weight training workout

The 8 Training Principles are research-based guidelines that can help you accelerate your training progress and optimize your results. Knowing how to apply these principles gives you an educated basis on which you can make informed decisions about designing your fitness or sports training program. The principles can also help you evaluate the merits of fitness equipment and personal training services.

All of the principles complement each other. For best results, they should be applied in concert throughout every phase of training.

1. Principle of Specificity suggests that your body will make adjustments according to the type of training you perform and in the very same muscles that you exercise. How you train determines what you get.

This principle guides you in designing your fitness training program. If your goal is to improve your overall level of fitness, you would devise a well-rounded program that builds both endurance and overall body strength. If you want to build the size of your biceps, you would increase weight loads on bicep curls and related exercises.

2. The Principle of Overload implies that you must continually increase training loads as your body adapts over time. Because your body builds and adjusts to your existing training regimen, you must gradually and systematically increase your work load for continued improvement.

A generally accepted guideline for weight training is to increase resistance not more than 10% per week. You can also use percentages of your maximum or estimated maximum level of performance and work out within a target training zone of about 60-85% of maximum. As your maximum performance improves, your training loads will increase, as well.

3. The Principle of Recovery assets that you must get adequate rest between workouts in order to recuperate. How much rest you need depends upon your training program, level of fitness, diet, and other factors.

Generally, if you perform a total body weight workout three days per week, rest at least 48 hours between sessions. You can perform cardio more frequently and on successive days of the week.

Over time, too little recovery can result in signs of overtraining. Excessively long periods of recovery time can result in a detraining effect.

4. The Principle of Reversibility refers to the loss of fitness that results after you stop training. In time, you will revert back to your pre-training condition. The biological principle of use and disuse underlies this principle. Simply stated, If you don’t use it, you lose it.

While adequate recovery time is essential, taking long breaks results in detraining effects that may be noticeable within a few weeks. Significant levels of fitness are lost over longer periods. Only about 10% of strength is lost 8 weeks after training stops, but 30-40% of endurance is lost in the same time period.

The Principle of Reversibility does not apply to skills. The effects of stopping practice of motor skills, such as weight training exercises and sport skills, are very different. Coordination appears to store in long-term motor memory and remains nearly perfect for decades. A skill once learned is never forgotten.

5. The Principle of Variation implies that you should consistently change aspects of your workouts. Training variations should always occur within ranges that are aligned with your training directions and goals. Varying exercises, sets, reps, intensity, volume, and duration, for example, prevents boredom and promotes more consistent improvement over time. A well-planned training program set up in phases offers built-in variety to workouts, and also prevents overtraining.

6. The Principle of Transfer suggests that workout activities can improve the performance of other skills with common elements, such as sport skills, work tasks, or other exercises. For example, performing explosive squats can improve the vertical jump due to their common movement qualities. But dead lifting would not transfer well to marathon swimming due to their very dissimilar movement qualities.

7. The Principle of Individualization suggests that fitness training programs should be adjusted for personal differences, such as abilities, skills, gender, experience, motivation, past injuries, and physical condition. While general principles and best practices are good guides, each person’s unique qualities must be part of the exercise equation. There is no one size fits all training program.

8. The Principle of Balance is a broad concept that operates at different levels of healthy living. It suggests that you must maintain the right mix of exercise, diet, and healthy behaviors. Falling out of balance may cause a variety of conditions (e.g., anemia, obesity) that affect health and fitness. In short, it suggests all things in moderation.

If you go to extremes to lose weight or build fitness too quickly, your body will soon respond. You could experience symptoms of overtraining until you achieve a healthy training balance that works for you.

For fitness training, balance also applies to muscles. If opposing muscles (e.g., hamstrings and quadriceps in the upper legs) are not strengthened in the right proportions, injuries can result. Muscle imbalances also contribute to tendonitis and postural deviations.

Keep these 8 Training Principles in mind as you design and carry out your fitness training program. They can help you make wise exercise decisions so you can achieve your goals more quickly with less wasted effort.

Dr. Denise K. Wood is an educator and sport and fitness training consultant from Knoxville, TN and creator of www.womens-weight-training-programs.com She has trained a wide range of clients from beginners to Olympians. Dr. Wood is a former national track and field champion with years of international experience. She has been recognized as an outstanding professor in exercise science and research/statistics.

Just thought you may be interested in reading this guide: Muscle Fat or Optimum Nutrition Whey

muscles workout

If you are looking for a great muscle workout, you might be surprised to know that many body building professionals agree that you should work on 1 muscle group at a time. Usually, this involves focusing on a muscle group for a period of 1 week. Then, you can move on to the next muscle group. There seems to be some debate among training professionals as to whether it is more effective to do it by single group muscle, or an over all body work out 3 times a week. However, there is a significant amount of these professionals who agree with the 1 muscle group at a time plan.

An effective and safe muscle workout will be designed for maximum muscle growth in a minimum of time spent working out. You should keep your repetitions to 12 and your sets to a minimum. This is because natural bodybuilders need to avoid over training. Your muscles need to be stimulated to their maximum in as short a time span as possible.

Some rules to remember include:

• Work each body part once a week.
• You should also workout 5 times a week, choosing the days that work best for you.
• Workout times should never be more than 45 minutes.
• In lifting, you should lift for 1 -2 seconds and lower for 2 seconds per repetition.
• Another very important thing is to be sure to rest one and a half to two minutes between each set.
• In your muscle workout, you should do at least 6 sets, but not more than 9 sets for each muscle group.
• While you can choose the days to perform your workout, there are some things to keep in mind. Your workouts should be prioritized in order to get the most from them.
• On the days you have chosen to work out 2 body parts, you will work the part of your body where you want the most growth first. You should do this because the second body part will be a bit tired and will not perform fully.
• Give the body parts you want to focus on a day where you work only those parts.
• When you do only single body part workouts, go through the full 9 sets.
• Warm ups are important in a muscle workout. You should do one warm up set prior to exercising each body part, using half the weight you will use for the first real set. Do 12 – 15 repetitions and rest for one and a half to 2 minutes before beginning the first set.

Now that you have seen some of the suggestions for a good workout to build your muscles, you can do your own research to find the best workout plan for you. Always make sure you are being safe while engaging in any workout program.

Develop a system:

If you want to get a proper muscle workout you must setup a system for yourself. Whatever it is make sure it is one you can stick to. Some people make unrealistic plans when they try to make a workout routine and they find they are not able to be consistent enough with it. Build a workout that will target the parts of your body you want to build muscle on. If you want to build your chest muscles then create a routine that allows you to focus on building chest muscles. If you want to work on your arms then make a routine to work on your arms. The more you stick with it the better chance you will give yourself to see results. Whether you do it daily or just a few times a week it must be a routine you can stick with and it must be a good one.

Do it properly:

The exercises you do must be done properly if you want to get the most from your muscle workouts. If you are not sure you’re doing your workouts right you may want to get someone who knows what they’re doing to show you how to do it right. Once you know how to do it right you should have no problem executing the workout. When you are trying to build muscle it is crucial you do the training properly, all the blood sweat and tears you put into your workouts will go to waste if you are doing your workouts wrong. So make sure you are doing it right, otherwise you are just learning the wrong way to do things and you could cause damage to your muscles.

Workout to excess:

If you don’t learn anything about working out then learn this, you must burn your muscles out if you want to build muscle, then you must give them at least a day to rest up. You don’t have to workout everyday to build muscle; all you do is hurt your own muscle growth when you do this. If you workout while your muscles are trying to rebuild you break down your muscles again and never give them a chance to rebuild and become stronger.

You may want to check out my other guide on: Muscle Milk and How To Build Muscle

Weight Exercise

Are you confused about what weight exercises you should be doing for maximum muscle growth to go from skinny to muscle? Do you wonder if what you are doing is the best set of exercises or maybe you are just wasting your time?

If so then it is great you are looking for answers because the requirements for skinny guys to increase their muscles is a lot more demanding and quite different from other body types who can have a much less strict regime and still pack on the pounds.

Most skinny guys do not know exactly what they should be doing because they have heard so many different theories and several have failed. This leads to questions about what types of exercises, equipment, supplements and workouts that they should try. While watching those body builders strut around the gym, you have to realize that building that kind of muscle easily is something that they inherited. You cannot do the same things and look the same as a skinny hard gainer. You have to change it up; your body is geared differently than theirs.

There are tons of theories floating in the gym; some propose muscle isolation where you only work a set of muscles per day. Others claim that if you work your muscles until they absolutely give out that you will build bigger muscles. However these along with many others are flawed, you might see a few results, but the truth is that these theories do not work and will not give you the buff body you want.

Here’s how it works; when you lift weights it stresses your muscles, which creates tiny little tears in the muscles themselves. These little tears are caused by the actually pushing of the muscle itself through the heavy weights. Now the body begins working toward healing these tears, but what happens is that nutrients and rest are necessary for the body to do so. These tears turn into scar tissue which actually creates a bigger as well as stronger muscle. It sounds easy, just lift heavy, cause the tears, heal up and get bigger! This is true, however your muscles can only withstand so much, you have to remember, no matter how bad you desire that muscle bound body, you must allow your body to heal and take a break in between. Continuing to push the body, without rest will cause the muscles not to heal and actually will set you back.

Here is a list of exercises for each major muscle group you need to be working on that has been proven to accelerate muscle mass growth in the skinny guy!

Chest

Bench Press

Flat DB Chest Press

Back

Bent Over Barbell Rows

Close Grip Chin Ups

Shoulders

Seated DB Shoulder Press

Standing Military Press

Triceps

Dips

Tricep Pressdowns

Biceps

Standing Barbell Curls

Incline Bicep Curls

Quads

Squats – This is one of the best exercises you can do period and exercises more than just the quads.

Lunges

Hips

Deadlifts – Another of the ‘must do’ exercises as it does way more than just the hips, make sure you include these often.

Stiff Leg Deadlifts

Lower Back

Good Morning – This exercise is where you place a barbell on your shoulders and bend forward with knees slightly bent while keeping your back straight and looking ahead.

Calves

Standing Calve Raises

Abdominals

Weighted Ball Sit-ups

Weighted Cable Crunches

Here Are The Specifics About Your Workouts

This new information may seem a little odd right now, but with some specific tips and information it will start making sense quickly. It will also help you build muscle all over with relative ease!

• No isolation exercises, instead work on multiple muscle groups. Focus on exercises that give an overall workout, not just arms, legs or another muscle group. Use time wisely and instead of working one muscle like a bicep curl, work on something that works your bicep, back and chest! Free weights are generally the best option for this type of workout; however some of the machines with cables provide a good muscle growth workout without restricting you. An overall workout will also provide a positive for muscle growth and be in sync with your natural range of motion.
• Do NOT set yourself up to fail, this happens when you hit the gym and over exhaust yourself. Your muscles hurt and you may feel like you have really done some good, but the truth is that you have not gained any extra muscle. The goal is not to be sore and exhausted it is to build muscles!
• Lift heavy, but less often, hitting the gym twice a day is not the way to build muscles. Delivering an efficient workout will spark muscle growth, take this example: if you are lifting a weight numerous times, you are seeing what your endurance is, not building muscles. Instead you should lift to your ability, without going to the point of not being able to do no more. You want to push yourself, but not over exhaust. Ex: if you lift with 10 reps and feel that the 11th would be too much you know that you have reached your maximum efficiency without going over

It really is easy, you have the basic ideas, now just remember to not over train. You want to push the muscles, straining them, but then back off and let them recover!

You may want to check out my other articles on: Building Muscle and Weight Equipment

lifting weights

Beginner routine

Do the following routine Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For the first two weeks, use light weight and concentrate on learning proper form. After that, increase to your working weight. You will be doing three sets of 10 for each exercise, and your working weight will be one that makes the last couple of reps difficult, if not impossible. Do the exercises in the following order: Squats, Deadlifts, Bench Presses, Chin-ups, Military Presses, Barbell Curls, Weighted Sit-Ups.

Proper form is absolutely essential on these exercises. If your gym has personal trainers, pay for a session and get a professional to watch your form. If not, try to get an experienced lifter to make sure you’re doing the exercises correctly. This routine is highly effective, but if not done with proper form, several of these exercises can become very dangerous.

If you cannot do chin-ups, do one negative chin-up (grabbing the bar with your chin already over it and lowering yourself as slowly as possible) followed by a set of lat pulldowns. If you can do chin-ups, you have graduated to the point where the lat pulldown is a foo-foo exercise.

Nutrition and rest are just as important as a training routine. As far as rest goes, make sure you get at least seven hours of sleep per night. More is better, to the point where several pro bodybuilders sleep 12 hours a day or more. This is impractical for people with real jobs, but there is no excuse for getting less than 7 hours a night. Remember, you build muscle when you rest, not when you train. Training tears your muscles down and provides them with a stimulus for rebuilding and growth.

In order to gain muscle, you have to eat. You will want to take in a gram of protein for every pound of lean body mass. For example, if you weigh 200 pounds and have 15% body fat, you will want to get at least 170 grams of protein a day. You also need carbohydrates and fat. Ignore the popular trend toward “fat-free” products and strive to take in roughly 30% of your calories from fat. Try to get 30% from protein (never dropping below 1 gram per pound of lean body mass) and 40% from carbohydrates. To help in your calculations, a gram of carbs has 4 calories, a gram of protein has 4 calories, and a gram of fat has 9 calories.

I also have a few words to say about supplements. If you’re on this routine, the only supplement you should even consider is whey protein. Creatine and andro have their places in the routines of more advanced lifters, but it is pointless to take them until you have been lifting for at least a year and have hit an unbreakable plateau. In fact, there is no point in taking andro if you are under 25.

Finally, I would suggest avoiding both alcohol and overtraining. Alcohol will impede your progress, dehydrating you, making you feel bloated, and sapping your motivation to lift (as anyone who has ever worked out with a hangover can attest). A drink with dinner is fine, but any more is to be avoided like the plague. Overtraining is the other thing that can kill an otherwise solid effort at lifting. If you follow this routine, you should see some excellent gains. Do not allow this to give you a more-is-better mentality. When it comes to training, less is definitely more. Once again, remember that you grow when you rest, not when you train. Even at an advanced level, you should be going to the gym for no more than an hour and a half (an hour is better), no more than four times a week (three is arguably better). Lifting for longer saps your testosterone production, and lifting more often tires out your nervous system, making you far more susceptible to illness.

Good intermediate routine focused on general strength and size gains

After a couple of months on the beginner routine, you should be ready for a 3 day intermediate split based around the big three (squat/bench/deadlift). Try something like the following:

Monday:
Deadlifts
Chins (vary the grip)
Barbell or dumbbell rows
Standing EZ curl bar curls
Hammer curls

Wed:
Flat barbell bench press
Incline dumbbell press
Shoulder press or military press
Lat DB raises
External Rotator work or rear delt work
Skullcrushers
Dips

Friday:
Squats (deep and heavy)
SLDL (or Romanian deadlifts)
Calves (standing and seated)

You need to up the intensity on these. Take your sets to failure. Try to keep around 3 sets per exercise and pick a weight that allows you to get your desired rep range (which should vary from time to time).

The “big three” recommend as a part of all routines

Squat/Bench/Deadlift. The big three are recommended as a part of all routines due to the fact that they are the best three exercises as far as compound exercises go. A compound exercise is one that requires significant involvement from multiple muscle groups in order to complete the movement. Obviously, this is going to be the best sort of a movement. Consider the fact that a deadlift will directly work the following – glutes/hamstrings/quads/spinal erectors/obliques/traps/lats/forearms/grip. To hit the same amount of muscles using isolation work would take considerably longer. A lifter generally should try to build his/her routine around a core of compound exercises, and add isolation exercises as necessary to complement the workout. The “big three” are by far the most effective three compound exercises (using a compound of the three, once can directly stimulate most all muscles in the body very effectively). Thus the reason you will see the “big three” mentioned so much.