subject: Basic Principals For Increasing Your Workout Intensity [print this page] After a while, training with the same intensity level, time comes when the body cannot be fully stimulated to grow by the same same intensity level. At this time, the body has begun adapting to the level of intensity in the workout and the exercises are no longer felt as challenging. To restart muscle growth, the intensity must be increased to a higher level, but one that the body can adequately handle without forcing it to.
There are several ways of amplifying the workout intensity where time comes to do so. One of the ways is to increase the poundage of the training eights. A ten percent increase is usually recommended by physiology experts. The poundage therefore demands more effort from the muscles to lift the same number of reps and sets as it had previously adapted to. The weight increase should also be determined based on the type of exercise being done because an increase that is okay for the bicep curls may be too much for squats.
The second basic way of increasing workout intensity is to increase the number of reps done in each set of an exercise. Five reps can be added to reach eight. In intermediate and advanced levels of body building, reps are increased to absolute muscle failure. Reps can be continued therefore until the point at which the muscles can not complete even a single more rep. to help reach the absolute muscle failure point, the weight should be regulated to ensure that failure is reached at or before ten reps of a single movement.
Reps taken to the point of failure must exceed seven but never exceed ten. Weight poundage should be therefore regulated to that which allows a minimum of seven reps and a maximum of ten to reach absolute muscle failure. Beginners usually require a few reps only to stimulate maximal growth in the muscles. At most however, it is not a must that a body builder trains the muscles to failure but approaching failure as much as possible is usually beneficial.
The other way of amplifying workout intensity is to e reduce the number of sets, that is after increasing the reps per set, and then placing the sets close to each other. Beginners usually need many sets of a few reps each, to fully stimulate muscle growth. But as one advances through the body building program, it is essential to increase the reps while decreasing the number of sets for each exercise. The minimum number of sets for a single exercise should be two or ideally three.
A very important technique of increasing workout intensity is reducing the inter-set rest periods to less that 30m seconds at a go. The more time that is allowed between the sets, the lower the intensity because muscles are allowed to fully recover before taking up the next set. But as the body builder advances, it is important to put the sets close together to a maximum break of 45 seconds and a minimum of 20 seconds. Actually, hardcore training body builders usually perform the sets back to back, a strategy that masters absolute level of intensity in the sets.
