Blood, Sweat & Micro Tears
Giving someone else the sole responsibility of deciding what you eat and when you eat, makes dieting considerably easier. Having an intimidating body builder, screaming at you to push those unbearably heavy weights will give you the extra spurt of discipline to grow your muscles quicker. PT’s were once highly sought after and if you happened to be one, you likely had a lucrative wage. Masses of people were spending cash left right and centre to have established health coaches get them to their peak physique. Personal training was a career choice that so many deemed an esteemed profession. Now, with the influx in interest throughout the health and fitness industry, you can’t seem to get away from personal trainers, they’re everywhere. The difference now being, we are spoilt for choice regarding where we get our tutoring. With just a click of a button, there’s continuous YouTube tutorials about exercise and nutrition, there are never ending fitness Influencers with apps that are basically personal trainers in your pocket. We are currently seeing the downfall of face-to-face health coaches but the rise of online coaching.
Unfortunately, with screen coaching there is so much room for misinformation on how to keep fit and grow your muscles. People tend to see a six pack or bulging biceps and immediately assume that this particular influencer/online coach knows exactly how to train you. Just like nutrition, muscle growth is individualistic. Yes, there are some basic weight training principles that work on everyone but to get the best results, you will likely need to adapt your training to match your genetics and your own personal routine.
Throughout my years of weight training, I have tried so many different techniques and believe I have finally found what suits me. However, if I advise you to do the same exact thing I am no better that the rest! So for the time being, I have listed the various training methods I have used over the years, that have been scientifically proven to help alongside my experience with it. It's for you to research and decide what works for you.
Good Form is the most basic requirement for weight training. If you don’t use the correct posture/stance for your exercise, you will likely not target the intended muscles, rendering the exercise useless. More importantly, you could injure yourself which could take you out of the gym for months. Incorrect form can be so dangerous, many have been known to damage their central nervous system, dislocate joints or strain their muscles. It can give you life-changing disabilities, sometimes even causing fatalities. These unfortunate occurrences are what gives the body building industry a bad reputation. Heavy lifters don’t just die from lifting too heavy, they are killed by not lifting safely... or steroid usage! Power lifting is one of the most heavily studied and recommended exercises for longevity. Good form is something everyone should be doing for their own safety and to save time, it’s so easy to ask for help from staff at your local gym. In my experience, gym staff have always been eager to help me, I’ve never had an issue. If asking for help isn’t for you, it’s even easier to check what you’re doing in the mirror. Almost every gym has them but if you don’t, just simply use the camera on your phone and record yourself.
When I first started lifting, I would observe what other people did, I would try to replicate their actions but 50% of the time, their form wasn’t great either. With the combined help of some amazing PT’s, gym staff and the internet, I am very confident with my form. Eventhough there is always room for improvement, (touch wood) I haven't had an exercise related injury in four years and never had any major injuries to date.
Progressive overload is a term most commonly used for increasing the amount of weight you lift over time. This is a must if you’re wanting hypertrophy (muscle growth). If you don’t increase your weight, your muscles will not increase in size unless you use a different method called time under tension. This year, I actually dropped my Hip Thrust weight down from 155KG to 130KG and my glutes have grown quicker than ever (I’ve also lost body fat). Instead of pulsing at the top of my hip thrust I now hold the weight at the top of the movement, for 3 whole seconds and repeat. Slowly bringing the bar down and quickly bringing it back up again. At one point it was so intense , I was getting a migraine. Time under tension is definitely not for the faint hearted.
If it starts to feel like you can’t progress your weight and you’re not able to push past your personal best, a way to combat this is by de-loading. You drop your weights by 30-50% and gradually start increasing the weight again, like a small reset for your body. It’s common for people to go on a calorie cut during this time and then go on a bulk when they’re back to lifting heavy again. It’s the best way to over take your personal bests.
A subject that is being disputed within the weight-lifting community is the importance of full range of motion. This is the practice of stretching your movement as far as safely possible, while lifting the weight to ensure all possible muscle tissues are being targeted. The only real argument against this is people can’t lift as much as they usual can and therefore, struggle with progressive overload. My take on this is to do full range of motion until you can’t push past your personal best. For instances, if you have peaked on your bicep curl, you can’t even do 1.25KG over your best no matter how hard you try. If you stop curling that weight all the way up and all the way down and increase the weight, doing around 75% of the motion, you will be able to lift more. In theory, you will eventually be able to do that same weight with full ROM.
My opinion on Training to Failure is slightly different to the majority. Again, this is just me relaying my experience and my thoughts could change in the near future but, I don’t feel it’s as vital as the research currently indicates. I think your reps should range between 10-12, if you are able to do more, you need to up the weight to grow muscles. If you cannot do 10 reps, then lower the weight and compensate with time under tension. I think training to failure can also increase your risk of injury. That being said, I do understand its effectiveness, it is a clever way to grow muscles quickly, but I personally do not think it’s worth the risk or the pain. There is a safer way to practice this, where people are defining failure as not being able to lift with good form. Bad form means you have failed the rep but a lot interoperate “failure” as just not being able to move the weight at all. The whole idea of exercise is to keep doing it and sustain the routine. Would I want to keep lifting weights if I needed to push myself to painful failure every single time? Nope. It’s just torturing yourself and through the pain, raising cortisol levels more than necessary.
Top fitness scientists are skeptical of the average online 20-minute ab workouts. Claiming that although you feel your core burn, they’re just a glorified cardio session, selling you the dream of an instant six-pack. They claim this is due to these sessions not increasing with intensity or weight over time, preventing the core muscles from growing efficiently. For this reason, I didn’t touch these online ab workouts for years, not until the beginning of 2024. I decided to try them simply because they were a quick way of getting a workout in during my increasingly busy schedule. Shockingly, I am seeing more progress with the addition of these online videos than weight training my abdominal muscles alone. It didn’t make any sense until I realized the workouts involve techniques to improve my mind muscle connection and breathing. As you work out, the coach will continuously remind you throughout the video to suck in your core and breath out during pivotal times. I now incorporate this into other forms of weight training too. The data shows that if you think about the muscle you are trying to grow whilst training that area, it will vastly improve the rate of hypertrophy.
Although online coaching is convenient, effective and affordable, you have to be very careful where you choose to get it from. Conclusively, you also don’t get the same benefits as face to face coaching. PT’s create work out plans that are personal to you. Whilst simultaneously giving you direct encouragement and making-sure you are performing your exercises safely and efficiently to minimalize injury. Although I don’t currently have a PT, it is something I will definitely invest in in the future. Until then, I will just continue to keep up to date with the latest science, whilst using the best online tips and workouts.
