Barbells, Dumbbells or Cables?

With the ever growing dilemma of achieving the best workout the exercises you're using are important but more so now the equipment in which you're using to perform these exercises. Now I would always advise people to try and stay away from machines, do they have a place? Yes, but, they're so constrictive on movement, range of motion and more often than not giving you the plasibo effect that you can lift a lot greater weight than one can actually lift. I'd recommend sticking to the Barbell, Dumbbells and cables, here are a few pointers on how to choose which.

The barbell is the most recognisable piece of equipment in any gym when it comes to lifting weight. Usually being 7ft in length and weighing 20kg, with smaller versions in certain gyms if you're lucky enough to target a certain muscle group or perform an exercise. They're easy to set up, just loading plates onto each side, often in 2.5kg intervals with a huge exercise base to use them for. The barbell is often associate with the big compound exercises such as the squat, bench and deadlift where by you're recruiting many muscle groups in one exercise, this is why they're a must in anyone's routine. They allow you to go heavier than most other exercises and due to the fact your lifting all of the weight through one force is often easier to control than say a dumbbell.

There are however some disadvantages to using the barbell that being they can often create strength imbalances amongst the same muscle groups, where by muscles don't get to work independently. Let's take the simple back squat, you load 100kg on the barbell and be performing a squat with perfect form but more so than not you have a dominate side creating a imbalance, sometimes as drastic as 70/30. This in the long run can causes size difference and cause you to plateau. Furthermore it's late on a Friday night, in the gym by yourself and you benching your one rep max and you go for a second rep but just can't lock it out, that weight is coming back down onto you. Barbells can therefore cause serious injuries, there is no way of being able to remove the weight unless you've got a spotter, to many cases seen on the Internet of people not and ending up in serious trouble.

Dumbbells are what more and more people are tending to use when working out due to these sense of ease to change weight and the versatility in which they offer. The one thing I love about DB's is they offer fitness to a wider range of people purely due to the fact they can be used anywhere. From your home, to office it doesn't take up any room to store a few DB's with a heap of exercises which they can be used for, avoiding the hefty gym costs along with no excuses of not being able to fit a workout in.

There are no constraints when training with DB's either, allowing muscles to work independently, targeting and isolating certain muscle groups whilst further recruiting major muscle groups if required. This over time will aid balance and coordination through the independent training. Unlike a barbell the range of motion with a dumbbell can be slightly altered, this can be seen as a positive or a negative but in my eyes a certain positive. Not everyone's built the same, in short not everyone's therefore going to lift the weight from A to B the same, much like a barbell promotes. The DB however allows this, furthermore recruiting more to form a stabilising platform than a barbell. When lifting a dumbbell greater attention is paid to ligaments, tendons and overall agatonist muscles. People neglect these a lot, especially in the shoulder department however lifting with DB's you're somewhat achieving this. The only downfall is it demands a greater deal of control thus meaning you can't go as heavy and will often require a spotter.

Finally cables, people often neglect using when it comes to training anything but arms. The fundamental factor is they can be used for any movement pattern, which is great for sport related exercise or rehabilitation. It allows you to focus on a certain movement, let's take golf. The tee off shot you would never be able to rubricate unless using cables, building the strength, explosiveness and overall power through the increase of weight in order to develop the swing. With all cable machines you can gather many different attachments opening a wider spectrum of exercises and again allowing to rubricate certain functional movement from sport and everyday life.

From your committed gym goers the cables allow for ease when wanting to perform supersets with just a switch between the two cable or things such as drop sets and strip sets by just removing the pin as oppose to stripping the barbell or grabbing more DB's. The most important thing for me with cables is they cause greater muscle stress due to constant tension on the muscle. Unlike the barbell where for example with a barbell row the contraction, pulling the weight towards is a great deal harder than lowering it due to gravity with cables this never changes. It gives you a far superior of motion but further contraction allowing for you to really squeeze the muscle when contracting and stretching at the bottom of the movement. Some may say cables are superior therefore when it comes to isolating the muscle.

Cables do have their drawn backs through the way that the range of motion is so forgiving and any exercise can be performed often leading to horrendous form. They take up a lot of room so out of the question for your garage as well as very few will ever be in your gym.

So you may think which one is best and my answer to that is neither. There is no one I would solely recommend on using to create an all round great workout. They all have positives and negatives but I would create a happy medium using all in your workouts. Barbell for the big lifts, Dumbbells for your more so isolation along with cables for those high rep finishers.

If you're still lost and confused then I am still writing personalised programmes so drop me an email me on jcdpersonaltraining@gmail.com

Happy Training

Jack

How often should I train?

This is the question as a PT I get asked the most, ‘How often should I be training?”. This to me is such a broad question, with there being so many contributing factors to answer the question fully and correctly. What is your goal? How much time can you give to the gym a week? What is your current level of fitness? What does your diet look like?. These are all questions that I’m going to answer, offer you solutions and prompt ideas which in turn should help you in finding how often you should be training. 

The most important question you need to ask yourself, what really is your goal? I like to personally use a pyramid system with all contributing factors leading to achieving the goal at the top. The foundations being your diet, training in the middle and something very specific to the goal as the icing at the top. I still believe that your diet is the underpinning factor when it comes to training, not fuelling your body correctly will hinder you're training and progression. So before any of this begins you need to ask yourself what is that goal? Do you want to enter a competition, sports specific, look great for your holiday or just generally feel better about yourself? This is where you need to start. Ensure when deciding on this you use SMART goals.

S - Specific 

M - Measurable

A - Attainable

R - Realistic

T - Time Managed. 

This doesn't just have to be just one goal but could be many different, small achievable goals leading towards one long term goal. However you do it ensure that these are achievable, if not this could cause demotivation when you're not quite achieving them but can also pose as the opposite boasting motivation when you do. Once you have you're goal in mind everything else around that should be catered into how you going to achieve that goal the most efficient way possible. 

How much time you can offer to the gym is also crucial because if you can only offer 3 hours religious a week to the the gym than that is the only amount you're going to be training. Firstly you must remember that your training should never be a seen as a chore, you should be wanting to go, this being where the above point comes in with having a goal, motivating you to go and get the job done. With everyones life’s becoming busier there is less free time in your day to go and do things such as the gym and at the end of the day will determine how often you can train, so be strict on yourself on realistically how often you really are going to be able to go to the gym. If this is only 3x1 hour sessions a week that thats all it is, but you must stay committed to this, much like the SMART goals used above it must be realistic. Here are a few pointers to make the most of your time and be in the gym more regularly.

• Make it part of your routine. If you have a 10 mile commute to work each morning, instead of driving to work, cycle to work. Get up an hour earlier and join a gym close to work so you can workout before going to work meaning you can work slightly late or go for a catch up with friends after work. 
• Use HIIT (High Intensity interval training). This is the modern way to train, short, sharp and to the point with a workout rarely over 30 minutes. This can be from a class at your local gym or a quick 20 minute before your morning shower, all quick, simple but most importantly intense. 
• Train with a partner. Research says those who train together, stay together and this is very true. A Sunday morning jog or a quick circuit in the garden will up the volume you're training but also mean you're still getting to spend time with those close to you. They'll be your motivator when you need them the most.  

We’re getting slightly more specific now but in order to know how often you should be training you really should depend it on your current level. You won’t see an professional athlete that trains only twice a week and yet someone who hasn't done any kind of physical activity in 5 years all of a sudden start hitting the gym 5 times a week! You really must judge it upon what level you are at already otherwise, things such as injury could occur when you start training too soon, there must be progression. This therefore means look where you're already at yourself, could you go out and happily run a sub 50 minutes 10k with ease? Than running 4/5 times a week really isn't going to be a problem. Could you last a 30 minute HIIT circuit and still be able to move the next day, then you're at a level where you could train 3 times or more a week, its very much dependent on your already known ability level. Start off with less sessions and slowly increase over time, progression is always the better option to regression. 

Diet I will also refer back to as for me it’s the most crucial element of anyones training programme because without it you're not going to be able to train anywhere near your optimum level, get this in check before you even start considering how often you should be training. You could be training 7 days a week but if you're diet isn’t in order to either fuel or aid recovery after these sessions than you’ll never advance, or meet those goals. Little pointers to help are as follows:

• Always eat breakfast!! This is the most imperative in my opinion, opting for a carb and protein heavy meal will aid you so much in the mornings. Don't eat just a piece of food or these all in one breakfast ready to go drinks, really focus on getting some good nutritious food down you. Low Gi carbs along with some protein. Oats with MyProtein Impact Whey will do the job perfectly.
• You’ll need to eat more than you think. Find out your BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate) using an app or just type it into google. You'll gather a result, a rough estimate of how many calories you're body needs a day. Add or lose 300-500 for gaining to losing weight, simple!!!
• Bulk all meals out with vegetables. Veggies in this scenario are your friends, they make you fill fuller, make you believe there is more food on the plant and lastly are full on micronutrients. Also opt for greens over anything else. Snacking on vegetables is also great, carrot and celery sticks being my favourite. 
• Break your meals up throughout the day. Many people think the only way to lose weight is to eat 6 meals a day and with that they may be right, but not something which you have to stick to. I just believe in spreading them out, attempting to grasp around the same calorific content and marconutrients from each but don't get too hung up on this. Your overall calorie intake for the day is the crucial number, not how many meals you've eaten to achieve this so, divert more attention to your overall consumption. 
• Lastly it is never constrict yourself. This is one of the worse things to do in my eyes. Yes you're diet should be clean but it doesn't have to be this all the time, you can waver once or twice. Obviously this can’t become a regular occurrence but if you're craving say a piece of chocolate, than eat a piece of chocolate. There is always a better nutrition option such as dark chocolate so attempt to always get these where you can, but whatever you do don't treat it as a reward. See it as food and thats it, otherwise you'll than just have the mind set that you need a reward all the time. 

So I may have gone off subject quite a lot there but it gives you a broader understanding on how all elements work together. Yes the article is titled ‘how often should you train?’ but not one of the points I raised has more precedence than the other. Train hard, set goals, eat right and you're on the way to success. 

The Summer Diet

Recently I’ve been very busy with work but as the thunder storms pass and the sun finally comes out in London I thought it would be a great time to talk about the Summer Diet. Holidays on the horizon, T-shirts becoming the majority of the summer wear, looking good is one of the biggest factors for many. The extra slice of toast or spoonfuls of peanut butter need to go and replaced by celery sticks and rice cakes or so many believe.

Losing weight and becoming lean for summer eating plays a huge role, but before I elaborate any further I just want to make one point. Don't believe you are going to look like your favourite fitness model you see posting pictures up on their Instagram or the recent cover model of your favourite fitness magazine. These are more so often than not pictures of them when they're stage ready, dehydrated, depleted of carbohydrates until the day before with the best tanning and lighting!!!! You need not to compare yourself to these but yourself and your own goals. 

Now onto diet. Yes this needs to change from the diet you had over the winter consisting of high carbs and a few extra treats than you normally would eat but you don't need to cut everything out of your diet totally. Many believe a diet consisting of just protein and veg does the fix but you'll be thankful to know carbs are still essential. The best bit of advice I can give is split all meals a day into 5 similar size portions with breakfast, if any taking preference on the larger size. Look at the plate aiming for a fist size of protein and carbs, half a fist fat and unlimited vegetables, preference towards green. Try to avoid to much fruit, believing these are good for you. Yes they are nutritious but also contain huge amounts of sugar, empty calories which you really don't need. The main pointers to a great summer diet are:

1. If you fancy a treat, have it!!! Keep it small and don't over indulge. Eat either pre or post workout when you're body is in need of food the most. 
2. Again keep your breakfast the larger size meal, along with a post workout meal.
3. Stay away from eating to much fruit, post workout as a insulin spike is the best. 
4. Eat dense foods, keeping you fuller for longer, avoiding empty foods and more so drinks. Go with a high protein greek yoghurt with blueberries over a glass of orange juice for breakfast.
5. Try to stick to brown rice, sweet potato, oats instead of your breads and pasta. This can have a place in your diet but try and keep it as a treat, avoiding it as a sustainable part within the diet. 
6. Lastly stay consistent!! Slow and steady will get you the body you want, a crash diet might make you feel good and look good for an evening but in the long run is not going to help you get that dream body. If you have a poor day of eating, don’t just give up and punish yourself, reverting back to comfort food. The next day get straight back on it, forget about what you've eaten the day before and start again. 

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

Keeping on track over the festive period along with Optimum Nutritions Amino Energy!!!!!

So many people go off the rails over the Christmas period and end up reversing all their advancements that they've made throughout the year. Now you don’t have to be a spoilt sport and not get involved in the festive occasion but below are a few little tips that shall keep you on track. 

Take time off!!! I’m personally one of those individuals that has rest very few a far between, along with the frequency and intensity that I train I think my body deserves a day or two off. This doesn't mean a week which carries into a fortnight and onto a month just 3 days off over the Christmas Period. As we all know rest is quite often than not more important than training itself to allow you to move forward and make gains in all training. Plus I know that over the Christmas period its very hard to get into a gym, plus I won’t probably be able to do my usual routine, train at an optimum level along with time restriction. So take some days off!!!

Quick, short, high intense workouts. So many clients say to me how they never find time to train and over the festive period this is going to be even worse for most. But, you shall still have time to fit a quick 20 minutes into your day for a quick session. No equipment just your own body weight!! A quick 3 minute warm up of mobility then 100 jumping jacks then see below for 2 quick circuits:

1. As many rounds in 15 minutes, take rest when needed.

10 Hand Release Press ups

10 jumping squats

5 burpees

20 count plank. 

2) Counting Up Pyramid, perform 1 rep on all exercises, then repeat with 2 reps, basically adding 1 rep each round. set yourself a time limit of 15 minutes and see what number you can reach.

Exercises could be: Press up variations, pull ups, Burpees, Squats, Ice Skaters, Leg raises.

Lastly eat what you want, but this doesn't mean eat for both you and 2 others. Don't worry too much about what foods you are eating, its one day!! However, this doesn't mean just keep eating and eating until you end up in a food coma. Furthermore try over the days following christmas to not snack on leftovers. If you're going to eat leftovers make it into a meal trying to split your plate 30% leftovers, 30% good carbs/protein and the remaining 40% veggies. This will therefore help you with not craving the leftovers as you're consuming some but yet still keeping on track with the rest of your plate to conform to your usual diet. 

I hope these easy to manage factors will keep you on track over Christmas, have the cheat meal more often than not and don't feel guilty but, after the day is done and dusted really try to get back on track.

One quick one from me, I wrote a review on Optimum Nutritions Amino Energy a few weeks ago and I have recently been using it in conjunction with their new pre workout after seeing Steve Cook use this. Now if you haven't yet tried this combination, you need to . You'll have the best workouts ever when feeling sluggish over the festive period!! Plus I’m sure they'll have a few Christmas Offers coming out soon to get it a little cheaper. This is a must buy!!

Merry Christmas

Jack

Go heavy or go home!!!!

Firstly apologies with the lapse in my regular posts, I've been really busy with work. Anyway back to the more important stuff, training. Over the last few weeks as you may have seen from my Instagram posts I’ve somewhat reduced my usual high volume workouts with a focus more to going heavier, improving strength. 

My workouts have consisted more of a focus on the compound exercises, with a few isolated exercises just to finish off the muscle group. Going heavy doesn't always mean going up to your 1 rep max or 5x5, mix it up. I use both of these however, I also like to use 7x3, 8x2 and 6x6. Give these a try, some may work better for you or work better for each exercises. I prefer using the lower reps based sets for squats and going higher for deadlifts. Whatever you do, make sure to keep mixing it up and you will be less likely hit that wall with these exercises. Record each workout to see improvement, thus motivating you with an attempt to hit your 1 rep max every fifth workout. 

Try with the remainder of the workout through isolation exercises to focus on the tempo of the rep along with contraction. This will aid both strength, endurance and bring size to the muscle. Limit this however to no more then 6 working sets. I like to add a giant set onto the end of the workout as a perfect finisher. 

One more point which I have been asked a lot on social media recently is what is a deload week? Now many people think this is where you reduce your workouts to very little weight, along with high reps, giving the muscle a semi rest week. My opinion on this however is you've taken 3 steps forward, so why take 2 steps back? Keep the weight high so that the muscle is still being hit hard, however just reduce the volume. Cutting the working sets in half is always a good option.

So there you have it, a few tips to keep you going but there shall be a few more tips coming soon.

Jack. 

How to train effectively?

How to train a effectively?

Recently I was reading in a Q&A section of a magazine and it made for an interesting read. Training effectively can mean a numerous number of things but mainly aimed at are you reaching the goal that you set out to. So the point I'm getting at is set yourself goals in training, here are a few you could set yourself. 

Strength goals - set yourself a goal of a certain exercise you want to lift more weight on, thus building further strength. The big three are always good for this. I like to go with the most reps at BW for bench, 1.5 BW squat and 2xBW deadlift. 

Muscular Endurance - you could set yourself a certain goal through time based or number of reps completed for an exercise or numerous of exercises. A circuit/crossfit WOD is always good for this. Set yourself goals and strive to beat these, this will motivate you to push yourself further and train more effectively.

A competition or event - this is the best way to push yourself further as if you're competitive like me it shall push you more and more to achieve a better result at the event. Setting your sessions round this will always mean you'll train effectively.

Nutrition - this is in my eyes the most important. If you're not eating the right foods, not just pre and post workout but daily you won't train effectively!! As you may have heard many times if a car didn't have the right fuel it wouldn't work the most effectively it could. This is the same with the food you consume. Stick to your slow digesting carbs pre workout so not to feel sluggish, with fast digesting both during and post workout. Eat plenty of fruit and veg, lean protein options with a little diary and you'll be on the right track. 

So there you have it, get training effectively. Follow this points and you won't be going far wrong. Let us know if these points help. 

Killing Shoulders, Mike O'Hearn and Rob Riches

As many of you will know who regularly read my posts I talk a lot about shoulders. This is because out of all muscle groups, this is my weakest both in size and strength. However, I recently watched a collaboration video on YouTube between Mike O'Hearn and Rob Riches which very much demonstrates a different way of training shoulders, this I then out into practice yesterday in my workout. 

The first exercise he uses is a single standing DB press. I love all standing exercises just recently because it really helps activate the core, stabilising your upper body especially when going heavy over head. Mike is explicit about going heavy in this video. You just go heavy , don't chase the pump. 1-5 is my normal rep range. He goes on to mention how the opening exercise should always shock the nervous system and the rest of the workout will feel light. Furthermore be careful with warm up sets, don't go to far, only 5 reps over 2 sets are really needed otherwise all your doing is putting strain and fatiguing the muscle before you've even hitting it with the big stuff. I really stuck by this in my recent workout and boy does it work. My shoulders were on fire and I only really went heavy for one set at 37.5kg for 5 reps. Nothing compared to Mike getting up over 140lbs for 6 with ease. The guy has insane strength and I think one of the best bodies in the game so who wouldn't take advice off him.

The rest of the workout continues with a huge focus paid on not over doing it on every set you complete, but real attention paid to the heavy sets, always to failure!! He goes on to talk about how form can sometimes be slightly comprised within reason to reach those extra few reps. Giving the press, a more so push press towards the end of a set by a little bounce from the legs. After 3 more exercises, including a upright DB row, rear delt fly and a horrible looking lateral into a front raise movement, done light with control focusing in the roundness of the shoulder, and boy did it burn, the workouts done. 

So there you have it, check the video on Rob Riches YouTube page, if it gets 2 million views then Mike has said he'll fly you out to LA to train with them, so get liking, sharing etc. Now go and kill shoulders.

Jack

Late Night Legs

After a rather long 3 weeks away with very little training I got back late last night. With this amount of time away from a routine I was craving gym time and what could be more prevalent then kicking it off with a late night leg work out!

Now I normally stay away from training late, it's just never felt like the best time to train but last night was an exception to this. I always hit my legs with high volume beginning with back/front squat. Last night however I changed my squat slightly on advice from a video I had seen from Bradley Martyn, opting for a much closer, narrow back squat. This takes the stress away from the hamstrings and more onto the quads much like a front squat but allows for a heavier weight to be lifted. I went high volume with 8 sets of 12-15 reps, increasing weight over each set, hitting 125kg in the last set. 

Post these squats my legs were pretty much on fire but I moved onto hamstrings through variations of curls. 8 sets of 15 reps, focusing on the contraction and forcing blood into the muscle. This was very similar with leg extensions which I finished the workout off, super setting with weighted lunges. With the extensions pause at the top of the movement, when the leg is fully contracted. Dropset on each set really pushed my legs to the limited. A little finisher with tabata jump squats for 8 minutes. This is so simple but after all of the volume above was a killer.

1) Back Squat, warming up to 8 sets 12-15 reps. 

2) Leg Curl 8 sets 15 reps

3) Leg Extension drops sets, 12 reps each, weighted lunges 12 reps each leg. 6 sets.

4) Tabata Jump squats for 8 minutes.

My legs were totally busted after this workout, a fab workout. Needed a good foam roll out an stretch after this workout and they're hurting a lot this morning. Give the narrow squats a go, really worth it.

Good luck

Jack