Training Correctly in order to get to your goals

ok so with the year ending off,there are tons of guys flooding the gym really training like tools because they want to get into shape for the beach. which has lead me to watch a couple guys actually train in the gym to notice how terribly they train and why their progress stagnates.

first thing i notice is 85% of the guys actually use weights too heavy for them, they are trying to bicep curl 60kg barbells when they are only capable of doing 25kgs,so many guys put alot of emphasis into how much weight they can push,but this always ends up in poor form and cheating during the exercises to try and get this weight up by either swinging the weights up or really doing stupid things.

so this brought me to the point of making this post of how guys should train correctly.

Stretching : alot of guys don't stretch enough prior to warming up and training, to be honest i only started doing this when i joined a couple of kettle-bell sessions, stretching is so important its actually frightening. read up on-line about stretches and joint mobility exercises for your own good, stretching and mobilizing the joint will help with recovery and preventing injury, if any of you guys have done a decent stretching and mobility routine you will realise that this in itself can be a work out! Stretching will also help you feel what it is like achieving full range of motion during an exercise.

So my tip : Join a class,read up,watch youtube videos and learn how to stretch each muscle before you start warming up. it might take an additional 5 minutes before you start your session but it can save u 5 weeks off from an injury.

Full range of motion :this is the one thing i see happening all the time in the gyms, Guys never achieve full range of motion during an exercise because the weight is too heavy and cant get the damn thing up! how many of you guys see this when people are doing chest press,bicep curls(always!) tricep push downs,squats, dead lifts. allot of people don't utilize the full range of the muscle.

So my tip : think about how your muscle moves,when doing a bicep curl think to yourself when you are relaxed where are your hands? they are by your side next to your leg, your hands don't stop in line with your belly button, so bring the weight down to where they would be by your side and then curl.

Using too much momentum : you will see this allot when guys dead lift, bicep curl,shrug,squat, dumbbell row...they think the faster you get the set over the better.now i am not saying that every single rep needs to have no momentum, if u are doing bench press and u get to 6 properly performed reps and u need to use momentum by bouncing the weight off your chest to get 1 or 2 more out then that is perfect, but not every rep should be done like this,only when a point of failure is being reached use a bit of momentum.

So my tip : the next time you are dead lifting make sure that you get the weight down on the ground and lift it from a static position on the floor, so put the weight down,rest 1 second then lift,then put it down,rest 1 second,then lift, this will ensure you are not using momentum to get the weight off the ground and you are performing a lift from a dead still position. when you squat go down,stay in the bottom lowest position possible(this you will find will get deeper the more you stretch) wait 1 second then squat back up (another way to make sure you are doing this is to put a bench in the squat rack, squat down on the bench as you would if you are sitting down,wait 1 second,and then lift. its a way of performing a box squat but it will show you where your lowest position should be,and will also help strengthen your hips in order to help the amount of weight you can squat,but also most of all,it will help take out the momentum from your squat...so that means don't start going back up as soon as your ass touches the bench,sit down,keep your back tight and lift!) when you bench or dumbbell press,bring the bar down to your chest so it touches your chest,not resting on your chest, hold for a second and then push the weight up. the less momentum used does mean that your lifts will probably not be as heavy but at least you know you going to get stronger in time knowing that you aren't using momentum.

Slow eccentric(downward) fast concentric(upward) : I said above that a lot of guys in the gym think the faster you press out your set the better. But this is not the case, you should have a 2/3-1-1 approach to each rep. slow eccentric phase ie when lowering the barbell or dumbbell during a bicep curl,this should take 2-3 seconds, then a pause(to stop momentum being used) of 1 second, and then a fast explosive concentric phase of 1 second. I watched a local natural body builder,Justin Thacker, training the other day and he has some of the best form i have ever seen as well as lot of dedication goes into his reps. On this particular day i was watching him bench press, he lifted off the rack,took a few seconds to potion himself correct and get his body comfortable and then lowered the weight to his chest to a point of just touching his chest where he then rested for a second and then explosively pushed the weight up to just before he locked out his elbows he stopped for a second,and then slowly lowered the weight back down. so a set will take u slightly longer than usual but by doing this you use slow twitch muscle fibres to lower the weight down and fast twitch fibres to get the weight up so you are utilizing 2 different types of muscle fibres in your muscle making your muscle much stronger and in the end much bigger than before!

o my tip : take a bit longer and think about your reps, slowly down,fast up,putting in a little more time into each rep might make your sessions slightly longer but rather cut back on the amount of sets and reps in order to do them properly and to best of your ability.

Not training to failure : so you set out to do your chest press and u do 100kgs for 8 reps and u put it down because you have hit your goals of 8 reps. but did you really train to your full ability? could u actually have done 12 reps? did you put it down because you had reached your failing point? or did u put it down because u got to your required number of reps. if you aren't training to failure you are failing to train, always plan out your set with a goal in mind " ok i want to get 8-10 reps" so you need to use a weight light enough that you can get to 8 reps,but so heavy that you cant get more than 10 reps. so if u are benching for example and u do rep 8 and u go for rep 9 and u slowly lower it to your chest,stop, then start pushing up and u get half way and u just hit the brick wall that your training partner needs to help you with the final push,then you have hit failure,u tried to get 10 reps,but u got 9 because u failed and couldn't push any more,u didn't rack the weight because u got to your goal of 10 reps and could've done more.

So my tip : start re-accessing your weights you are using and the reps you are trying to achieve. get a training partner to train with, or some one to spot you, tell them i am going for 8 reps, but only help me if i need help from rep 6 onwards. if you get to rep 8 and you could've done 9,up the weight,but do not sacrifice form,range of motion,and start using momentum to complete every rep. if u get to rep 6 of your bench press and u know u will fail on rep 7 then use a bit of momentum by bouncing the last rep or 2 off your chest to force out that failure point.

Too Many warm up sets and working sets: so joe average is in the gym and he is wanting to train his guns, so he starts with standing dumbell curls, so he warms up 5kgs for 12 reps, 8kgs for 12 reps, 10 kgs for 12 reps, then working sets 15kgs for 4 sets of 12. then goes on to standing barbell curls and warms up 20kgs for 12 reps,25kgs for 12 reps, 30kgs for 12 reps then working sets 35kgs for 4 sets of 12, then hammer curls warm up etc etc etc.... so by the end of it if you are doing 4 exercises and 4 sets, you are in actual fact doing 28 sets in total with all the additional warm up sets. this is gonna force you into over training and also will fatigue the muscle making you not training to failure,you will train till exhaustion which is not what you want to achieve maximum muscle growth. the best way to warm up is the max ot way of warming up which is a progressive based warm up (this after your stretching will be more than enough) so for example you are going to squat and your failure point in your squat is 150kgs and you fail at 6 reps. your warm up should look something like this : when i say a plate i mean a 20kgs weight plate.

set 1 : 60kgs for 12 reps(1 plate each side)
set 2 : 60kgs for 10 reps(1 plate each side)
set 3 : 80kgs for 6 reps (1.5 plates each side)
set 4 : 100kgs for 3 reps (2 plates each side)
set 5 : 120kgs for 1 rep (2.5 plates each side)

now you are warmed up, you have primed your muscles, you have stretched before hand so the blood flow to your muscles has been created and you are ready to push some heavy as weights to failure. so now you know what you need to warm up you don't need to warm up for each exercise, after doing your squats of 3 sets of 6, move on to your leg press at 300kgs for 8 reps, you don't need to start from scratch in order to warm up.

so how many working sets? i like working 12 working sets per big muscle group,and 9 sets per small muscle. so chest, shoulders(front,side and rear delts with presses),back and legs 12 sets, and then biceps,triceps,abs,and calves looking at 9 sets. i see guys training for hours and hours on end,for what? they aren't doing any decent damage to the muscle to grow,they are most likely over training. short and sweet and intense is the best way to grow.

rep range? for general over all strength the 3-5 reps, for more muscle growth 6-8 reps for cutting 10-12 reps, for re-composition a combination of all 3 rep ranges.and every now and again throw in some serious volume based training 12-25 reps

so my tip :start planning your work outs, don't walk into the gym and winging it, sit down and plan your work outs 2-4 weeks in advance, so for an example your leg routine.

week 1 :
squats : 5 warm up sets. 3 working sets 3-5reps
leg press : 3 working sets 6-8 reps
leg extensions 4 working sets 6-8 reps

hamsting curls : 3 working sets 10-12 reps
stiff leg dead lifts : 3 working sets 6-8 reps
alternating lunges 3 working sets 3-5 reps.


week 2:
squats : 5 warm up sets. 3 working sets 10-12reps
leg press : 3 working sets 3-5 reps
leg extensions 4 working sets 10-12 reps

hamsting curls : 3 working sets 6-8 reps
stiff leg dead lifts : 3 working sets 3-5 reps
alternating lunges 3 working sets 10-12 reps.

week 3 :

squats : 5 warm up sets. 4 working sets 6-8reps
leg press : 4 working sets 6-8 reps
leg extensions 1 working sets 10-12 reps

hamsting curls : 2 working sets 6-8 reps
stiff leg dead lifts : 2 working sets 6-8 reps
alternating lunges 5 working sets 10-12 reps.


week 4 :
and then 1 week switch it up completely and go for volume (less amount of sets,more reps)

squats : 5 warm up sets. 2 working sets 12-18reps
leg press : 2 working sets 25 reps
leg extensions 2 working sets 25-30 reps

hamsting curls : 2 working sets 15 reps
stiff leg dead lifts : 2 working sets 15 reps
alternating lunges 5 working sets 20 reps.


the week 4 really is just to take strain off your joints and muscles but still keeping active,it will force loads of blood into the muscle but u wont really be risking injury.


Not enough patience and consistency or rest: too many guys walking into the gym and want to be huge in a space of weeks. don't be impatient, train consistently, adjust your diet and after time you will get to where you want to be. if you don't progress in your training then something isn't working and change it up,but don't expect miracles over night,remember some of these guys that are massive u see in the gym have been training for 10 years. remember to be consistent in your training,always pushing yourself to failure point. if you are feeling poked and your body is sore,then rest,rest is important in order to grow.

so my tip : take photos of yourself, set out 12 week goals,if things are changing then switch up your diet,take measurements and see if you are growing around the belly but not the arms u need to change your diet again. best yet is to hire a coach that will do just that,switch everything up for you,give u planned work outs,and get regular updates and adjustments from. also don't forget to give yourself time to grow!


hope this helps you guys out

Shot DJ for this great article. It is truly insightfull and a lot of the guys can learn from your experience, including me.
Next time don't wait a full year to share your wisdom...

when u have to train clean for over a year u pick up that technique and training is extremely important... sorry it took me so long to post it up..I just felt like writing something cool today so I did haha.. I will also do something on how to increase intensity in your weight training and also how to keep your cardio burning fat...

Thanks DJ, great read.

Thx great read !

Ok so we all love to cut down and its always nice to see results,which we always see when we first start doing cardio,but as weeks go past fat loss slows down from cardio alone, so I have been in the recent few weeks been looking for new ways to keep fat loss going.

First thing to do : when choosing a form of cardio, use cardio that you will have your full boody weight used during the cardio, so using a treadmil,cross trainer,stepper,prowler or even running is the best. If you cycle or swim or arm cycle(that thing in the gym that looks like a bicyle that you use your arms to turn) you won't get the full benefit of using your own body weight as resistance.

Next thing to do is get your heart rate up, over the last 7 years I have tried different cardio forms and different heart rates,and whilst all of the types of cardio will burn fat,I find that when you get your heart rate above 150bpm + is the best.

Now when you loose body fat cardio seems to become easier, this can be from the fact u have become fitter,also it can be from the fact that you are not weighing as much as you used to. Now there are a few ways to increase the intensity of your cardio,

1 increase your own speed at your current level of intensity. So say u are using an orbitrek, u are on resistance level 5 and u complete 90 revolutions per minute, u need to start moving faster, u need to get up to 110 revolutions per minute at level 5. If you are walking on a treadmill at an incline of 10% u need to up the speed from 5.0km/h to 5.5km/h. If you are using a prowler or doing falmers walk,move your feet faster, get to your destination faster and your heart rate will go up!

2 increase the level of resistance, so same as above, start making your resistance level higher, level 5 goes to level 7, incline of 10% goes to 12
.5% and so on and so forth, your weights used on the prowler or for falmers walk needs to be heavier.

3 start adding the weight back to your body that u have lost... Wtf? Yup, grab a back pack, and start adding weight plates into your back pack to match your original weight you started at. So for every kg u loose,it goes into the back pack. This is probably the best motivation u will ever get, it will show you how bloody hard it used to be to do cardio when you were holding the extra body fat! I have started doing this for my treadmil cardio sessions,and trust me, having an additional 20kgs on your back will make things harder than ever before,it also showed me that I was putting so much strain on my body by holding that additional fat and water. By doing this you will how ever limit the cardio forms u can do,so falmers walk,treadmil walking,road walking will probably be the only cardio u can do unless u get yourself a weighted vest that distributes weight evenly over your body so u don't strain and injure yourself.

4 interval training. This is to get your heart rate up as high as possible,and then back down to recover. This keeps the body guessing and burns a ton of body fat. So there are many ways of doing intervals. I am gonna use levels for example level 1 is literally no strain on your system, so being seated or walking with your zimmer frame(jackrabbit1 style...just kidding oupa ) and level 10 is full sprint,flat out, basically being chased by a tiger with a piece of cow strapped to your backside kinda level. So now how long should intervals be? Some guys like to use 90 seconds at say level 4-5,this will be the pace of a brisk walk even a slow jog,then 30 seconds should full out sprint so level 9,running like you stole it. This is where I find things like pushing a prowler the best form of cardio, you push for 15m, stop turn it around and push it back, by the time u have done your second length your heart rate is sky high,it will usually take 60 seconds to recover from that! So in its self pushing the prowler can only be done at high level of intensity and using intervals unless u have a really long road to push it along.

5 switch up your cardio. Your body becomes used to what you are doing in the gym, so its always best to keep it guessing, 1 way of doing this is to switch up the type of cardio you do by switching up the machine used or exercise done. So 1 day do incline walking on a treadmil, next day do orbitrek, next day do falmers walk or walking lunges,next day go and do a walking again,next day hill sprints. This will keep the body guessing and your fat loss will not stagnate.

6 don't be afraid to try new things. When it comes to conditioning and cardio you are going to get bored if you do the same things over and over and over again,you will hate the treadmil,it will be your enemy not your friend. So one way of changing things up is joining a class or group exercise program,this will give u motivation as u will keep on trying to keep up with others and a lot of the time they will also motivate you to push harder. I have for the last 6 months been doing kettle bell classes, and to be honest its the best thing I have ever done,I have never looked better and my cardio is actually fun. Each work out is different and its also functional training so a lot of other muscles get used. In our classes we do things like tire flipping, rope slams,farmers walk, double bell swings,clean and press with kettle bells,burpees,dips,push ups,lunges,squat and press and a whole list of other weird and wonderful things. At first I was like wtf I won't do that and it has turned out to be awesome,so much so that I get bummed on the days I miss a class or I am having an off day.

So if you guys didn't know how to crank up your cardio and get lean and shredded I hope this helped you, remember just like weight training, start small,get it right first,and then progress. So when u first start cutting, start with 20 minutes of cardio 3-5 days a week, either fasted or post work out. When weight loss slows down, increase to 7 days a week cardio sessions for 20minutes,when fatloss slows down, increase the duration, either in 1 session or start doing cardio post work out aswell. When that slows down, start switching things up and cranking up the intensity. Just rememeber that cardio is a fatloss tool,when used in conjunction with correct diet you will always get shredded, and too much isn't always a good thing! 2-3 hours of cardio is not nessesary unless u are a competitive body builder looking at getting peeled,but for just your average guy,you won't need that much,rememeber that cardio can force the body into over training,1 way to diagnose this is by watching your sleeping patterns,and your bowel movements, if you are battling to fall asleep and finding it hard to wake up when u do fall asleep its time to take a day off from cardio and training,if your bowel movements start going from 1-2x a day to 1 every 2nd day(and your diet has loads of veggies and fiber in it) then it will also be a good idea to have a rest day as this is showing signs of your thyroid levels dropping.

So go forth and prosper and get shredded!

Thanks again for taking the time to share, can't wait for the next instalment.

Wasnt there a mention of before and after photos ?

:dry:

Nice read

I don't agree so much on the stretching, don't feel like typing it all out, but I have spent along time on this point about 7 years ago. And after watching allot of different types of fitness training I have concluded stretching is to be done after your workout when cooling down.

www.davedraper.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/26439/
www.telegraph.co.uk/active/7594484/Stret...nter-productive.html
www.dailyspark.com/blog.asp?post=4_reaso..._before_you_exercise

Thanks for awesome articles

each to their own pump, u see if i dont stretch i cant get full range of motion on things like squats, also stretching makes me feel the mind muscle connection better, so i can feel what i am working, but its each to their own

but that being said i do a stretching routine which actually more of a warm up and joint mobility routine as opposed to doing long static stretchs like these guys are saying not to do.

watch this, this guy is one of the most experienced kettle bell athletes and ikff trainer, this is what i mean by stretching and warming up and mobility,the word stretching was probably not the best to use i guess...


this is more like the one i do before working out.

DJ wrote: each to their own pump, u see if i dont stretch i cant get full range of motion on things like squats, also stretching makes me feel the mind muscle connection better, so i can feel what i am working, but its each to their own

but that being said i do a stretching routine which actually more of a warm up and joint mobility routine as opposed to doing long static stretchs like these guys are saying not to do.

100% if you using techniques in cross fitness. The problem with most "bodybuilders" is their range of motion becomes very "short/limited" and this is due to the range of contraction and focused on exercise that promote this short movement range, majority of bodybuilders I watch do not use a full range of motion and in all fairness allot of exercises do not require a full range to target the muscle you are working.

If you do stretching after your sets religiously then you wont get this issue, aka, Ronnie Coleman can do the splits, I bet very few of us on the forum can do that. I found surfing really worked in preventing this "stiff, bad posture physique, with very little span in ones movement variation". I found Dorian Yates had it right, one very light set, Warm up and loads of reps, then that motion will be warm and doesn't require a stretch until after your session.

However I completely agree with you with regards to the muscle being warm that you are going to use, and this is true with every sport too.. I used to run on the beach and then do simple things like jumping jacks and touching my toes before going for a paddle, this I felt prevented me from going into cramp. So I guess it just comes down to what and how you warming up that muscle before use.