Seven Secrets to Better Workouts
By
Sean Barker
1. Start your engines
As your old high school gym teacher might have led you to believe, stretching
before weight training isn’t the best way to warm up. Recent reports show that
static stretching before exercise can reduce muscle strength. Stretching relaxes
your muscles, so why would you want to relax your muscles when you need to lift
explosively during weight training?
The proper warm up for weight training should involve 5–10 minutes of dynamic
mobility movements. These drills help improve active range of motion and
activate the nervous system. Exercises like body weight squats, push-ups, and
lunges help to fire up the nervous system and increase blood flow and fluid to
the surrounding joints in preparation for intense lifting. In addition, a couple
acclimation sets of the first exercise in your workout will get you prepared to
train with your maximal weights.
2. Train what you don't see
One of the most common complaints you hear from long time lifters is a chronic
shoulder problem. This is mainly due to imbalances in their exercise selection
where they perform more pressing exercises like bench presses than pulling
exercise like bent-over rows. You should be
doing equal exercise volume in the horizontal push and pulls as well as the
vertical push and pulls such as shoulder presses and chin-up variations. This
will ensure proper balance for the muscles that you don’t see in your back to
prevent tight upper back muscles, which contribute
to most shoulder problems.
Including some old school traditional push-ups in place of bench presses also
allow your scapula muscles in your upper back to move freely, enhancing shoulder
health unlike any lying bench press movements. Push-ups are referred to as a
“close chain” exercise because during these movements, your hands or feet are in
a constant, fixed position (usually on the ground).
3. The new cardio
High intensity interval training has been proven to be nine times more effective
than steady state cardio for burning fat. You don’t have to do cardio in the
traditional form of what most people think. People were burning fat long before
treadmills and stationary bikes with old-fashioned manual labor. You need to be
doing high intensity exercises that rev up your metabolism each and every
workout.
You could run, sprint, swim, lift weights, or do supersets with weights.
Remember, you don’t really burn much fat when you’re actually exercising, except
for a small amount of fatty acids in your bloodstream. It’s the calories your
body burns during the other 23 hours of the day that count. With exercise and a
clean diet, you will put your body in a caloric deficit, which is still the
only proven way to melt off unwanted fat.
4. Times up
Standing around chatting about the news of the week for five minutes in between
sets isn’t the most effective way to get a great workout. Keeping track and
shortening your rest periods between exercises is an awesome way to burn
calories and increase your conditioning. There is
a big difference in “keeping track” of your time in your head and
actually using your watch.
Most people don’t realize how short a 60-second rest period is once they
start watching the clock. Increasing training density by shortening or
eliminating some rest periods in between sets is a great way to get a lot of
workout volume done in a short amount of time. Keep your headphones on to avoid
unwelcome distractions, and keep your eye on your watch!
5. Be cool
You started your workout off right with a dynamic warm up. Now it’s time to call
it a day with a proper cool down. This is when you should be doing some old
school static stretching, which basically consists of stretching a muscle as far
as your flexibility will allow and then holding that position for 10–15 seconds.
Static stretching is of value primarily for preventing or correcting
excessive muscle tension and establishing proper muscle length at the joints,
both of which will improve movement efficiency. This type of stretching is best
performed post-workout or several hours after the exercise session. Always ease
into a stretch while gradually increasing the range of motion as your
flexibility improves.
6. Spice it up
Most training research shows that your body begins to adapt to a training
program after six weeks. More specifically, you adapt to the repetition range
before everything else. Like the saying goes, variety is the spice of life. The
same holds true for weight training.
Ten repetitions might sound like a nice even number to aim for during each
sets but that doesn’t mean it’s the most effective. For strength gains, stick to
the 1–3 repetition range. For muscle growth, work in the 4–6 repetition range.
For fat loss, keep the repetitions higher in the 10–12 repetition range. Vary
your workouts to prevent your body from adapting to the same training stress.
7. Failing to plan
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” This rings true with a proper
workout program as well. All of these workout secrets should be part of a
long-term training plan. Certified personal trainers spend years learning proper
methods for kinetics and exercise design. So why does everyone think they can
just slap together a bunch of exercises and think it’s going to get them the
results they are after?
Plan your workouts based on your goals. Are you looking to lose fat, build
muscle, or get stronger? It’s better to focus on one in each training phase. The
most common method most gym rats might use whether they know it or not is linear
periodization. This is when the repetitions are decreased and the loads are
increased over a period of time.
Recent training research has shown that a method of structuring your workouts
called undulating periodization has proven to be more effective in inducing
maximum muscle gains when compared to traditional linear periodization models.
Rotating from heavy (4–6 repetitions) to medium (8–10 repetitions) to light
(12–15 repetitions) all in the same week will ensure that you make steady
progress and prevent that dreaded training plateau.
Get your free report, “The Truth on Fat Loss: How to Finally Lose That
Beer Belly,” from Sean Barker at
http://www.dadfitness.com.
Sean Barker is a certified personal trainer and a proud and busy dad. He has
been involved in the health and fitness industry for over 15 years and has
appeared in High Performance Muscle magazine. He has been on health and fitness
radio shows and was selected as a sponsored athlete by one of the top supplement
nutrition companies in the world. His popular Dad Fitness fat loss workouts have
helped thousands of dads around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in
less than three hours per week. For more information on the Dad Fitness workouts
that will help you burn fat without spending hours in the gym, visit
http://www.dadfitness.com. Or visit
Sean’s blog at
http://dadfitnessworkouts.blogspot.com/.
Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the strength
training industry by providing the highest quality strength training products
and services while providing the highest level of customer service in the
industry. For the best training equipment, information, and accessories, visit
us at www.EliteFTS.com.
