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

When is the best time to do cardio??

When should I do cardio?

This is the dilemma of lots of people when it comes to cutting season. If I do it pre workout I won't get as good as workout, if I do it post workout I will lose mass, should I do it fasted? These are all questions I get asked all the time and there is no simple answer, but hopefully the following will kind of explain it slightly, helping you make a decision.

Cardio firstly doesn't mean going on a run or sitting on a bike for an hour, it can also be done through weights. When I want to start cutting down I include a lot more tri sets (three exercises) and giant sets (four exercises) into my programme. This doesn't just get your heart rate up into the aerobic phase for burning fat but also conditions the muscle more, which whilst cutting it what you want as you are no longer looking for mass. This was all brought to my attention by Shaun Stafford who is WBFF champion and he uses this a lot in his workouts. You can also make your workout more circuit based as oppose to just perform four sets of 10 reps of one exercise then moving on. Bring the weight down but keep the same rep scheme. This is a huge favourite of Mister International 2010 Ryan Terry. Furthermore at the end of each set add 5 burpees on the end or hold the plank for half of your rest period. This being another great alternative.

Now fasted cardio is next. This is a great tool and some people swear by it. My first point would be make sure you take on some BCAA prior to starting in order for your body not to go catabolic, basically using the muscle as a energy source. Again this works for some and doesn't for others. Your body is working off of an empty stomach and therefore as there is no energy source will start using your fat reserves as a form of energy, targeting what you want to get rid of. However, due to the little energy source your body can recruit I don't believe you can fully push yourself using this form. Yes a slow, steady 3mile jog is fine, but if you want to start hitting the intervals then it's kind of a no go area. Living next to Hyde park, I often run into work fasted however my body is just then craving food all day and when your restricting calories as it is, it's not a temptation you want. 

Pre workout cardio I would defiantly say is a no go. It may work for you so give it a try but personally I don't like it. Your either going to hold back in order to save some energy for the main bulk of your workout or max out then have a poor workout. Yes you can make it your warm up and yes you may burn more calories in the main workout however you still won't get the both out of both parts of the workout. Give it a try first and see what you think.

Post workout cardio is last but not least. This is what I am regularly doing on top of my crossfit cardio based workouts I mentioned a few posts back. Your muscles are fully depleted at this point and your body is feeling tired so you really have to be up for it. Many people are worried about muscle break down from doing cardio post workout but I'll let you into two tips. Make sure you drink BCAA throughout your workout and make both parts short and simple. For example I like to do HIIT post workout cardio but still have some corporation to the weight workout I've done prior. For example, yesterday was Chest so I performed 250m row max effort with the rest time being 15 hand release press ups. This I performed 6 times, no rest between efforts and was over in 6 and a half minutes. I was benefitting from the cardio but also exhausting my chest at the same time. You can do the same with any muscle groups, jump squats/burpees for legs, pull ups/inverted row for back, clean and press for shoulders. Or short and sweet and makes you fill great after a workout. You can use all different types of cardio equipment as well, I just like the rower as its a full body workout. Add this on post workout and I know you'll love it. 

Give these all a try and see what you think. Different times work better for others and they all have their advantages and disadvantages. 

Jack

Steve Cook - hypertrophy training

I was recently on youtube just having a little browse when I came across a video from Steve Cook on hypertrophy training, to which I thought I'd share with you. Steve Cook is very popular in the fitness industry after becoming an IFBB pro Men's Physique Competitor, Optimum Nurtition and Bodybuilding.com spokesmen and of course the founder of Swoldier. Swoldier nation is Steve Cook's ethos on training in the gym but furthermore in life. Doing things the right way. This could be through setting goals to achieve in the gym but basically it underpins the drive that causes you to succeed in life. This has become massive with many followers and has really started to bring a different light on the muscle building community.

Back to hypertrophy training. You may ask what is difference between strength and hypertrophy training well, firstly hypertrophy training is a method of strength training and is intended to induce the fastest muscle growth in the shortest period of time without the use of anabolic steroids. There are four different principles to this type of training. Mechanical load is the first, meaning tension loading of the muscle through an exercise. Chronic stimulation which is the theory that a muscle does not need more than 48 hours to recover because within that 48 hours window recovery can still take place with the correct rate of protein and nutrition. Progressive load is also a principle through over time the tissue adapts and becomes resistant to the effects of the first principle, mechanical load. Therefore the load must be increased to overcome adaptation by the body thus, causing growth to occur. Strategic Deconsitioning or in other terms a rest week is where the body has reached a point at the end of a cycle where it can't tolerate more weight, therefore a set period of rest must be take, allowing for the muscle to grow. These are the basics to hypertrophy training, boring stuff out the way now how to put it into practice.

Now as I mentioned early Steve Cook has recorded numerous videos of him doing this type of training online and it is really interesting, where you shall defiantly see growth. He overloads the muscle through 8 reps for 8 sets of the same exercise only allowing for 30 seconds of rest between sets. This therefore allows very little rest for the muscle to recover in anyway, and depending on which exercise your performing can really get the heart pumping. The weight used would not be what you would normally use for an 8 rep set otherwise you will not be able to last for all 8 sets so bring it down by about 30%. He thens pushes it further through either superseting or tri-setting exercises later on into the workout. This becomes really difficult after the muscle is already quite fatigued. With the additional volume in your training hypertrophy will definetly bring about growth. Also if your someone that goes to the gym and just goes through the motions this will bring a stop to that and keep the body guessing of what might be coming next causing it to adapt and grow. I personally tried the 8x8 with arms at the end of my session today and I usually get a burn through supersetting on my arms but this just brought an all together different burn more of any ache, so you should definetly give it a try if you want something new with any workout.

Try this link to see his workout http://bit.ly/1fZhrca

Remember diet 70%, gym 30%

Jack