Resistance training exercise, or weight lifting, is crucial to achieving your goals. Research has shown that a combination of weight training and cardio sheds more pounds and increases metabolism higher than cardio alone. This is mainly because you burn several more calories per day for every drop of fat you replace with a fiber of lean muscle. In addition to the weight loss benefits, resistance training gives you increased bone density, a more well-functioning and coordinated collection of muscles and joints, and improved agility and balance. Additionally, athletes can use weight lifting to improve strength potential, decrease injury potential, and cross-train with sport specificity.
Unfortunately, the number of weight training “routines” out there in magazines and on gym walls can be intimidating and confusing, and what works best for your skinny next door neighbor or marathon runner friend may not. Be your body’s cup of tea. So how do you choose what is best for your personal goals? I’m going to describe four basic and popular facelift methods and then help you decide which one to choose based on your individual needs.
1. Body Split Training
This style of training involves dividing the body into various muscle “groups” and working those muscles on certain days of the week; for example, a 5-day split would look like this:
Monday: Chest/Back/Abs
Tuesday: Shoulders/Biceps/Triceps
Wednesday: Quads/Caves
Thursday: Shoulders/Abs
Friday: hamstrings/lower back
This style of training is very popular with the bodybuilding crowd, because it allows an individual to focus on a specific muscle group and work that muscle to complete exhaustion. With proper rest, this results in very large, defined muscles. Sets can be as high as 10 sets per exercise, with reps falling in the 8-20 range. The break can be as short as 10 seconds and periods as long as 5 minutes. Strategies include consecutive sets, pyramiding up or down in reps and/or weight, pre-fatigue, rebounding, super slow, negatives, and a host of other tricks from the bodybuilding arena. If you just want to get “big and cut” this is a good approach. The problem with this style of lifting is that it only works well if you can sufficiently exhaust the muscle groups, so you should plan to spend at least an hour and a half and up to three hours every day lifting weights in the gym. Many of the lifts are single-joint lifts, which means the focus isn’t on calorie burn, strength, or athleticism, but simply on isolation and muscle growth. Many of us don’t have that kind of time – the people who get the most benefit from a body split routine must have great dedication and devotion to their exercise program, and have only one desire: to build muscle.
2. Traditional weightlifting
When most of us think of “resistance training,” we think of a traditional weight lifting program. This usually involves 3-4 sets of 10-12 repetitions of a specific exercise, with a 45-60 second rest after each set. Once the exercise is complete, move on to the next one. Typically, a routine is made up of 8-10 exercises that work the entire body. Typically, this type of routine is done 3-4 days a week. This is a good and easy way to build strength, bone density, and add lean muscle. Compared to other types of lifting, traditional weight lifting does not burn a large number of calories or cause a high cardiovascular response, since you spend a significant amount of time sitting down and “resting” between exercises. If your goal is to maximize weight loss and/or get lean and lean, there are better programs out there for you. The same can be said of athletics. If your goal is simply to stay fit and keep your body strong, this would be a good option.
3. Circuit-style training
Circuit-style training involves choosing a series of exercises, usually multi-joint movements that work a large number of muscles and joints at the same time, and performing this series of exercises, one after the other, with minimal rest between exercises. Heart rate and metabolism speed up during circuit training, and the density or volume of exercises performed can be very high with this approach. When you’re trying to get the most out of your resistance training routine, a circuit-style training program can be very effective. Reps are typically in the 10-20 range, and many of the exercises include a cardiovascular component, such as a 250-meter row, a 2-minute treadmill run, or 25 medicine ball tosses against the gym wall. As mentioned, weightlifting exercises are primarily multi-joint, such as “squat to press,” “lunge to bend,” or “overhead deadlift.” Most of the clients I train who want to lose weight and tone up will have something like a circuit training routine in their program. Often a basic 20-30 minute routine done every day of the week will literally melt the fat away. The downside of circuit-style training is that since the rest periods are so short, you can’t normally lift very heavy weights, and the strength gains may be minimal compared to body-split training or weight lifting. traditional.
4. Periodization
Periodization simply means that a year of training is divided into training cycles, or “periods.” Each training year cycle involves a different type of weightlifting approach. For example, a year of training could be divided into 1) off-season; 2) building muscular endurance; 3) muscle strength and/or mass building; 4) development of power and explosive strength and 5) maintenance of strength or competition season. Obviously, this style of training has the most benefit for an athlete preparing for competition. Periodization allows an athlete to peak or have maximum physiological readiness before their event. An example of a weight lifting periodization schedule for, say, an Ironman triathlete training for a race in June, might include the following, with three full-body workouts per week:
July-September: off-season, cross training
October-December: development of muscular resistance, 3 series of 15 repetitions, 8-10 exercises, 30-45 seconds of rest
January-March: muscle strengthening, 4 sets of 12 repetitions, 6-8 exercises, 60-90 seconds of rest
April-May: power and speed training, 5 sets of 4 reps, 3-4 exercises, 2-3 min rest
June: strength maintenance, 2 sets of 10 repetitions, 4-6 exercises, 1-2 minute rest
This scheme may look different to a basketball or soccer player, but the underlying concepts are the same: taking the body through several different training periods to enable peak performance when it really matters. No serious athlete should choose a weight lifting routine that does not include periodization.
Obviously, there are many options and limitless combinations of exercise routines. In just one or two emails, an online personal trainer can design a personalized routine for your goals. Then, to avoid a training plateau, your trainer may constantly change your training to avoid any adaptations your body may have to the exercises. A personal trainer is full of useful information like that! In fact, on my diet and fitness website, http://www.pacificfit.net, I’ve posted a new eBook filled with hundreds of fitness tips and tricks, exercise combo pages, and dozens of health and fitness articles. . It’s called Ben Greenfield’s E-Health Handbook of Diet & Fitness Secrets, and from now through August 1, you can get it at http://www.pacificfit.net for just $19.95. If you are looking for more instructions and information on fitness, you should check it out!
