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ARTICLES
Weighted Ab Exercises: 3 Simple Movements
When people start their fitness journey, getting well-developed abs is usually one of the main goals. I was no different. Looking back, I used to do a ton of crunches in the hopes of getting ripped abs. But I did all of this without putting enough thought into my...
Training Frequency: What is the best workout split?
In the past two articles, we have looked into training volume and intensity. Based on these articles, we now know that most people should train every muscle group with about 10-20 sets per week in a 5-15 rep range. If you get this right, you will experience...
Training Intensity: Best Rep Range For Muscle Growth
Introduction In the previous blog post, we've looked into training volume and muscle growth. The main takeaway was that training every muscle group with about 10-20 sets per week is a good starting point for muscle growth. But as you can imagine, just how many plain...
Weighted Ab Exercises: 3 Simple Movements
When people start their fitness journey, getting well-developed abs is usually one of the main goals. I was no different. Looking back, I used to do a ton of crunches in the hopes of getting ripped abs. But I did all of this without putting enough thought into my...
Training Frequency: What is the best workout split?
In the past two articles, we have looked into training volume and intensity. Based on these articles, we now know that most people should train every muscle group with about 10-20 sets per week in a 5-15 rep range. If you get this right, you will experience...
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🔊 This post is an iWannaBurnFat Classic
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A common question I receive is how to fix muscle and strength imbalances. Perhaps you notice one side of your body is bigger than the other. Or you are not as strong with one side. What can you do about this? Swipe left for more.
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First of all, slight muscle imbalances are normal. We can't expect the human body to be 100% symmetrical. Most people have a dominant arm or leg and this typically is accompanied with a strength imbalance, which is fine as long as the strength imbalance does not become excessive. Now if one side of your body is much stronger than the other, then that's something we do want to address.
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The first tip is doing more dumbbell and one-sided exercises. When you do something like a barbell row both arms work together, while when you use dumbbells, each arm has an individual weight to lift. So dumbbell movements help you focus more on individually strengthening each side. Doing unilateral movements in which you focus on training one arm or leg at a time are also helpful for strengthening each side. To reduce a muscle imbalance, a good rule of thumb is to make at least half of your exercises for that muscle dumbbell-based or unilateral.
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The second tip is about training the weaker side first when you do single-arm or single-leg exercises. Let's take split squats as an example. If I start the set with my dominant leg, my dominant leg will be trained while I have more energy, so it can be trained harder. You may notice that once you get to the weaker leg, you feel tired and can’t perform as many reps. So start with your weaker side so that you can utilize more energy towards it.
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Lastly, your posture during training could also be affecting how a muscle is trained. As an example, if you experience a shoulder drop during row variations, then one side of your lats will be engaged better than the other. It can help to film yourself performing the compound lifts to see whether your posture can be improved to maintain better form.
💪🏼Are you challenging yourself in training?
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Training to "muscle failure" all the time is not needed for muscle and strength gain [1-3]. From a performance point-of-view, you can even argue that keeping 1-2 repetitions in reserve at the end of every set is more effective since you'll be more recovered for upcoming sets and future workouts. But still, we shouldn't train too far from muscle failure either.
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The closer a repetition is to muscle failure, the more effective that repetition is for stimulating your muscles [4]. As you come closer to muscular fatigue, you recruit more muscle fibers and more effectively challenge your muscle's present capacity. So if someone's workouts feel quite manageable from a muscle fatigue point-of-view, they can benefit from pushing a bit harder in their training sessions.
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There's research showing that some beginner lifters train very far from failure with sometimes even 6+ reps in reserve at the end of a set [5]. This is most likely too far from failure to produce meaningful results. By definition, your training should be challenging. The goal is to disrupt homeostasis so you adapt and grow. So if your goal is to make progress in the gym, it's important to be mindful of whether your workouts are challenging enough.
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References:
1. PMID: 26666744
2. PMID: 25809472
3. PMID: 28713535
4. PMID: 26270694
5. PMID: 29112055
🔊 Avoid Wrist Pain While Lifting
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During heavy push exercises like the bench press and overhead press, wrist discomfort is common. In today's post, I'll discuss 3 practical training tips that will help reduce the stress on your wrists.
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First, let's discuss the bench press. If you experience wrist pain while benching, you may be bench pressing with overly bent wrists. This typically happens when you lay the barbell too high on your hands. Instead, place the bar lower in your palm. This helps you keep a straighter wrist position while benching.
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The same goes for the overhead press. If you feel discomfort, you may be overly bending the wrists while pressing. Aim to lay the bar lower in your hands so that the wrists can stay mostly straight and you can press the weight up more comfortably.
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The push-up is another exercise that sometimes results in wrist discomfort. If this is the case, try doing push-ups on a pair of dumbbells for a more neutral wrist position. If you don't have dumbbells, focus on applying more pressure into the floor through the base of your fingers, this helps better distribute the weight over your hands.
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🚶🏽♂️Benefits of Walking
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If you want to increase your rate of fat loss without decreasing your calorie intake, you have a few options. I'm not talking about a weight loss pill or "fat burner". Instead, I suggest you look into easy ways to increase your activity.
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Something as simple as going for frequent walks helps. A 2017 study found that when overweight individuals did an extra 2.5hrs/week of walking in combination with a calorie-restricted diet, they lost more fat [1]. This makes sense, frequent walking increases your daily expenditure, resulting in a larger calorie deficit.
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A practical way to walk more is by having 20-30 min walks daily. If you're looking for something more time-efficient, more intense cardio sessions 2-3x per week could be an option as well.
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There are also other non-fitness-related benefits to walking. For instance, there is research indicating that short walks outside enhance creative thinking [2]. Other research indicates that walking has a relaxing effect and reduces anxiety [3]. So setting the goal for yourself to go on regular walks is a good idea!
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References:
1. PMID: 28794207
2. Oppezzo, M., & Schwartz, D. L. (2014). Give your ideas some legs: the positive effect of walking on creative thinking. Journal of experimental psychology: learning, memory, and cognition, 40(4), 1142.
3. PMID: 26569271
☀️ Vacation Training Tips
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It's summertime and you perhaps got some cool trips coming up. And the nice thing is, you can enjoy your trips without having to be concerned about muscle loss. If we look at the research, we see that training breaks up to 3 weeks do not cause muscle loss and that with longer training breaks you can maintain muscle by just training 1-2x per week [1, 2]. In today's post, I will give 3 practical vacation training tips you can use if you would like to strength training throughout your summer trips. Swipe left for more!
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So say you only have access to light dumbbells in a hotel gym. You can still have effective training sessions by training in higher repetition ranges. For instance, 1 study compared lifting with 8-12 repetitions or 25-35 repetitions per set [3]. Both groups trained to muscle failure and it was found that muscle growth was similar. This is encouraging because it shows that you can also stimulate your muscles well with lighter weights using more repetitions.
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Next, you can also use your own bodyweight to challenge yourself while perhaps not having gym access. Using challenging bodyweight exercises like different push-up variations, more advanced pull-up variations, and even some abdominal exercises can help you stay active. A vacation workout I like to do is Side-To-Side Push-Ups, followed by Pull-Ups, then doing Pike Push-Ups, Moving into Bulgarian Split Squats, and then some abdominal work.
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Lastly, because we want to enjoy the vacation and not spend hours per week training, I also suggest using supersets to save time. Combining exercises that train opposing muscles helps you get through the workouts more quickly without sacrificing results [4]. So if you have something like a Dumbbell Bench Press and Dumbbell Row in your training, perform these exercises back-to-back to move through your workout more efficiently.
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See the last slide for Scientific References!
🏋♂️ How Many Exercises Per Session When Lifting Weights?
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Exactly how many exercises you should be doing in a training session will of course depend on your goals and how you set up your weekly training routine. But for most people looking to develop muscle or gain strength, you don't need a ton of exercises to have a good workout.
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A common training mistake I see in my practice as a personal trainer is people trying to squeeze too many exercises into 1 session. I understand that the workout may feel like a greater challenge if you do many more exercises. But if you try to do 10 or more exercises in a single session, the second half of your workout will typically be of lower quality and you won't be able to properly apply progressive overload.
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It makes sense to focus on doing fewer exercises in a session, but then having a high level of performance on each of those lifts. As a general guideline, I have found that doing between 4-7 strength-focused exercises in a workout is a good aim for most people. If you incorporate several compound exercises in this workout, you will still have a challenging training session on your hands.
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Just imagine doing the Bench Press, followed by Squats, followed by Pull-Ups, and then a Shoulder Press before moving into 1-2 isolation exercises. These 5-6 exercises will ask a lot from your body and they will provide a bigger bang for your buck than rushing through 10 isolation exercises.