subject: 5 Effective Tips to Instantly Improve Your Weight Lifting Workouts [print this page] 5 Effective Tips to Instantly Improve Your Weight Lifting Workouts
Have you been doing weight lifting workouts 4 days a week in the gym but fail to achieve any significant gains in muscle mass? If you are an ectomorph, have you been stuffing yourself with food but with an enlarging pot belly the only visible result? Or if you are endomorph, are you having troubles lowering your body fat and and increasing your muscle mass? In this article, I will share with you 7 quick and effective tips to rectify your weight lifting workouts.
Weight Lifting WorkoutsTip 1: Avoid Overtraining
In the gym, sometimes more is less. In this case, training too much will impact your growth immensely. Overtraining has a triple effect. As you should know by now, your muscle only grows while you rest. Take away that rest period and your muscle gains will be minimal. Next, you would not be able to overload your weights progressively during your next weight lifting workouts, as your muscles will still be aching from the previous one. The main principle of muscular hypertrophy is progressive overload, take that away and your muscles will not grow. Lastly, overtraining will cause your recovery rate to dip, and this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy!
Weight Lifting WorkoutsTip 2: Recharge
Simple, take a week off training after every 6 weeks or so. This would depend on the intensity of your workout and the recovery rate of your body. Adjust accordingly, a good indicator is when you hit a plateau. Take a week off and recharge. Most of the time, you will easily break through the plateau when you go for your next weight workouts. Just don't take too many long rests at the slightlest sign of a plateau!
Weight Lifting WorkoutsTip 3: Avoid These Food
Sodas, juices, high fat meat, frozen deserts, cookies, crackers, white floor products, processed food, potato chips, baking supplies.. you get the idea? If you are really serious about gaining muscle mass, get rid of these during your muscle building phase, and you could eat them in moderation after that. However, if possible, eliminate them from your diet totally. It's not hard, just don't buy them. I managed to control my cravings this way and today, I do not hanker for such stuff anymore.
Weight Lifting WorkoutsTip 4: Consume These Food
Lean meat (chicken, turkey, beef etc), dried fruits, fruits, grains, eggs, tea, green tea, water, legumes, fish, nuts, salmon, vegetables etc. Consume a variety of fruits and vegetables, and drink lots of water. These are understated and underhyped ways to ensure your body functions well and this will in turn maximise your muscle gains. Trust me on this.
Weight Lifting WorkoutsTip 5: Train Like A Bodybuilder, Not A Weight Lifter
To cut through the fluff and avoid confusing you with the scienfitic explanation, I highly recommend the 4-2-1 principle recommended by strength conditioning coach Ian King. In a nutshell, the 4-2-1 principle comprises 4 seconds of eccentric phase (lowering), 2 seconds of pause between phases, and 1 second of concentric phase (pushing). I.e. Pull ups: 1 second to go up, pause for 2 seconds, and then lower yourself in 4 seconds. Bench press: 1 second to push up, pause for 2 seconds, and then lower the bar in 4 seconds. Try this out and I assure you that you will be amazed with your strength and muscle gains.
To sum up, achieveing muscular hypertrophy (growth) is not difficult. As long you have the proper rest, nutrition and training (which I have all covered in this article) your weight lifting workouts will be very effective.
