What rep range do I use?

Today being international chest day I thought what better than to train chest of course. I met up with one of my mates at the gym and over a pre workout espresso he asked me an interesting question, ‘what is the best rep range in order to building muscle?’. 

This is a point that is always being discussed and many people will tell you 10-12 reps, otherwise known as the hypertrophy range. To build strength you should be hitting 5 or below and to increase endurance aim for anywhere from 12-20 reps per the set. However, I was recently reading a study in Men’s Health which had shown you should perform no more than 8 reps if you're looking to build muscle. This ends up with you questioning what rep range should I be using? Well I’ve got the answers in order to make you hit all of this easy, based on todays chest workout. 

1. Start with your compound move of the session. For me today this was flat bench press. I warmed up to 3 working sets of 3 reps in a pyramid fashion. I then dropped the weight by 20% to hit 8-10 reps for 2 sets, then lastly bodyweight for 12 or failure. This straight away is recruiting a good few rep ranges.
2. I then like to move onto incline flies purely to flood the muscle with blood, for this I used ascending pyramids hitting sets at 15,12,10,8 and 6 reps. The last set add in a triple drop set. The first two sets you are treating more like pump sets, however the triple drop set in total will add up to 20 reps, more of what can be described as a endurance rep range. Again you have used all rep ranges, perform these with a good slow tempo and contraction, not all to failure. I’ve recently gone a lot heavier in these movements and have noticed such a difference to growth in my chest. 
3. My third exercise was incline dumbbell press again with a similar fashion to above however I ascending up in weight to then decrease back down. By this point however I was quite fatigued however still managed to push out a good weight with the rep scheme 12,10,8,12,15. 
4. I always like to mix this exercise up in my routine so today it was a competition between me and my training partner performing dips. 100 reps in total, fewest sets wins. This really pushes the muscle to failure and beyond as you can compete against one another. No matter rep ranges, a muscle pushed this hard will have to grow. 
5. The finisher today was high to low cable fly triple drop sets followed by prison press ups, reps determined by your age. Do this for three sets. This keeps things a little more interesting as oppose to the normal rep scheme you'd use. For a demonstration check out Steve Cook’s channel on youtube. He always uses them and they are great to use as a finisher. 

So there you go, a workout which demonstrates how you can target the muscle with all different types of rep ranges. This will keep the muscle guessing, pushing it in different ways but more importantly keeping things interesting for you. Fundamentally a muscle pushed to failure will instinctively grow stronger, thus bigger so don’t get to hung up on rep schemes. 

Hope this helps

Jack

I want bigger shoulders

I want bigger shoulders!!

This seems to be a goal of many recently, with a lot of people asking me how can I build boulder shoulders after seeing people like Ryan Terry and Steve Cook. It's kind of like the new chest and huge arms. 

The one thing you must remember about shoulders are that they are often secondary muscle group or stabilising muscles in most of the exercises you do, this therefore means when it comes to training them don't always use a lot of volume. Front delts get a big hammering when training chest, and even more so performing exercises with an incline.

Warm you shoulders up! Shoulders are prone to injury and if you have a recurring injury in your shoulders say goodbye to ever building big shoulders. Always spend a good ten minutes before any upper body session really warming up the shoulders, particular attention paid to the rotator cuff. 

Focus more on the lateral and posterior head, more than the front delt. As already mentioned the front delt is used often in through other exercises. The lateral and posterior will is also give more depth and roundness to your shoulders, thus making it appear a lot larger. This is in my opinion the easiest way to build size fast through isolation, high rep, low weight and focus on the contraction, squeezing the muscle. 

Lastly is split the shoulders into two workouts. This is something I'm using at the minute and absolutely love it. I do a anterior workout focusing on the push press to begin with then upper chest along with the lateral head of the muscle. The following day I deadlift heavy at the beginning, slightly using it as a secondary back day. Then I focus on face pulls and flies to recruit my rear delts, finishing with a shrug marathon. It is certainly working for me as this has always been a lacking muscle of mine. If you're cut for time add triceps onto the end of the anterior workout and biceps onto the posterior day.

So there are four easy steps you can adjust into your training in order to build bigger shoulders. Have a fab weekend. Eat clean, train hard and get plenty of rest. 

The season is upon us, let the bulking begin!!

Now as I sit and write this the dark nights are closing in, meaning winter is arriving which can only mean one thing in the fitness world, let the bulking commence. So before everyone starts eating whatever they want I thought it would be good to outline a few points with regards to nutrition.

Track your Macros:
By this I mean monitor your macros in order to ensure you're eating enough but also eating enough of the right stuff. Firstly work out your Basic Metabolic Rate then usually add on 500 calories to put on weight. You don't have to eat absolutely loads. Then add in the break down of the calories, I follow around 50% carbs, 35% protein and the remaining 15% fat. This will ensure you have carbs for energy but also a surplus to add on size with enough protein to ensure you're repairing the broken down muscle. Use MyFitness pal to track this, it doesn't need to be exact, like if you were dieting, but you'll be surprised how much food you actually need to eat.

Selection of Carbs:
Now for example say your macros allows you to eat 400 grams of carbs, this doesn't mean it can be just any carbohydrate. Try and have low glycemic based carbohydrates such as rice and oats throughout the day then both pre and most defiantly post workout opt for a high glycemic carbohydrate such as fruit or a dextrose based drink. This will help spike insulin levels and will be quickly absorbed into your system, thus helping with the recovery process. My favourite currently is a banana, kiwi and dates!!!!

How often to eat:
Now there are many different ways of consuming your calories. Some swear by eating all your food in a short period and fasting the rest, e.g. 8:16 diet. This is an option but if your sticking to a clean ish diet I can't see that this is going to be needed. I would tell many people to try and split the meals up throughout the day in three hour periods. This keeping you full and also allowing for you to be able to consume your meals without force feeding yourself. However at the end of the day as long as you're sticking to your macros it really doesn't matter when you consume them as long as you get them in.

Eating on rest days:
This is a thing that I am going to start changing in my diet and that is consuming less on rest days. Some would say this is incorrect however my body doesn't require the energy output it would need on a day which I am training and therefore believing cycling carbs in order to eat less on these days will reduce putting on unwanted body fat. Don't get me wrong you can't put on size without gaining fat but you can slightly slow the process down in order to not gain to much weight, which will be so much more difficult to lose when it comes to the summer cut. Just add this in maybe once every two weeks and see how it effects you.

Four easy puts you can input into your winter bulk. Hope this helps

Jack 

The Ideal Breakfast

It's no myth that breakfast is THE most important meal of the day and making sure you are fuelling your body with the right produce is vital for making sure your body is running on full capacity throughout your day even when you're looking to burn body fat. This, therefore, means that your macro nutrients need to be top of the agenda!

Introducing you to the legendary Banana Omelette! This is legendary because everyone I introduce it to  just falls in love with it. So, I suppose you want to know how to make this bad boy?...

Well, it's super easy. 

Ingredients:

1 Large Banana (mashed)

4 egg whites & 2 yolks 

1 scoop of oats

1 Scoop of Vanilla (or a flavour of your choice) Pro10 Whey Protein Powder

A dash of Soya Milk

Fry Light 1 Cal Spray

Honey (if desired)

Method:

Pre-heat saucepan on high heat.

Once banana is mashed in jug, add eggs and whisk until fluffy. Then, add a scoop of oats and Protein Powder along with the dash of milk, whisk until all powder has disappeared. 

Spray saucepan with Fry Light and add mixture, levelling it out to create an even omelette.

Allow this to cook for until colour changes around the edges. Slowly loosen edges before flipping the omelette in half, cooking until liquid has disappeared. 

Time to serve and add honey if you've got a cheeky sweet tooth. 

Enjoy!!! - I know you will. 

Remember 70% diet, 30% gym.

Jack