Weight training for YOUR goals.
Train smart. Reps, sets, rest, recovery time.
Once I started doing workouts every single day (I only recently learned how to stick with it enjoying it daily) — I got hooked on feeling amazing, pumped and ready to rock the world EVERY SINGLE DAY. Now on my lazy mornings, when my mind starts betraying me, starts trying to find excuses not to show up as my best self today, on these mornings I get back to remembering that feeling after a great workout, I get back to remembering my best days that ALWAYS happen after I show up for my daily exercise, in the gym, outside, at home, anywhere, that remembering gets me out of bed an into my workout clothes in no time. And this is what I love most about my daily morning exercise routine — that feeling and days after. All the other health and beauty benefits are a positive side-effect.
If you are into making training your daily routine — and I believe absolutely everyone needs to make daily exercise their daily routine.
When you get into daily exercise routine, you need to learn how to do it without overtraining, allowing your body proper recovery, so you have more energy for life at the same time improving your results, instead of feeling drained after your workouts and seeing no progress day, after day, after day.
Many of you might not know that after training, different kinds of training, the body needs different amount of time to recover, and not only our body needs time to recover but our central nervous system needs recovery time just as much.
Recovery doesn’t necessarily mean no workout, it just means nothing challenging, doing something light — this is of course is different for everyone, depends on our fitness levels, what is challenging for me might not be challenging for you and vice versa.
As I am more knowledgeable about and experienced in strength training, I will write about types of strength/weight/resistance training and recovery time you need for each for maximum results, progress and to ovoid overtraining.
Weight training to increase strength and muscle volume.
4–5 reps, maximum weight, 3 mins between sets, 5–7 days to recover per muscle group.
Lifting the heaviest, being focused on increasing overall strength, lifting maximum weight for 4 reps is really taxing on the body, muscles, nervous system. For me this type of training gives maximum muscle size. My shoulders didn’t start growing until I started lifting really heavy. This type of training requires maximum recovery time — 5–7 days per muscle group. So if I train shoulders on Thursday, for example, I train them next time only in a week.
What I noticed, this type of training increases strength and muscle volume the most. This type of training you want to avoid, if you don’t want to see your muscles increasing in volume. I do not want my legs to get bigger, so I almost never train my legs this way.
Weight training to sculpt your body, add definition and details.
8–12 reps, 60–90 sec between sets, 48–72 hours to recover per muscle group.
This is the zone, where a lot of bodybuilders work, because this training really helps to carve out the details, all the smaller muscle groups — back of your shoulders, nice buttocks, inner thighs etc. That also helps to make muscle separation more visible. And of course it’s great for muscle growth, muscle hypertrophy. That has become a bodybuilding classic.
In my personal experience I found, that this type of training works for muscle growth, not so much strength. I also noticed more improvement in quality and density of muscles. Muscle volume, for me personally, doesn’t increase that much with this type of training. It’s less taxing on the body and nervous system. I’d definitely recommend it to you, if you want to sculpt your body more precisely.
Weight training for the “cut”, “shredding”, leaning out, maximum muscle definition.
20+ reps, 30 sec between sets, 24 hours to recover.
This is what a lot of fitness professionals, fitness models, bodybuilders use to chisel the finest details and cut body fat. Although cutting body fat is mostly nutrition, this type of training allows to amplify it. And it’s the least taxing on the body and nervous system. Great for newbies too, if you are just starting out total overload of your body and nervous system is not necessarily what you are looking for. This type of training prepares you for more serious training. It’s also great if you want to take it easy and allow your body to recover from more serious workouts — keep training but make it light training.
I’m often asked,
“But don’t we need a rest day?”
Meaning, don’t we need a day with no exercise at all?
Not really, unless you train like a professional athlete and really squeeze every bit out of yourself the whole week. The body performs better and recovery goes better, when you do something light. You can do yoga, go for some light cardio class, go for a jog or a relaxed bike ride, walk fast. And if all you did during the week is light workouts — you don’t need to rest from anything, your body is not that fragile, unless you are recovering from some injury or health issue.
By now you should understand strength/weight training much better — when to train, how to design your training for your specific goals.
More on the best cardio for weight loss and health I’ll focus on next Friday, after I interview THE HIIT GUY, Martin Gibala PhD, the author of “The One Minute Workout”.
Questions? Need advice? — Angela at CreateYourself.Today
You don’t get healthy and stay healthy.
HEALTH is a DAILY PRACTICE. One bite at a time.
Daily Bite of Health
