Training Principles
There are a few fundamental rules everybody should know, and follow
when trying to build a better body with weights. If your just starting out,
pretty much anything you do that results in some kind of muscular fatigue
and or soreness will result in growth.
But for optimal results, and after lifting weights for a while, you have to
approach your training with more strategy. If you continue doing the exact same
thing every workout, your gains will come to a halt. So here are a few training
principles that will help you avoid stagnation, in order of importance as I
perceive them.
1. Periodization (Cycle Training Principle)
This is one of the most important principles to ensure continued growth. It is
the idea of splitting up your training into chapters, each successive chapter
is sufficiently different from the last to elicit more growth. A chapter is a
period of a style of training.
You can have several chapters, or just two that you cycle between. The two most
common chapters are 'Heavy' and 'Light', and they do suffice for continued growth.
Each chapter has many variables: # reps, # sets, # exercises, which exercises,
tempo, rest, frequency, volume, intensity, etc., so there are many, many different
chapters you could use.
Each chapter can last anywhere from 1 workout to 2 months. I would recommend following
any chapter for at least 2-3 weeks so you can determine whether or not it worked, or at
least have that much of a break from your usual, favorite chapter.
Another reason periodization is so important is that heavy training takes its toll
on the body, and periodization gives it a chance to recover, preventing overtraining.
Heavy lifting of around 6 reps or less puts a lot of strain on connective tissue,
the nervous system as well as the muscular system. Taking a break in the form of
light training gives the fast-twitch fibers, and all other systems a chance to recover.
2. Progressive Overload
So you start working out, and you are bench pressing 135 pounds for 10 reps.
2 weeks later you could probably squeeze out 12 reps, but you stop at 10. Why you
would do this is beyond me, but that would be a sever lack of progressive overload.
And if you continued using only 10 reps of 135 pounds, chance are you would get
very good at it, but you would reach a point where you don't get stronger or bigger.
But if you increased the number of reps so that you are always challenging your body,
you are progressively overloading, and you'll make much better gains. This seems fairly
common sense, but at one time even I made the mistake of going to the gym and lifting
the same weight over and over again.
Progressive overload can be achieved in a variety of forms: increasing the reps,
slowing down the tempo, increasing the weight, decreasing rest time between sets,
adding another set, etc. You should try to increase at least one variable every workout.
If you stagnate, and can't increase a variable, you have to evaluate your training.
There are a couple of factors that might cause this:
- mental barriers, you don't think you can lift more, and in fact convince yourself you can't.
- overtraining, though we all hate to admit it, if you go to the gym for weeks with no
improvement, take a few days off, and you'll come back stronger!
- sickness, it happens, it sucks.
- injury, see sickness.
- fatigue, a fairly lame excuse, usually attributable to poor diet or sleeping habits.
There is no reason you should ever go back to the gym weaker than your last workout!
The only exception to that is if you are over-reaching which I'll discuss below.
3. Split System Training Principle
More common sense than a principle, unless you're actually trying to do full body workouts
3 times a week. Basically it means splitting your body up into parts that are trained
in separate training sessions.
Training for more than an hour results in a drop in testosterone levels, which is another
reason you should split your workouts- to be done quicker!
Can be split into upper-body/lower-body or quads & hams/back & biceps/chest & triceps/
shoulders & calves, etc. There are a huge number of variations of training splits.
Try a couple and see which you like best.
This principle can be taken even further into splitting your training into multiple
shorter sessions throughout the day. This may be an ideal way to train, but who has the time!
4. Supersets & Giant sets
Though often used by advanced lifters for 'more intensity', and maybe more cardiovascular
stimulation, these are excellent principle to use when trying to minimize your time in
the gym.
The basic idea behind these principles is to perform 2 (supersets) or more (giant sets)
exercises for different muscles (usually opposing, i.e. Biceps/triceps or back/chest) in
rapid succession. Then take a break and do them again.
For example, a superset for arms would go something like this:
- Barbell curls - 1 set of ~10 reps
- (no rest)French press- 1 set of ~10 reps
- rest 2-3 minutes, then repeat.
A giant set would involve adding a third (or more) exercises to the cycle, i.e. biceps,
triceps, shoulder.
The benefits of this technique are greater rest between sets for a single muscle, and
reduced time to complete a number of exercises. i.e. if you did the above superset
as individual sets, you would rest 2-3 minutes between each set, and if you did three
sets per muscle, that adds up to 6 minutes more to complete same number of sets.
Not to mention in regular sets each muscle only gets 2-3 minutes rest, whereas in
supersets, each muscle gets 2-3 minutes plus however long it takes to do the other
exercise(~1 minute). Giant sets add even more rest time per muscle. More rest time
means more short term recovery.
One last benefit I'd like to mention is that by doing opposing muscles, one exercise
serves as a stretch/warmup for the opposing muscle which can save even more time.
5. Eccentric Training
This is basically the idea of focusing on the negative(eccentric) portion of the
exercise, i.e. lowering the weight in a controlled fashion sa opposed to dropping it.
Studies have shown that this type of training results in greater fiber activation
than concentric training, resulting in more growth. Though similar to negative
reps, you wouldn't use as much weight, you just increase the lowering time of the
weight, and lift more explosively.
Lowering the weight should take around 4 seconds, and lifting should be explosive
to about 2 seconds. By activating more fiber, it also causes more muscle damage and
will take longer to recover from than regular, concentric training. Because of that,
don't do this type of training week after week, unless you ensure you are giving your
muscle adequate time to recover (7-10 days).
The whole purpose of lifting weights for muscle growth is to activate as much fiber
as possible, to elicit the greatest growth response possible. This technique is excellent
for achieving this.
6. Drop sets, Forced reps, Rest/Pause
I'm grouping all these together, because they all attempt to get the most out
of the fatigue experienced at the end of a set. Here's why: On your first rep,
you can lift the weight easily, and only use a fraction of your muscle fibers.
But on your last rep, when you can barely lift the weight, you're using ~100%
effort and 100% of your muscle fibers.
This is great for growth, but is quite demanding on the muscular and nervous systems,
and can take longer to recover from fully. Thus practice them sparingly! Also, when doing
this type of work, you don't need nearly as many sets as in a regular workout.
Drop sets: Start with your usual weight, push out 8-10 reps, strip off about 10%
of the weight or less, push out another 8-10 (with minimal/no rest), do this again
for a total of 3-5 sets. Probably on such 'set' should be enough stimulation for that muscle
for that workout!
Forced reps: Put a bit more weight on the bar than you usually would, and squeeze
out as many as you can on your own, then get your partner to help you as little as
needed to get the weight back up, and lower it on your own. Do this for a few extra reps.
Rest/Pause: Very much like Forced reps, but instead of getting the partner to help you,
you put the weight back on the rack for a few seconds, then do another rep or two, and repeat
until you get the total number of reps you want. I prefer these over Forced reps because they
let you lift the weight on your own, and you can better maintain proper form.
7. Overreaching
This is kind of like controlled overtraining. Kind of like a controlled burn grass fire.
A fire in itself is not a good thing, but a controlled burn has many benefits.
Overreaching is basically the first step towards becoming overtrained. Overreaching takes
day to weeks to recover from, overtraining take weeks to months. Continued training while
recovering from overreaching will result in overtraining.
This technique is basically walking a very, very fine line, and I wouldn't recommend it unless
you training under the guidance of an experience trainer.
Others
There are dozens more principles, many of which are common sense to most. For now I'll leave it
at that, and maybe add some more when I find the time. These are by far enough to make some
serious progress for the rest of your life.
If you want to see an extensive list of 'training principles', see this web page that deals with
the Weider Principles.
