Strength Training

Instant Abs!

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength." Arnold Schwarzenegger


"Lifting weights puts pressure against bones, which helps adults build bone density but can inhibit bone growth in a maturing teenager" John Acquaviva, Ph.D

When you train, you force your body to respond to the stimulus by adapting; this could involve all of the following:

 

Your body is built for survival, not to be balanced & aesthetically pleasing.

Limit the Amount of Aerobic Work That You Do.

“If you want to get big, don’t do cardio.”  This is something any bodybuilder can tell you.  It doesn’t directly apply to you in the athletic population, but it does have merit.  First off, you are attempting to build muscle in the off-season, so you do not want to do anything to compromise your rate of growth.  You’re working hard to add muscle mass, yet you feel the need to do aerobic work as well.  How much can you really do before one or both objectives are comprised?  This is known as the interference effect.  When the body is exposed to two different types of training, it will choose one over the other.  In most cases the body will choose the less demanding activity, which in this case is the aerobic work.  So relax on the aerobic activity, you’ll thank yourself later.  Plus, who really likes to do it anyway?

Body Fat not only stores Estrogen it also produces estrogen

"in men, extragonadal estrogen biosynthesis in a
number of sites, including adipose tissue, bone, various
sites of the brain, vascular endothelial and smooth muscle
cells"

The concern for E production in fat tissues, is that the amount of body fat can increase greatly. The increasing amount of fat, as many age, is one of the things that forces the liver to increase SHBG in response to the increased levels of E. So the link is there, but the key factor for the SHMB increase is the E. Age seems to be an independent driver of higher SHBG, but there are probably some intermediate reasons other than time.

Once one gains fat, the fat produces E which favours fat around the mid-section. One can get into a estrogen weight trap. Fat is for many the largest organ in the body. It wants to take over and change the hormone balance that favours its growth.

E is also produced in the testes. These do not get larger over time, and with reduced T levels of age, the E produced by the testes probably goes down as well. Some get concerned about HCG leading to more E generation in the testes. That would seem to be a valid concern for those taking very large amounts of HCG. But for doses, such as 250iu SQ EOD, that support base line testicular function, there is probably no reason to expect that the amounts of E produced by the testes would be above baseline.

As an example of the effects of E on fat distribution, women who take nolvadex, which stops some E effects on certain E receptors, will see a reduction of fat on their bellies, butt and thighs. E controls female fat patterns and men get the same effects as their T:E ratios change. The major point again is that at some point the fat starts to control and increase the fat levels; it takes over.

Keep A Journal And Learn From It!!!   

When training to build muscle you shouldn't focus on "lifting weights," but rather on contracting the muscles against resistance. A lifting technique that'll allow you to lift the most weight isn't necessarily the one that'll build the muscles you want.

Unless you have the genetics of a professional athlete, simply showing up won't cut it.

Primary methods typically used for increasing strength:

Method #1- : Lifting a submaximal load either to failure or not to failure. EDT for hypertrophy is a modified version of this method.

Method #2- : Lifting at or near your present maximum in a given lift.

Method #3- Lifting, lowering or supporting a load greater than your 1RM. Supramaximal holds (heavy Supports), heavy 1/4 reps, heavy eccentrics, and even maximal plyometrics (i.e. "shock methods") are all forms of supramaximal efforts.

 

Rest Periods: Bottom line: rest as much as you NEED to and not as much as you WANT to. Just get enough rest to give it a go again, without dropping your efficiency levels....
Just don't rest so little as to get tired too quickly, but don't rest so much as to allow the muscle to numb up and dissipate all the work and the pump....as they say "strike while the iron is hot", just don't let it heat up enough to melt down.

In the strength training literature, one can find studies to either support or dispute nearly any claim or training approach.
Higher tensions in muscles lead to greater maximal strength development. Rest-pausing leads (in most cases) to higher tensions in muscle, due to fatigue reduction.

5-12 reps per set: Charles Poliquin said reps in the range of 1-4 were for Strength and Power, 5-12 for bodybuilding and greater than 12 for endurance

My guess is that most of the people reading Muscle & Fitness and Flex understand that the bodybuilders in the photos use steroids, and that few of the readers follow that example. We used the word "aspirational" a lot during my time in magazine publishing, and if oversized muscles were the inspiration for guys to get off their asses and hit the weights, then who am I to argue?

Under the best possible circumstances (perfect diet, training, supplementation, and recovery strategies) the average male body can manufacture between 0.25 and 0.5 pounds of dry muscle tissue per week. That is the amount your natural body chemistry will allow you to build. So we're talking about around one or two pounds per month. It may not sound like much, but that can add up to twelve to twenty pounds over one year of training.

Maximize Post-Workout Glycogen Synthesis

There are two key factors to rapidly increasing post-workout glycogen synthesis (8):

1. Adequate carbohydrate availability (to convert to muscle glycogen) (9)

2. High insulin levels (to stimulate glycogen storage and shuttle carbs into the muscle) (9)

Endurance athletes have traditionally been encouraged to consume 1.2 g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight immediately after training/competition (8,10). In addition, they are encouraged to continue this supplementation every 2 hours up until 6 hours after their exercise bout. Recent evidence, however, indicates that the addition of protein to a carb drink can actually increase insulin levels higher than carbs alone (11,12). There seems to be a synergistic insulin release with protein plus carbs.

The current recommendations for endurance athletes have therefore changed to include protein. Eating every 2 hours is still recommended, but now endurance athletes are encouraged to consume 0.8 g of carbs per kg of bodyweight in combination with 0.4 g of protein / kg of bodyweight. This means that a 154 lb endurance athlete should be consuming 56 g of carbs and 28 g of protein at each meal: right after training, and 2, 4, and 6 hours after training.

Since most of the research on this topic has been done in endurance athletes, we have to speculate about what strength athletes would need in this regard. From the research, it's clear that strength athletes actually have higher glycogen synthesis rates after exercise than endurance athletes so they can more rapidly refill their glycogen stores (13).

But since strength athletes don't deplete their glycogen stores as badly as endurance athletes, they would need fewer total calories. With this said, I believe it's reasonable to suggest that a strength athlete consume one meal of 0.8g of carbohydrate and 0.4 g of protein / kg of body weight immediately after training.

This means that the 154 lb weight lifter would need 56 g of carbs and 28 g of protein while the 220 lb weight lifter would need about 80 g of carbs and 40 g of protein after a weight-training workout. Since glycogen synthesis rates are so high in strength athletes, they would only need to consume this type of meal immediately after the workout and then resume normal eating about 2-3 hours later.

If the strength athlete is in a bulking cycle, the post-workout recommendations would include 2 servings of recommended formula, one immediately after training and one 30-60 minutes later. Normal eating could be resumed 2-3 hours later.

Its also been widely accepted that keeping glycogen stores high is a determining factor in the rate of growth. This is why many bodybuilders find it necessary to consumer more carbohydrates than some endurance athletes

'Don't Be Religious About What You Do At The Gym, Just Be Religious About Going To The Gym'

 ... on training days...

1. never feel hungry
2. eat every 2-3 hrs
3. spread your calories out fairly evenly between meals where possible
4. include protein every intake
5. if in doubt eat more!
 

Mechanical Advantage Curls

When doing dumbbell curls, your weakest hand position is the reverse grip. The next strongest position is the conventional hands-facing-forwards, or pronated grip. The strongest of all is the semi-supinated, or hammer grip. Strength Coach Charles Poliquin showed me how to incorporate all three into one set for the toughest of all biceps movements.

Position yourself on a preacher curl with your side against the bench and your arm and dumbbell fully extended. (You should literally be sideways.) Do as many reps as you can using a reverse grip (use a weight that allows you to do between 4 and 6 reps). When you can’t do anymore, switch immediately to the conventional palms-up grip and rep out again. (With any luck, you’ll be able to squeeze out another 3 or 4 reps.) When you can’t do anymore, quickly switch to the hammer grip and rep out again. (This time, you should only be able to do another one or two reps.)

They’re called "Mechanical Advantage Curls" and they’re super effective.

A good plan, violently executed - now, is better than a perfect plan next week. -- George S. Patton

Understand that it's possible to gain more weight without adding fat because when you increase your muscle size you also increase glycogen and water storage in those muscles. More muscle equals more glycogen.

A trained individual can store up to 40g of glycogen per 100g of muscle tissue. So if you're gaining ten pounds of new muscle (4545g) you'll also increase glycogen storage by around four pounds (1.8kg). So if you gain ten pounds of muscle, your scale gain will actually be closer to fourteen pounds (if you didn't gain any fat).

Chances are if you're gaining more than three pounds per month, you're gaining some fat.

The time of day you take in the extra bulking calories must correspond to when you do your workouts. So two lifters can both take in an extra 1000 calories a day, but the one who times it right will put on more muscle, and the one who does not will put on more fat.

http://www.amazon.com/...ie=UTF8&s=books

http://www.amazon.com/...ie=UTF8&s=books

http://www.amazon.com/...ie=UTF8&s=books
 

Squat-Rack Curls
http://www.t-nation.com/...ic.do?id=480680
Top 10: Gym Etiquette Rules
http://www.t-nation.com/...ic.do?id=529265
Frat Curls
http://www.t-nation.com/...ic.do?id=541954

To Do:  Deadlift plus explosive shrug