Cardio for the Summer

With the summer season on the horizon everyone is thinking about losing weight to cut down and look lean throughout the summer. Often than not this means cutting down on calories and the dreaded additional cardio in your programme. For many this will mean early morning cardio followed by a late, depleted on calories weight session never quite reaching the level you were at throughout the winter months. Here are a few tips of mine to avoid this and help you achieve those summer goals. 

1) Yes reduce your calories but this doesn't have to be dramatically less. A small change of 400 calories a day doesn't seems a lot but over a week is 2,800 calories which is a day's worth of calories for most. So bear this is mind, aim for between 300-500, increasing or decreasing depending on what you're seeing in the mirror!!!

2) Carb cycle!! Everyone believes when cutting weight carbs must be totally taken out of their diet, this isn't true. If you want to still train at the optimum level your body needs carbs. Try and eat the majority before and post workout. Secondly cycle high carb days with a lower carb days. Try it and see what works for you. I like high carb days on legs and back but some like to stick to more of a 3 day low one day high routine. Whichever works best for you. 

3) Do your cardio post workout!! Many of us don't have time to fit two workouts in a day, plus LISS training can get so boring. Instead I like to do my cardio at the end using high intensity interval training. This often is a finisher to my workout. Back days for example I do 5 rounds of:

200m row 

5 pulls ups

10 power cleans.

This is short sharp and to the point. I max my heart rate out, finish off muscles I've trained in the session and by increasing my metabolism I burn fat for hours post workout. Others include: 

10 rounds of: 5 burpees, 10 press ups and 15 kettle bell swings. 

10 rounds of: 10 jump squats, 10 jumping lunges and 10 box jumps.

These all help push the muscle group beyond the point of failure but managing to get my cardio in at the same time. It's very easy and I'm sure you could make up your own. 

4) Lastly increase the intensity of your workout!!!!! This is no doubt the most simple yet effective change of all. This could be through adding more volume by additional exercises, increase in sets, add in supersets or hitting a higher rep range. You could bring the rest time between sets down thus meaning your heart rate stays higher throughout. Or add in a few burpees, a row or some cardio based movement at the end of each exercise or set. The aim is just to keep intensity high, causing your heart rate to remain higher and the fat burning rate to become higher. 

So there you have it a few easy tips on track to becoming lean for summer. The main aim is just keep intensity high and focus more on what you're eating and you'll hit the goals.

Jack 

Bodyweight, the way to growth

Bodyweight, the way to growth?

I've been recently rewriting my programmes and am trying to more and more utilise bodyweight training into my programme. There are many reasons for this:

Every bodyweight exercises falls into the bracket of a compound in exercise. This is therefore recruiting a large number of muscles, thus you're hitting not only the main target groups but also the secondary muscles. This surely is going to put more stress on the muscle, thus seeing further growth. Let's take the pull up for the example. The main target group would be lats and rhomboids however, the bicep, forearm, posterior delt and traps are all assisting muscles in the movement. Depending on hand placement, width etc these can be recruited more or less in the movement. This is the same in a squat, dip, push up and lunge. Many secondary muscle groups are used to perform these exercises. The more muscles recruited, the more efficient your workout. Furthermore the more muscles being worked the more calories needed to fuel these muscles meaning they're also great as a fat burning tool.

Bodyweight exercises is also great because no matter where you are you can literally do them anywhere. You can cover every muscle part through every exercise. Make them into a HIIT circuit, concentrate more on hypertrophy or just add them into the end of your routine as a final finisher, they have a purpose in every environment.

Everyone says 'but you can't get the same contraction when doing a bodyweight exercise as you do using cables or dumbbells'. My answer to this is then you simply aren't performing the correctly. Use TEMPO. Any exercise where you really focus on the tempo will promote a better contraction. This automatically puts more strain on the muscle which in turn will make it a stronger muscle. 

Bodyweight training can go hand-in-hand with building strength through flexibility. Completing bodyweight exercises through a full range of motion ensures your joints are moving freely. Plus, it can lead to improved posture and might reduce the chance of exercise-related injury. Yoga, the fave no-equipment workout for many, is another great way to to improve flexibility while also significantly improving strength. Flexibility is a component of fitness and can help in numerous ways to getting stronger. The flexibility for example of the hamstrings and lower back will aid you when it comes to deadlifts. Getting lower, recruiting more lower body power and speed to the movement, overtime increasing the weight able to be lifted. 

Lastly don't forget bodyweight is free. So no gym membership required.

Jack

Do I always need to go heavy?

The most common objective in any gym by any avid gym goer is to lift heavier. This may not always be to build muscle, but a majority want both strength and size. But does lifting heavier promote muscles to grow and become larger? Well, you may say, Mr Olympia Ronnie Coleman always states ‘Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights’ and he had some insane muscles. But is this true?

There are many different leagues of thoughts some believing muscle will only grow if you lift heavier but others believe you can just as effectively build muscle through using lighter weight but with higher reps. Now you may even ask ‘well surely the heavier I go I’m going to build strength so surely the muscle will have to grow’. So what is the difference between training for size and strength?

Strength is about increasing the force production, thus in bodybuilding terms being able to lift a heavier weight. Size is in our case the growth of a muscle through creating microscopic damage to the muscle in order for it to repair larger, this is hypertrophy in its simplest state.

When training for strength the general programme to follow is high weight along with low reps. This training is what I like to say to clients is much like a update on your computer, there to shock the body and thus promote the central nervous system into to thinking it has to increase motor unit recruitment. Much like an update on your computer will promote other parts of your computer to work more efficiently. This basically means the use of more muscles to perform that exercise. In contrast the goal with building size is to promote building muscle and strengthening bones, forcing the muscle tissue to grow stronger and develop. 

So you may ask, well which one should I do, I say both!!! There is a place for both in your programming if you're really serious about not only putting on size but getting stronger. Come on you may want arms the size of Simeon Panda but you also want to be able to deadlift 5 plates or bench press those 50kg dumbbells. The answer is therefore simple, include both in your routine. Here are a few pointers:

1. Begin the session with the heavy, compound exercise for that muscle group your looking to train. It will put pressure on the central nervous system but recruit every muscle within that group, hitting them in a different way, somewhat of confusion. I like to call this blunt force trauma training. Pushing the muscle beyond its limit.
2. Going heavy however doesn't mean you use momentum to cheat the rep or you lose focus on the muscle group you're training purely to lift the weight. Always have control over the weight you're lifting, this is where the strength will be built otherwise you'll just be further prone to injuries. 
3. If you're going heavy at the beginning don't then have a full workout planned after. You're body will already be slightly fatigued, reduce the volume and weight and focus on tempo of the exercises but most importantly the contraction. Really feel the muscle working, use forced reps or negative reps to really push the muscle beyond failure. 
4. Time under tension as partial mentioned above is critical in this stage. Use strict form focusing on the eccentric and concentric phases gaining maximal peak contraction. This doesn't mean a few cheat reps are out of the question, but do the fundamentals first. 

So the final point is do I need to lift heavier to gain muscle, the answer is yes, its a contributing factor. It will aid in the strength of the muscle and promote the central nervous system to become stronger however form shouldn't be compromised because of it. Hypertrophy still has its place to cause the breakdown of the muscle for it to grow back stronger but more importantly larger. So as a pair they go hand in hand and should be used to optzimumize both strength and size.

Happy Training

Jack

Rack Pulls instead of deadlifts?

Should I include Rack Pulls in my back programme? 

I got emailed a question from a follower of mine asking if I include rack pulls in my Pull/Back days, to which the answer is yes. I've only just begun to introduce them after reducing the volume of deadlifting in my routine. This is mainly due to the fact that I'm excerting so much effort on the Deadlifts that I'm exhausted when in comes to isolating my back with other exercises. This is because the deadlift is such a huge compound exercise. Legs, back, shoulders and most of the arm is recruited when performing. When you're hitting high weight, low reps and high sets you just haven't got anything left. This is where rack pulls come in.

Rack Pulls is given the title mainly because your pulling the weight out of the rack,quite literally. It's the upper two thirds of deadlift with little, if any use of the legs focusing predominately on the lower back and upwards. Points to note:

1) Set the safety bars so that the bar sits just below your knees. 

2) Keep a straight back at all times with a slight bend in the knees. Generate power from the lower back and lats transferring it through into the upper back.

3) The finishing position should be somewhat of a solider at attention. Push your chest out, look up and contract you traps and rhomboids. 

4) Avoid any real leg movement, just make sure the weight is transferred to your heels.

5) Keep your core engaged at all times. 

6) Lower the bar under control, avoid rounding of the back. 

7) Keep the reps around 4-8, with high number of sets. Don't forget this is a power exercise so ensure your achieving this, don't be scared about going heavy just don't let it comprise your form. 

So there you have it. Rack pulls are a great addition to your back workout but furthermore a perfect accessory movement to improve you deadlift in reaching lockout. Keep squatting heavy and your deadlift will improve or just add them in, to improve back width and thickness. 

Jack  

Inov8 Fastlift 335 - A MUST BUY!!

When squatting I've always been an advocate of wearing Olympic lifting shoes, not all the time for ever movement but certainly if you're looking to going heavy and generate power through your squat. 

What is the benefit of a Weightlifting shoe? Many people like to wear them when performing any pressing movement or power based exercise. They provide you with a heel block, flat base and a secure fit meaning power generated by the feet is transferred through the body, into the movement thus not lost. 

Now you may ask so why Jack don't you use them when doing those exercises and here is my answer. I just can't stand not being able to walk around or do anything else whilst wearing them because they are literally so uncomfortable when doing anything except lifting, this is until I came across the Inov8 Fastlift 335.  

These provide stability, and all of what an weightlifting shoe provides but also a more comfortable feel that you can use to train in any environment. This makes it perfect if you are going from a compound exercises where you need that support, into say a burpree, much like the most recent of the cross fit open workouts. The shoe won't get in your way, allowing you to perform the exercise with ease. This is unlike any other weight lifting based shoe unless you loose the stability when lifting and opt for much more of cross training shoe, which I’m really to a fan of.

This shoe therefore does a variety of jobs for you in the gym that is unlike any other shoe I have come across in the market to date. It gives you the weight lifting, olympic lifting and cross trainer options, the only it doesn't is running, but then who needs to run!!! A definite shoe you need in your collection, which you will always use unlike a common weightlifting shoe which will only come out once a week when it comes to squatting. 

Get onto www.SportsShoes.com where these are currently on offer at £69.99, a great deal. They'll make you feel more comfortable in a heavy squats, power through cleans and more explosive when it comes to a push press. Bring more versatility to your training, allow you to do more, but more so then anything help you in reaching your goals.  

Have fun training 

Jack