In the world of fitness, lifting with a partial range of motion is often considered blasphemy. There’s been an ongoing war waged between coaches, lifters, and fitness gurus about proper exercise technique. For many, anything short of a full range of motion is ineffective and off limits. Credit: Andrey_Popov / Shutterstock But, as time and
program design
“Good things come after failure. You just have to keep working.” In any other context, this statement reads as banal self-help advice. But relative to lifting, it’s sage wisdom gleaned from bodybuilders and the ever-growing science of muscle hypertrophy. Forced reps, also known as “assisted reps,” are a popular intensification technique performed by lifters to
It’s time for a quick lesson in physics. Don’t be scared; the training talk will begin soon. The definition of Work is “Force x Distance.” This is one of the most important concepts to understand when you’re a tall lifter in the gym. Your arms and legs travel through a longer range of motion in
If you have the luxury of working out, you’re squandering the opportunity by walking into the gym without a plan. To avoid wasting your time with marginally effective training, you need to get organized. You need a plan. Credit: MDV Edwards / Shutterstock A workout split (also called a “training split” or simply a “split”)
Well-designed gym machines enhance the effectiveness of your strength and hypertrophy training. They can minimize instability, allowing you to target and overload specific muscles. They can apply variable resistance and resistance to patterns of motion that free weights simply cannot. Good machines can also enhance safety when working with heavy loads or training to failure.
Can you squat every day? To smug middle school English teachers, the only answer is, “I don’t know. Can you?” We’re not looking for detention, so let’s rephrase rather than retort. Should you squat every day? To literalists, this is still preposterous. You need to squat every day to sit at your desk or upon
You get 24 hours every day. They’re yours to do whatever you want or, more accurately, whatever you need to get done. Once you start subtracting six or seven hours of sleep, eight or nine hours of work, commuting and traveling, time to eat, and, oh yeah, some face time (not FaceTime) with your family,
Some lifters believe the more they work out, the better their results will be. That might mean training every day of the week or grinding out monstrous three-hour sessions in the gym. However, to paraphrase a warning from the philosopher B.I.G. — mo’ training, mo’ problems. Credit: tsyhun / Shutterstock Excessive training is a good
Want a more efficient, more effective, more engaging workout? Rest less between sets. More specifically, start using supersets — a common, but often misunderstood and misapplied, intensity-boosting technique. Performing supersets instead of straight sets can help to reduce your training time by nearly 50%. (1) Supersets might even boost performance via a phenomenon called ‘potentiation’