You will go blind.
Cardio Part 2
I regularly see guys who are addicted to the weights room, and take part in cardio joining in with some of my classes that are mostly full of women.These mid 20 year old guys can not keep up with 40 year old women, their cardio fitness is appalling.So I have to ask the question how can these guys weight training properly?How do they survive leg day?Chances are the either skip legs or take too much rest between sets.
While doing cardio for the sake of it or because you believe it is the best way of burning fat is pointless, you have to be fit enough to maximise your training.
yep, well said... data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
I'm in the process of upping my training again to 5 days (from 4) , and this includes a harder kettlebell class of a monday (~20kg kettlebells instead of the 10kg ones at the kettlercise of a friday night), and also a bootcamp of a wednesday night...this means I rest on a tuesday, then gym on a thurs, fri, and sat for push, pull, legs...
wll see how it pans out... data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
I'm guessing it'll pan out well!
hope so.. data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 as the guy who does the kettlerbells are bootcamp is brutal...
he's just started his new bootcampe again 2 weeks ago - and that was mental, tho, this week it wasn't as hard and I told him so (but there was a few new starters there - maybe he was being easy on them data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 ) - I expect next week to be a step up again...
Great little article:
T Nation | 5 Strategies for Choosing Exercises
Highly recommended:
David Epstein: Are athletes really getting faster, better, stronger? | Talk Video | TED.com
I had a really interesting chat with a customer yesterday which I hope you all can learn from.A male, low body fat in his early 40s who had always been active.This is someone who had always played some sort of sport, hiked, ran, cycled, rock climbed and much much more.He has no injuries, no breaks, no sprains yet wakes up in pain each day.Why?
The cause is simple, the prevention is simple the cure now is complicated and slow.
Basically, a few years ago his training got too specific, he only trained for one thing, he trained hard, he trained to win.His sport was cycling but the lessons are for any and every activity (running, bodybuilding, powerlifting, the lot).
His body adapted so well to cycling the muscle that were not needed weakened, shorten.As everything was in a fixed linear motion the majority of the hip muscles near enough stopped working.The pelvis and spine twisted inwards and so on.
Over a year later, loads of advice from Drs, Physios, PTs etc and he is slowly getting the weak muscles to work again, lengthening the shorter muscles and so on.I can see it being another 6 months plus for him to get back to where he once was.
The moral of the story is to mix it up a bit regardless of your chosen sport/training.If nothing else use a de-load period to do something different.If you never run, RUN.If you never swim, SWIM.If you never do circuits, do CIRCUITs.Do not just do the same thing (or subtle variations) again, again and again.
Great, but long video (some swearing) here:
Dave Tate’s Guide to Supplemental Movements with FULL Video
28.Its more than just knowledge, it’s………….
So far I have covered a lot of the mistakes people make when training, but there has to be more to it than that.So why else do people fail to maximise results?
Because training properly is HARD!!!
For the people that have chosen a sport that requires skill such as powerlifting, Olympic lifting, running etc then straight away you have to master the technical side.Improving technique can add big junks of weight to the bar, minutes off a 10k run and so on.I am not going to go into too much detail here but I hope you can all understand that without technique you cannot achieve your maximum.We will use powerlifting as a quick example, but the same applies for most skills based activities.
So you want to increase your flat bench and simply flat benching max efforts each week will not do it.So we look at assistance exercise and these, for most, will be specific to the an individual.So perhaps from your training journals you know that if your close grip bench goes up then so does your conventional bench.So you now go one step down and work out what makes your close grip bench go up.Maybe having thicker, but not necessarily stronger, arms helps so you add arm hypertrophy work and so on.So for one primary movement such as bench you may have 3 secondary assistance movements and then perhaps 6 further assistance exercises!!But it does not end there!!You then have to gauge intensity, volume, speed and the bit the most people forget is dropping the exercise that don’t help you.If a lift is not helping then do not do it!
This is hard and this is for one lift so you do the same for Squat and the Deadlift and then you may find contradictions (ie an exercise may help your dead, but not help your bench) and then it gets even harder!!And then you have to add conditioning, having the CV capability to both train, and compete.Then you have to factor in recovery, mobility, nutrition and real life!So perhaps 30 exercise just to increase the performance of 3 and all of your free time gone!
Bodybuilding is a different world to the skill-based sports.The main reason in bodybuilding, after knowledge, that people don’t train properly is simple, because training bodybuilder style, properly, really, really hurts!!!I’m not talking about DOMs the next day (anyone can get that), I’m talking about during training.For example, try this:
The guy in the video is massive and I have little doubt he can bench 500lbyet he is exhausted lifting perhaps 20lbs.Why is he so exhausted?Because he is doing it properly!!He is maintaining tension in his upper back, pushing his chest up, controlling each rep, pausing and so on.This takes it out of you and you have to do this day after day, week in, week out with near perfect nutrition (no point covering the hard earned muscles with fat).You then have to add variety, but not so much you negatively affect the muscle already grown.You then have to work out what shape you want, reduce volume on some muscles, increase it on others.You will have to work hard to achieve a good mind-muscle connection so you can isolate effectively and lots of other stuff.
In summary, training properly is hard.Are you really up for it?