Add Weights to All Your Lifts Immediately

Bodybuilding - Add Weights to All Your Lifts Immediately

Most people spend way too much time and energy warming up to the point that when it is time to perform their heavy, muscle-building sets, they are too wiped out from their warm-ups. This has defeated the purpose of weight training. Lighter weights lifted, less muscle stimulation. This means less muscle growth as a result.

The single biggest mistake I see people do time and time again is that they warm up with too many sets and too many reps before attempting their heavy, results-producing sets.

If the only way a muscle will grow is through increased overload (weight) why expend so much needed energy on warm-up sets? We need to save it for the productive sets, the last one or two of the set where the weight being used is the most you can handle for four to six repetitions. Here is where true muscle stimulation occurs.

Warming-up correctly means you should acclimate your muscles to be able to handle additionally heavier weights while progressing through your sets. This means doing just enough reps on a warm-up set without tiring yourself to the point where you have no juice left to finish your heavier sets. You are allowing the muscle group being trained to acclimate to a heavier resistance and more overload without unduly fatiguing.

Learn to get rid of wasted reps and wasted sets in the gym. We are striving for efficiency. This doesn't mean you are working any less; you are just working smarter at working harder. Do not waste precious energy on repetitions that will prematurely fatigue the muscle, not make it stronger. When performing a workout for a certain muscle group, like chest, most people do more than one exercise. For example, for a chest routine, you start with flat bench press, and then proceed to incline dumbbell press, and finish with dips.

On your second exercise of the same muscle group (chest), do not start at a very light weight again and re-warm up a muscle that is already warmed up. For example, if you start with the flat bench press and then move onto the incline, do not start light again on your incline. Your muscles are already warmed up from the flat bench. Just perform a set or two of acclimation sets (six to eight reps) and then immediately get into the heavy sets. So as your workout progresses, you will become more efficient by shaving needless reps off.

Stop doing too many reps and sets before getting to the heavy ones. Involve acclimation sets on all of your exercises to get your muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints ready for the progressive overload that's about to come.

Think quality of sets over quantity of sets. Its not the number of reps and sets that count, it is how you perform them.