3 Common Training Myths Debunked!

Just because some advice is good-intentioned doesn’t make it good for you. In fact, most good-intentioned popular advice are based on myths and misconceptions that people simply don’t bother to double-check and then they end up reaping zero gains or hurting themself in the worst case scenario.

In this article we’ll discuss three incredibly popular training myths that have undeservedly made their way into the weight room and have become major obstacles to success for many aspiring lifters. So for the purpose of helping you get the ripped muscles of your dreams, let’s get rid of them right here and right now!

#1. Higher reps lead to greater definition

For some unknown reason, the creators of mainstream training wisdom still love to toss this idea around. The truth is that by doing high reps with a light weight you won’t make any significant progress at all. The only way to make your muscles grow is by subjecting it to a progressive overload, and the way to maintain the same size is by performing the usual workout every time you hit the gym.

On the other side, the only way to get ripped is by reducing body fat through high intensity exercise and creating a calorie deficit. Remember that achieving great muscle definition is the result of both increasing muscle size and lowering the amount of body fat and there’s no way around it. And there are no specific exercises that you can perform to get better definition, period.

#2. Ripped abs are made by doing ab exercises

This myth is also known as spot reduction and it refers to the misconception that fat can be burned off specific areas of the body through exercise of the muscles in those areas. In reality, the human body just doesn’t work that way and you cannot realize fat loss only in a desired area. With an effective training program and a proper diet, you will lose fat all over the entire body, although with different intensity for different body parts, which depends mostly upon your genetics, but all in all, weight loss is a whole-body thing. Still, in general, the first area to get fat or the last area to become lean is the midsection.

However, performing a ton of crunches, for example, won’t give you a ripped 6 pack – it will only strengthen the muscles hiding under the fat. So forget about isolation exercises and focus on intensity and weight with some compound movements, which are guaranteed to help you burn more fat all around the clock. In addition, maintaining a slight caloric deficit will speed up your weight loss.

#3. Sweating equals fat burning

Sure, sweating should be expected during a strenuous work out, but the amount of sweat you produce isn’t actually a measure of how much fat you’ve lost during the exercise. In fact, it has absolutely nothing to do with losing fat or increasing the metabolism. Some people sweat less and others sweat more, and it’s a question of genetics, excess weight, external temperature and clothing material.

In short, perspiration is the body’s internal cooling system and since your body’s internal temperature rises during exercise, it automatically begins producing sweat in response to temperature changes with the purpose of avoiding the dangerous effects of elevated temperature on internal organs. Unfortunately, excessive sweating has become somewhat of a popular method of weight loss in certain fitness circles. Even though excessive sweating may produce immediate results, they are temporary and potentially very dangerous. If your body loses too many electrolytes through the secretion of sweat, the end result could be kidney damage, heart stroke or heat exhaustion, all of which have fatal consequences.

Bodybuilding’s Dirty Dozen – 12 Main Rules For Building Muscle Mass

There are literally millions of bodybuilding articles on the Internet about top ten or top five or top whatever lists for hundreds of fitness-related areas. And it can get get tiresome to read them after a while, since they seem like a re-hash of stuff you had already read. But it wouldn’t hurt to remind ourselves of the most essential basics.

It seems, no matter how much these truths are repeated, they still do not have the desired effect one would expect. Because, if that was the case, we would see a bigger number of muscular men walking the streets than we currently do. The majority tend to brush off these basics, thinking they already abide by them or just thinking they already know them. And we all know that knowing and doing are very different things. No matter your training experience, it is always good to remind ourselves of them every now and then. So, let’s dive into what I call “Bodybuilding’s Dirty Dozen”.

1. Train intensely to stimulate muscle growth

Hardly anyone would admit that they aren’t training hard enough, since no one even has the starting point or concept what hard training really is.Like the idea that you shouldn’t take sets to failure and always “leave something in the tank”. Now, that might work for a beginner trainee, but for a pro going to failure might be the only way to stimulate muscle growth in the advanced stages of training. Muscle growth is, in its essence, the body’s response or adaptation to mechanical stress.

Logically, if you do not induce greater mechanical stress than your last workout, no adaptation will take place. Some even say that less than 100 percent effort is needed to induce the aforementioned stress. What is the percentage then? 80, 90? In order to make sure we are training intensely enough to cause muscle growth response, we need to incorporate taking sets to failure in our training. Meaning, pushing or pulling until you cannot complete another repetition despite giving maximum effort. There is a way you can “bypass” this failure by using forced reps, drop sets or rest-pause sets. You should have already realized by now that giving anything less than full effort and dedication on your part will yield the results you desire.

Bodybulding is hard work, most of the time it’s not pretty or fun, which is why the lazy ones or those with low pain tolerance shouldn’t be bothered to try it.

2. Lift heavy, but use good form at the same time

The rep ranges, most conducive to stimulating muscle growth for the upper body fall within the range of 6-8 and 8-12 for the lower body, even sometimes going as high as 20. Don’t buy those lies you read in the magazines about some pro using 15-20 repetitions for his upper body and even going further for legs and thinking that the same can be applied and will work for you.

That’s one way he might train at the moment, but he surely didn’t get where he is now by training that light. You can only get that big by lifting heavy weights. There’s no two ways about it. While we are at it, heaving and jerking heavy weights will not give the results you are after either. You need to execute the exercise with proper form in order to target the muscle you are training and keep it enough time under tension to induce the damage at a cellular level, that is actually the starting point in the muscle growth process.

So, one should train as heavy as possible, but only when proper form is kept throughout the set and the target muscle itself is doing the actual work. A nice example would be strictly curling 100 lbs, as opposed to cheat-cutling 200 lbs and using every muscle of your body, except the biceps to lift the weight. Which one do you think works better?

3. Don’t buy into the “more is better” lie

This is where most people go wrong. The usual line of thinking is, if 5 sets are good, then 10 must be better. If I train for an hour and I get results, wouldn’t training for 90 minutes or two hours be even better. Training days are also increased from three to four up to all seven days of the week. What happens next is a serious case of overtraining, a condition most victims aren’t even aware they are suffering from. The late Arthur Jones said it perfectly: “You can train hard or long, but not both.”

4. Rest!

This ties perfectly into the previous point. You need to always keep this in mind: You don’t grow in the gym. In the gym, you are only stimulating the growth response, and that growth will never happen if you don’t give your body enough time to recuperate. Many people are using body part split workouts, yet they don’t understand that they are still putting enormous stress on the CNS (Central Nervous System) every time they workout. For the majority of people, training more than two days in a row will result in training, sooner or later.

5. Eschew exercises you are not built for

Some people swear by specific exercises, saying how much they helped them build certain parts of their body, so another lifter would think it would be a good idea to start doing them. However, there are exercises we are not built to do due to each of us having our own biomechanic parameters. For example, if one isn’t meant to squat, he can freely substitute them with leg presses, hack squats and even Smith machine squats to build their legs without sustaining an injury.

6. Take care of your nutrition

All your training will be in vain until you get your nutrition in check. The body needs the vital macronutrients in the form of protein, carbohydrates and fats in order to build muscle. People often say working out in the gym for an hour is the easy part. What matters just as importantly is what you do 23 hours out of the gym. That means diligence with your nutrition, as much as with your training. You would need to space out your meals evenly throughout the day, most of the cases, that means you would need to eat every 2-3 hours. Quality food is of the utmost importance, eating junk will make you look like junk. Some would also say preparing your meals would take a lot of time, but again this is bodybuilding, if you are not ready to do it, better find yourself another endeavor.

7. When you are in the gym, train

A common sight when one enters a gym nowadays is people socializing or being too busy with their phones looking up what’s new on social media or posting selfies. Guess what? Those are the same people who look exactly the same year after year. When you are in the gym, get in “the zone”, focus, turn off the outside world and start lifting. You have a job at hand and that job needs to be finished. Again, nobody said it’s going to be easy or fun. It’s hard work.

8. Don’t hop between programs

The bodybuilding world has become saturated with an endless supply of workout routines. There’s always a new program promising better results. The indecision over which one to choose or change the current program altogether affects both beginners and pros alike. They suffer from information overload.

They think they might be missing out on some superior methods the new program might provide. Some programs confuse you with calculations you have to make in order to look scientific. None of those has proven to be superior to the basic ones. The recipe is simple: train hard, use basic compound exercises, eat, rest, sleep.

9. Curb your partying

Sleep is one of the variables needed to see good results, the same as proper nutrition. That means no more staying up late. If you know you will need to stay up late, plan to take a nap tomorrow. Otherwise, you will feel exhausted which will leave you unable to train optimally and recover and grow afterwards. Alcohol and drugs are also proven to seriously derail your progress, so stay away from those as much as possible. Again, your own priorities will determine which decision you will make.

10. Use supplements

Supplements are an excellent addition to the food you should already be consuming in proper quantities. Protein powders can ease the way into achieving your daily protein goals, creatine can boost your energy levels, L-glutamine and pre-workout supplements can help you train harder and longer and recover more easily. You should also be taking multivitamins, minerals, fish oil etc. When you have created the optimal environment in your body, you will grow better and faster.

11. Steroids aren’t everything

Let’s get something straight, steroids work. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. However, that leads some people to believe that they are the magic solution to every problem they are encountering in their bodybuilding pursuit. So, they stop training as hard as they did or eating as properly, thinking the steroids will do the work all by themselves. I would make the following comparison: the ones who give it all they got into their training eating and recovering, plus using small amounts of steroids will look a lot better than the ones using huge doses and aren’t doing the necessary work. The second group will, of course, find excuses in that the former group is using a lot more than they are, the reason being for them looking better, although it’s quite the opposite.

12. Believe you’ll succeed

To really succeed in this game you need to truly believe in yourself and your capabilities. You need to envision it in your mind first in order to apply it in reality. You will almost certainly find opposition from others, either family members or friends, who will try to dissuade from pursing it further or try to discourage you and belittle your goals. Others will tell you what you’re doing is vain, unproductive or ridiculous.

It might sound a bit corny, but you really need to have decided strongly, both heart and soul, that you will achieve the physique you want. The hardest part is believing it when no one does. When you are left without support and you are the only one who supports you! Bodybuilding is thought of as a purely physical pursuit, but the mind, in fact, plays a much bigger role, in that it drives you towards your goals and keeps you in check about everything you do in order to achieve those goals.

5 Research Findings That Can Level Up Your Fitness Efforts

Believe it or not, science is as important to the fitness culture as the invention of the bench press – with the help of scientific research, we can easily separate the truths from the myths and use that knowledge to substantially better our workouts as well as diminish the risk of injury.

Here are 5 scientific findings that shed new light on some popular beliefs and practices in the world of exercise and fitness and can potentially upgrade your performance if employed in your regular routine.

#1. Lousy squats are dangerous

Yep, performing squats with improper form can lead to a number of serious injuries, both acute and chronic, and that’s why it’s of vital importance to learn how to squat safely and effectively. According to a study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, squatting should be a controlled movement performed with a neutral spine and hinging as much as possible at the hips. Don’t rush it – squatting too fast can be both ineffective and increase the risk of injury. Ideal form includes a wider stance and placing the bar lower on the back.

#2. The best ab exercise

Since maintaining a ripped midsection is widely recognized as mandatory for any serious bodybuilder, the search for the perfect ab exercise will never end. But regardless of personal experiences, researchers have tried to end this quest by measuring levels of ab muscle activation during different popular exercises, including the crunch, supine V-up, prone V-up on a ball, prone V-up on a slide board, prone V-up on a TRX and prone V-up on a Power Wheel.

The results? No significant differences in ab muscle activation were found between the exercises and all seem to work the midsection muscles equally, with the exception of the crunch, which activates the internal oblique muscles a bit less.

#3. The Perfect Push-Up device doesn’t stand up to its name

The Perfect Push-Up is a small fitness device that utilizes two handles which rotate on a circular base, allowing your arms to rotate throughout the movement. Although the manufacturer’s claims about the effectiveness of device are pretty wild, a study from the Mayo Clinic found that it provided zero advantage compared to traditional push-ups.

The researchers measured muscle activation levels during three different positions (wide, medium and narrow base), and found that there are the rotational handles didn’t lead to increased muscle activity, but the greater range of motion did. That’s the reason why the wide-grip and standard pushups performed with The Perfect Push-Up elicited more muscle activity in the chest, triceps and front shoulders, while the narrow-grip pushups had a lower effect on these muscles. Therefore, you don’t need rotating handles to engage your muscles more – you could get the same elevation effect on many simpler ways. In addition, exercise physiologists claim that the rotating handles could increase your risk of shoulder injury.

#4. Vibration training improves muscle endurance

Vibration training, which includes a manufactured vibration with the help of a device in order to stimulate your muscles to work harder, looks more and more promising. Usually, the vibration is transferred through the feet, hands or butt, which are in direct contact with the vibrating device, and it’s supposed to help you increase the number of muscle fibers trained during any basic exercise.

Does it work? One recent study found that long-term vibration training improves posture stability of young men in the frontal plane, while another study published in the European Journal of Sports Science in 2010 found that subjects could complete more biceps curls when exercising on a vibration platform, compared to exercising without it. These and other similar studies conclude that vibration training indeed improves muscle fitness in untrained adults and other specific groups of gym-goers, but that it’s not worth the effort for athletes or experienced bodybuilders who train regularly.

#5. Fast-tempo music improves bodybuilding performance

Many bodybuilders think that working out with fast-tempo or aggressive music helps them unleash their full potential, and science seems to strongly support this belief. One British study found that listening to faster music leads subjects to work harder, compared to exercising with slow-tempo music. Also, another study conducted by sports psychologists from Brunel University in London found that specific genres of music are best suited to specific types of exercise – more specifically, rap music is best suited for stretching and running, while dance music is a better match for strength training. In addition, the frequent tempo changes in rock music can negatively influence your workout rhythm, so keep that in mind when choosing motivational tunes for your next workout.

Simple Training Regimen For Foolproof Results

For the most part, building a muscular physique consist of seeking out new protocols and techniques, as much as it consists of utilizing this newly acquired knowledge in the gym.  If you are like the majority of guys out there, you too have probably tried your hand, one way or another, in this pursuit for a perfect exercise, perfect routine or perfect split that could sculpt your dream physique in most efficient and best way.

In the process, you’ve likely picked up all sorts of interesting, cool and possibly even efficient techniques and exercises. Well, although there’s nothing wrong with being inquisitive and always trying to improve yourself, this approach has a concealed flow, which can have devastating effects on your whole workout regimen. 

It leaves you cluttered with a load of exercises that do not work so well. Yet, you somehow find yourself unable to give them up, thinking that each and every one of them is equally valuable to your training. Well, the truth is that most of them (even some of the really cool ones) are just a burden that is weighing you down in your progress. Worst of all, most of the time it’s extremely hard to identify and sift these superfluous exercises.

If you find yourself in the above-described lot, than it’s time for some spring cleaning, right now at the end of summer.  Here you’ll find a workout plan that takes you back to the basics, stripping your training regimen of all the unnecessary movements that piled up over the years. It contains just 16 exercises split in two workouts – one for the upper body muscles, and the other one for the lower body muscles. Each of the splits is repeated twice during the course of the week. In other words, you do 4 weekly sessions.

If you want to get back to the basics, we urge to try the following regime for one month. It takes weight training back to its purest with simple utilization of barbells, dumbbells and bodyweight moves. Keep your sets in the 10 rep range, by pyramiding up the loads in each successive set.

One of the strongest points of this regimen is in its universal approach, which is certified to provide you with result no matter if you’re just starting with your training, or if you have years of practice under your belt. In any case, it will come as a refreshment from all the demanding and complex routines that you have been doing all this time.

Back-to-Basics Regime

Each of the 16 exercises is performed with in the order listed in the table below. Each exercise is performed for 4 sets. At the same time, pyramid the loads up with each next set. You should aim at completing 10 reps per set or perform them till failure. If you are beginner, you should reduce the number of sets to two or three, but maintain the same rep count.

After you’ve completed all sets of one exercise, it’s time to continue to the following movement on the list. The rest period between the sets and the exercises should not exceed 90 seconds. Train you upper body and lower body twice a week.

Workout 1 and 4

• Squat
• Deadlift
• Romanian Deadlift
• Dumbbel Lunges
• Standing Calf Raises
• Hanging Leg Raises
• Plank

Workout 2 and 5

• Pull Up
• Barbell Row
• Military Press
• Incline Barbell Bench Press
• Barbell bench press
• Wide Grip Upright Row
• Dips

The Split

• Day 1 – Workout 1
• Day 2 – Workout 2
• Day 3 – Rest
• Day 4 – Workout 1
• Day 5 – Workout 2
• Day 6 – Rest
• Day 7 – Rest

How To Make 5 x 5 Training Work For You

These days, everybody seems obsessed with their fitness goals and we couldn’t be happier about it. With one third of American adults dealing with serious issues such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease as the result of being overweight or obese, the increasing popularity of strength training is much more than a positive cultural phenomenon – it’s a life-saver in the most literal sense.

However, if you take a closer look at it, you’ll notice that people dive into the world of bodybuilding for many different reasons that range from improving their posture or recuperating from an injury to building a physique worthy of the Mr. Olympia title. And naturally, all of these different personal goals are, or should be, associated with different specific approaches to the complex art of building size, strength and flexibility.

If your goal is to substantially increase your lean muscle mass while burning off excess body fat, 5 x 5 training might be just the right thing for you. This tried and tested program was designed to increase strength and help you break training plateaus by hitting your muscles hard three times per week with 45-minute workouts, stimulating a great increase in strength and muscle mass as well. It has been used by athletes from all walks of life for decades now and its simplicity and effectiveness have maintained its popularity to this very day. In addition, this program is perfect for people with a very busy schedule who can’t make the time for five or six gym visits per week.

The 5 x 5 training method

As the name suggests, this method includes performing 5 sets of 5 reps per exercise. The exercises are usually compound lifts, since they promote greater gains by hitting more than one group of muscles at a time, compared to isolation movements. These are the compound exercises that should be the focus of your 5 x 5 training:

• Barbell bench presses
• Barbell squats
• Deadlifts
• Overhead presses
• Barbell rows

During each 5 x 5 workout, you need to perform 3 of the five exercises, with squats being mandatory for each session, with 5 sets of 5 reps for each exercise. That being said, deadlifts are an exception to the rule – to prevent completely exhausting yourself with multiple sets, perform only one set of deadlifts with five reps.

The 5 x 5 workouts

This program consists of two separate basic workouts:

Workout #1

• Squats
• Bench presses
• Barbell rows

Workout #2

• Squats
• Overhead presses
• Deadlifts

This is performed 3 times per week on non-consecutive days, followed by 2 rest days, as such:

WEEK 1

Day 1 – Workout #1

Day 2 – rest

Day 3 – Workout #2

Day 4 – rest

Day 5 – Workout #1

Day 6 – rest

Day 7 – rest

WEEK 2

Day 1 – Workout #2

Day 2 – rest

Day 3 – Workout #1

Day 4 – rest

Day 5 – Workout #2

Day 6 – rest

Day 7 – rest

Switch back to week 1 after you complete week 2.

Is training to failure necessary?

Unlike most bodybuilding routines that emphasize training to failure and thoroughly exhausting your muscles, the goal of the 5 x 5 program isn’t to make you train until you drop dead. Instead, the basic idea is increase your strength and muscle gains by gradually increasing the weight you’re working with. Begin light and asses your current level of strength, then slowly increase the weight by 2.5 kg for each following workout. Train hard and use proper form and you should be able to notice significant increases in strength and size within a few months.

And don’t forget – the most efficient techniques are usually the simplest ones, so instead of discarding this program because it looks too easy, give it a try and prepare to be fully amazed.