Basic Workout Tips

The Tips

1. When you ride a bike you don’t shift the gear to high when starting out. You drop down to low easy gear until you gain some speed then start shifting one by one upward dependent on your own strength. Same with weight training and any other physical exercise regiment. Don’t over train a lot, but over train a little. Give yourself challenges that you can handle to repair for the next training session. Most clients give up training because of overtraining abuse and injury result from it. A small step forward is still forward.

2. The best rep range for gaining size is eight to 20. The lower reps are also zone for increase injury rates. Only after proper warm-ups and years of experience would someone with one rep goal oriented type would suggest low reps training. The muscle doesn’t know how much weight it is lifting it only knows the work. So starting out it is better to make the lighter weight you have work harder and smarter with proper form and speed of movement than it is to push heavy weights sloppy and fast.

3. Breakfast is the most important meal of the deal. Your body hasn’t had any fuel for 6-8 hours when you’re sleeping so it needs plenty of carbohydrates to supply the body right away with some protein thrown in such as eggs or yogurts. To replenish your body immediately after a workout also prime time to eat. 

4. Most exercises can be classified as either single-joint or multijoint movements. Multijoint movements are the more difficult of the two types to master, But these type of exercise also engage balance and stability coordination and increase growth in strength and function. Machine type exercises have higher risk of injuries because of the isolation of the muscles and tend to bypass the stabilization type muscles. You are your strongest at your weakest link. Machine can be usefull if use properly, but doesn’t give you a complete workout.

5. Unless it is the primary focus of your training, do cardio after, not before, you lift weights. Or do it during another part of the day, or better still, on a separate day. "If you perform aerobic-type exercise first, you'll be fatigued for your weight training," says Cotton. "As a general rule, strength training has less of an impact on cardio than cardio has on strength training."

6. Stretch before you train, and warm up before you stretch. Don't jump right into your weight-training session. First, do about 5-10 minutes of low-intensity exercise on a stationary bike or a treadmill until you bring up a sweat to ensure body temperature increases. Then spend additional time of around 10 minutes of gentle stretches focusing on body part you plan to train.

7. Recovery is just as important as training. When you lift weights, you're actually tearing down muscle fibers. It's only after you've completed your workout that your muscle tissues begin the rebuilding process. To allow that process to unfold properly, give your body adequate downtime in between workouts. As a beginner, don't lift more than three or four times a week, never work the same muscle group on consecutive days, and never train a muscle group that's still sore from a prior workout. For optimal results, you also need to maintain a proper nutrition program, which calls for five or six nutrient-packed small meals a day (four, at minimum). Finally, you need to get enough shut-eye--at least eight hours of it. Adequate sleep keeps you mentally and physically sharp for your workouts, and the act of slumber itself accommodates the release of growth-inducing hormones.

8. Don't do the same workout over and over. Most body fully adapt to a workout regiment within 1 month, and reach growth plateau of no changes. Plan on new ways to challenge yourself and re-evaluate your goals from time to time. Slowly increase your resistance or reps over a period of time are also one way to make changes to your workout. But there will be a time when even that no longer work and new plan of workout regiment will be needed.

9. Most guys need to consume an additional 2,500 to 3,500 calories a week to gain one pound of muscle each week. You can pump iron until you're blue in the face, but if you don't augment your training efforts with enough food and fluid, the laws of human biology and simple mathematics dictate that you won't get any bigger. "When it comes to gaining muscle, the most important thing is eating enough calories to fuel both your exercise and the metabolic processes needed to build muscle," says Susan M. Kleiner, Ph.D., R.D., author of Power Eating. "Most guys who have trouble gaining weight and strength simply aren't eating enough."

10. Drink 4-6 oz water every 15 minutes while working out to prevent dehydration.  Once you become dehydrated the workout is over as for it takes your body time to recover from it. Better to stay on top of water replenishment than to fall behind. Don’t mistake water for fancy sports drink as the same. Save the sports drink after your workout. Think of sports drink as lighter fluid to a BBQ, if you keep spraying the BBQ with lighter fluids then when do you plan for the coal to start burning? Same as your body, as when do you plan on the body to start burning fat if you keep replenishing it with readily usable carbohydrates?