), the amount of exercises per workout, the amount of resistance, the time under tension, the base of stability (standing, seated, on stability ball, one-legged, etc.), the volume of work (sets x reps x distance moved), rest periods between sets, repetition speed, range of motion, exercise angle (inclined, flat, declined, bent over, upright, etc), training duration per workout, and training frequency per week. Sounds like a lot of different training aspects to consider in order to obtain the best results from your workouts, right? Well, that's where an experienced fitness expert could make sense of all this to get making sure that your training does not get stale. Listed below are examples to get your mind attempting to come up with more innovative and result generating workouts. Most people stick to workouts where they do something along the lines of 3 sets of 10-12 reps per exercise, with 2-3 minutes rest between sets. Booooorrrrring! Here are a few examples of various methods to boost your routine.

*Try 10 sets of 3, with only 20 seconds rest between sets.

*Try utilizing a moderately heavy weight and complete 6 sets of 6 reps, performing a 3 minute treadmill sprint between each weight lifting set.

*Try utilizing a near maximum weight and do 10 sets of 1 rep, with 30 seconds rest in between sets.

*Try using a lighter than normal weight and do 1 set of 50 reps for every exercise

*Try a workout based on just one full body exercise, for example barbell clean & presses or dumbbell squat & presses, and do nothing but that exercise for an intense 20 minutes. Along with this example, you could try sets of 5 reps at a moderately heavy weight every 2 minutes until you reach 20 minutes.

*Try a workout according to all bodyweight exercises such as pushups, pull-ups, chin-ups, dips, bodyweight squats, lunges, step-ups, etc.

*Try a circuit of 12 different exercises over the entire body without any rest between exercises.

*Try that same 12 exercise circuit on your own subsequent workout, but do the entire circuit in the opposite order.

*Try your usual exercises at a faster repetition speed on one workout and then at a super-slow speed on your next workout.

*Try completing five 30 minute workouts 1 week, then three 1-hr workouts the following week.

*Try doing drop sets of all your exercises, where you drop the weight between each set and doing repetitions without any rest until complete muscular fatigue (usually about 5-6 sets in a row). There are many more ways to go on to modify your training variables. I hope this short article gave you some ideas on methods take the body to the next level. Keep in mind it does not matter what style of training you are using at any given time, progression on subsequent workouts should be your goal. Work hard and train smart and watch your body change!




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