'Bad workout is the one you didn't do’!!!

‘I really don't feel like the gym today’, is a thought that goes through everyones head from time to time no matter if you're just beginning your fitness journey, or at the top with it being your profession, everyone has these doubts. So I’m just going to explain a few things quickly that I think can help you out. 

Make sure you keep mixing up what you're doing!! 

One of the main issues as to why people put the gym off or don't really want to go is because they're bored with it. Doing the same exercises, rep schemes and not seeing any change to their body. Firstly, change is going to come instantly, its something you need to work at over time but furthermore doing the same routine week in week out isn't either, you must shock the body in order for it to change. Mix things up such as a heavy week or a high reps week, make the session into a circuit, anything that shall just see some kind of change. 

Use different training styles. 

This is one thing that I definitely use in my training, especially if its late and I really don't want to train, lets take legs for example. I normally start with heavy front/back squat performing anywhere between 2-5 reps for anywhere from 5-10 sets. When you less motivated however you will never hit the weight you want to hit, become frustrated and really do anything to put off squatting that weight. One thing I like to do is ‘on the minute, every minute’ principle. Take the weight down to say 80% of what you would lift to perform 5 reps of front squat and perform 5 front squats on every minute for 10 minutes. I would then do the same but for 10 reps for back squat. This really gets you're heart rate up but more importantly motivated you as you know that the quicker you do the4 reps (not compromising form) the more rest you get before the minutes up. Plus you end up completing 50 front squats and 100 back squats all at pretty good weights. This principle can be used for any lift but I like to stick with the compound exercises such as the bench, deadlift and push press. Other styles could be Tabata, (20 on, 10 off for 4 minutes) or AMRAP, as many rounds as possible in a set time of a few exercises. All things just to keep you that little more motivated. 

Train with a partner.

Not everyone can afford a PT to watch their every move and motivate them that little bit more when the workouts becoming tough, but someone that can do the same job is a training partner. Work together through the workout, spotting each other, giving one another encouragement to get those few extra reps. Plus the principle I like to use is you've got to beat the reps from the set before, brings a bit of competition to the training and bragging rights in the changing room after the session. 

Test yourself.

This is another one of my favourite things and its as simple as once a week putting a test into one of your sessions, here are a few I like to use:

- Max Rep BW Squat/Bench/Deadlift without rest.

- 100 squats/press-ups timed.

- One rep max

There are many more but anything that is timed with maximal reps usually does the trick. 

So there you have it, a few tips to when you're really not feeling like going to the gym to use to get that workout in as don't forget ‘the bad workout is the one you didn't do’!!!

Jack 

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

You can't always have great workouts

You can't always have good workouts. 

Today was one of those workouts where I really was just not firing. Heavy deadlifts to begin with 6x3 at 220kg and it was a struggle, into an normal hypertrophy back routine and I just really wasn't feeling. What do you do in this situation, here are my 3 tips:

1) Spend to long in the gym trying to have a good workout. Throw in a quick few supersets or a circuit for that muscle group. Keep everything at a high intensity. Don't try to keep pushing on through the normal routine, thinking you're going to hit the reps and lift the weight you normally would. Get in and get out. 

2) Push yourself beyond where you normally would, running the risk of injury. Because you're not getting that pump don't then start loading up the bar with more weight, pushing the body beyond a point you normally would. This will end up leading to injuries as if you're mind isn't in it then, your body most defiantly won't be. An injury will put you much further back than one bad workout!!!! 

3) Change the muscle group you're training. So many people end up doing this when faced with this situation. I promise you now you'll end up just getting the same results, wasting another good workout, another day. Just follow point number 1 and cut your losses. 

Just remember training is a mental game, not always a physical game. If you're minds not in it neither will the body. A bad workout is only once in a blue moon and use the points above which will help you get the best out of these days. 

Hope this helps and more importantly happy training. 

Jack

Sports Massage - MSH Wellbeing

I've been getting a lot of pain in and around my upper traps recently which has pushed in the last few days into my neck. This I think is because of the heavy volume of deadlifts I've brought into my programme of recent. I therefore decided to book myself in for a massage at MSH Wellbeing in Islington. I'd heard some great things about it so knew this was just the place.  Sometimes a sports massage is needed to get rid of all those knots where the muscle fibres haven't quite built back together in the correct manner, upper back and traps is often an area where these are prolific. These are mainly where people don't quite stretch/ form roll the correct way. 

MSH is just a small walk from Angel station on the Northern Line and is a must place to visit if you're in the London area and looking for a high class deep tissue massage. The place is really quiet (hard to find in London), relaxing, every facility you'll ever need along with excellent customer service. There isn't forms after forms that you have to fill out on arrive, just all about you and getting the best treatment to meet your needs. A quick discussion with your therapists, who I was lucky enough to get Arturo, on key areas and away you go. 

The hour was all that was needed with a real focus on the areas where I was mainly concerned about and I came away feeling loose and ready for a ever testing leg session this afternoon. 

If you're really getting stiff in between workout and DOMS that never go away then a sports massage really is essential. Get down to MSH where they do regular deals, it's  worth its weight in gold. 

Happy Training

Jack