Archive for the ‘Weight Training’ Category
Sequence Your Work Out!
Imagine you want a muscular body and you work out day and night, after few days, you find large biceps, no triceps, muscular abdomen poor chest and slim thighs with poor muscle mass. You would look like a person with swelling in random location than a muscular figure. Thus, to achieve a balanced muscle mass growth and prevent disfiguration, proper sequencing of weight training for different muscles must be done. It was always recommended to change your workout every time to avoid monotony but people ignore that, it also includes following the correct sequencing.
Thumb rule to a work out is that large muscles must be worked upon before small muscles. Hence, once should understand which muscle group is worked upon by which exercise. For example, you think that you are working on your arm by pulling a bar down to your chest, as in the lat pull down but the fact is that the exercise strengthens your back. The point is you should understand what are you working upon and visualize the specific muscle growing stronger. While sequencing your work out, split your body into upper, middle, and lower zones. Follow the same order but you can mix both upper and lower exercises. Most importantly keep workout for your middle zone at the last of the upper or lower zone exercises as it help you to keep you injury free. Thus, it is often said train smart for better benefits!
Smart Training Is Better Than Hard Training!
How great it would be if you go to sleep wanting six packs and the next morning you get a seven pack abs? Don’t dream, it takes years to get a beautiful pot belly and it takes double time and effort to get a flat tummy. The point to be noted here is it takes time for result and there is nothing called overnight results. Periodically planned weight training with proper diet gives you incremental results. This fact is mostly disregarded by all inexperienced people who indulge in weight training. Proper work out and adequate rest is mandatory for reaping full benefit of weight training. Over working is no good for effective muscular growth.
Muscle fibers which break due to weight training, re-grow because of proper nutrition and rest. Hence work put plan should be short and intensive. It should not be more than three or four days a week and the whole schedule should not be more than an hour during a day. Cardio exercises are best in the morning as blood sugar and insulin levels are the lowest at that time. This is the best method to reduce fat in comparison to any other diet or supplement plan. Supplements are mandatory for reducing fats but only once the basic building blocks of you fitness is ready. Thus, working harder alone is insufficient but smarter approach and planning is required for better results.
Overtraining Do More Harm than Favor
My dad cleaned our first car twice every day to such an extent that at one point we had to change the wind screen of our car due to scratch marks. Anything over done could lead to disastrous results. Beginners become usually over enthusiastic and seeing beginning result make them believe that little more effort will yield better results without realizing that they are overtraining. The following scenarios can be considered as overtraining,
- Training all seven days in a week
- Cramping your session with too many exercises
- Increased number of repetitions/sets
- Weight training using heavy weight over prolonged period
Muscle fibers require adequate rest to re-grow cells. Some of the effects of overtraining are loss of strength, reduced appetite, muscle soreness, mood changes, lack of interest in training and high recovery period. Thus, one should avoid overtraining by following a well spaced out training program catering for adequate rest in a week. Bring in variety in your exercise sessions so as to avoid monotony. Repetitions of the exercise should be planned in such a fashion that it is not done till breakdown. Weekly Sessions should contain exercises that do not over stress a particular muscle. One should include sports and cardio activities to balance your weight training program. On the whole listen to your body to see if it is overstressed. Amend you session accordingly for better results.
Weight Training Injuries
Prepare better than to feel sorry must be the motto of every athlete. Every athlete and aspirants of good health undergo weight training as a part of the quest for fitness and well being. The first advice by a physical trainer to those individuals would be train safe and smart. Accidents do happen due to a variety of reasons ranging from complacency to over enthusiasm. Thus knowledge about different injuries would be of some help before indulging in weight training. Muscle tear is a tear of the tendon where the muscle is attached to the bone. This often happen when you get up suddenly while squatting or pushing a bar bell too fast. It causes a sudden acute persistent pain. A sprain is an injury that happens in the joints like wrist and ankle due to a torn ligament joining bones. It is usually accompanied by pain and throbbing. Some injuries which are specific to weight training are torn rotator cuff caused during bench presses and shoulder presses, sore knees, and lower back pain..
It is difficult to identify specific reason for injuries like sore wrist and knees. If you feel pain, never do weight training till you fully recover. Wrist injuries can be prevented by frequent wrist curls and reverse curls. Adequate care and precaution must be taken to protect your lower back while weight training. The best preventive measure for lower back pain is pulling your abdominals inward so as to provide a natural support to your lower back. In case of swelling, ice helps you to reduce swelling and hence at least 3 times in a day, ice your injury for 15 minutes. Elevating the swelled part and applying pressure on the swelling helps you to keep it down. A pain free exercise will make you enjoy your work out and so your day.
Don’t Starve To Lose Weight
If it is proven that eating is directly proportional to increase in the size of one’s belly, then believe me most of those people who want to be slim will be eating only once a month. Fortunately, from the view point of your health it is not true. But for instant gratification people still believe the myth that starvation will help you lose fat. Believe me this is the worst thing that one can do to oneself trying to lose weight. Definitely overeating is also harmful to your body to the same extent of not eating. Eat only that much that is required for your body and needed for your day to day activities. Hence, the thin line between feeling hungry and full must be clearly understood.
Starvation turns our body into fat reserves as they try to conserve fat for living and start breaking down muscle and burns fat for energy. Thus when we eat again after starvation we tend to eat more than normal and stuff our self. Thus it is to be understood that starving and stuffing creates emotional turmoil which is not the one we want to live with. Avoid overeating and also starvation while undertaking efforts to reduce fat. Whenever there is more than 3 hours between mea,l healthy snacks must be resorted to. Thus weight training must be complemented with a good diet plan for burning fat.
