Body Building and Training Tips

Muscle and Training Tips

Welcome to this interesting article about training techniques. We will describe several ways to do your work out. It is up to you to decide which one fits to your goals.

1st:  Triple Sets   
2nd:  1½ Reps   
3rd:  Heavy and Fast Sets  
4th:  Density Training  
5th:  Post Exhaustion Training
6th:  Diminished Rest Intervals
7th:  Back Off Sets   

This article contains a steady supply of great workouts and advice on new and better ways to break out of training ruts and build more muscle faster than ever. This article is all about strategy: the best methods for busting plateaus and making new size and strength gains. These are the superior tricks your trainers use on their own clients, which include everyone from average to elite athletes. And since careers depend on the ability to get results, success is the only option. In other words, get ready to grow and achieve your goals.

Let’s start with the first strategy, triple sets!

TRIPLE SETS
The secret to build big muscles is to recruit as much as possible muscle fibers. However, your largest, strongest muscle fibers will fatigue very quickly, which is caused by a decrease in your rep speed toward the end of your set. You can get more out of those fibers by using triple sets.

LET’S DO IT
Choose a weight that you can handle for about 10 till 14 reps. Perform each rep as fast as possible, but (important!) keep perfect form. At the moment you feel the speed of your reps is getting slow, end the set. So do not go on till failure. Rest 30 seconds and repeat. Then rest 30 seconds and repeat once more. Now rest 3 minutes (!) and repeat the entire triple sequence. Terminating your sets when you begin to lose speed allows you to focus on the muscle fibers that have the greatest potential for muscle growth. Once they are fatigued, continuing to perform the set is almost a waste. By stopping to rest until those big fibers are recovered you will reap the most growth stimulus the set can offer.

1-1/2 REPS
You probably know that compound exercises are the best to build up muscles. The problem is, many people don’t not emphasize the muscles they are trying to build. Let us make this point clear with an example: the chin-up works the biceps hard, but it is more an upper back exercise in stead of a biceps exercise. In this case it is possible that the back muscles  overpower your movement. Rather than doing curls to isolate the biceps, use our 1-1/2-rep method. This method allows you to build up the smaller muscles you want to focus on, while also deriving all the strength-building benefits of compound movements.

LET’S DO IT
Perform half of a full repetition of a particular exercise. Then return to the starting position and perform a complete rep through the entire range of motion. The half rep plus the full rep together count as one (complete) full rep. Let’Smake this clear with the chin-up example. Start from the full hang position and pull yourself up halfway. In this portion of the range of motion, the biceps are working at maximum. Then lower yourself back down, and do a full chin-up, in which the lats are the prime movers. On the squat, you would lower yourself into the bottom position, come up halfway, and then go back down and up again to the start position. Perform 5 sets of four to six reps like this, two times a week, and you will shatter strength plateaus while stimulating new growth.

HEAVY AND FAST SETS
There are 2 indisputable methods to build big and strong muscles. The first method is by lifting heavy weights and the second is by lifting fast. The trouble is, muscles cannot move heavy loads so fast. In fact it takes milliseconds longer to coordinate a muscle action under high tension. And while the muscle can move light loads quickly, light weights are not stressful enough on muscles to elicit growth. So how do you lift heavy and fast, in the same set, to achieve maximum benefits?

LET’SDO IT
Choose a compound exercise for the muscle group you want to train. For example a chest workout. You can use the bench press (as opposed to the dumbbell fly). Perform a set with a weight that allows you to do five reps (without failure), then rest ten seconds and hit the floor and do as many pushups as you can (explosively push up so that your body rises off the floor and you can clap in midair. Rest there minutes and then repeat the sequence two times more. The set of five reps allows you to lift heavy weights, providing plenty of muscular tension. The explosive pushups recruit only your biggest and strongest muscle fibers. This combination of techniques provides a 1-2 punch for lightning fast muscle gains. Second example, if you are training your legs, do squats followed by bodyweight jump squats. This method also works really well for biceps development (3rd example). Perform one set of weighted chinups for five reps, then please rest 10 seconds, and then do a set of barbell curls as fast as possible with a load you could lift 10 till 12 times.

DENSITY TRAINING
It can be difficult to train hard when time is short. One solution is to grit your teeth and aim to complete as much work in the given time frame as possible, and that’s where density training comes in.

LET’SDO IT
“Pick a target time period in which to complete each exercise in your workout, “ says Jim Smith, C.S.C.S., a strength and conditioning coach in Sayre, Pa. (visit him at dieselcrew.com). You won\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t need many exercises with this protocol, so you will save time right off the bat. “Now choose a weight that you can successfully execute 10 á 12 reps with, and perform as many reps as you can in 30 seconds.“ Rest 30 seconds and repeat. Continue in this fashion until your chosen time period is complete. For instance, if you chose five minutes and you\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'re training squats, you would squat for 30 seconds, rest 30, squat again, and so on until five minutes was up. The workout will be brutal, but in the end you\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'ll have completed a massive number of reps in a relatively short time (much shorter than you would doing normal sets), providing more than enough volume for muscle growth. Density training is also good for enhancing your muscular endurance and your lactate threshold, which will allow you to bull through other high-rep sets in the future.

POST-EXHAUSTION TRAINING
We suppose you have tried the pre-exhaustion technique before, which involves performing a set of an -isolation exercise- directly followed by a -compound movement-. The goal is to workout 1 target muscle group (in an area of the body) 1st.  Follow up with a -compound movement- in which the other muscles in that area can assist you in reaching more reps. Example: you can do a set of -biceps curls- prior to chin-ups. The challenge is that -isolation lifts- do not permit you to reach heavy weights (you can chin-up with a lot more weight than you can curl), so you are cheating yourself out of the chance to lift big. Muscle building weights when you are fresh. Post-exhaustion training is just the opposite.

LET’SDO IT
Train the muscles with a -compound lift- first and then follow with an -isolation exercise- that involves the prime movers. This means you can combine chin-ups with curls, close-grip bench press with triceps extensions and third: shoulder press with lateral raises. Now you can thoroughly stimulate your target muscles with a heavy weight first and then finish off with a move that provides direct hit afterwards.

DIMINISHED-REST INTERVALS
You can break a plateau in a matter of seconds. In fact, you do not even have to lift more weight, or adjust your sets and reps. By gradually reducing the time you take between sets, you force your muscles to recover more quickly and that leads to faster muscle growth.

LET’S DO IT
Reduce the amount of time you rest between your sets by five seconds every week, but make sure you do not have to decrease the weight you are using to allow for it! In other words: if you are currently resting 60 seconds between sets, try going for 55 seconds next week and 50  seconds the week after it. Continue in this manner for one month. At that point, you will recover in approximately half the time you used to, and this means that going back to one minutes leads to heavier weights! It is a way to press more, by reducing the rest period.

BACK-OFF SETS
Your body is capable to lift heavy weights, you just do not always have the confidence to try it for real. One great way of reducing your inhibitions toward heaving big loads is to use back-off sets, which allows you to use heavier weights than you normal do, for a higher-rep set.

LET’S DO IT
Choose a weight that allows you to get about 6 reps, and perform 2 sets with it. Now reduce the weight by 40%, and do as many reps as possible. However most of you guys can complete the sets, it is 100% sure you have done more than you could have done if you had just done a normal warm-up and then tried to rep out with that load. Your nervous system is already excited from your heavy sets, so when you do the back-off set, it is primed to make your muscles do more work than they usual do.