How to Get Great Results With Your Workouts

In a perfect world, we’d all be jacked and lean. As you’ve probably learned by now, this world isn’t perfect and many people who regularly hit the gym can’t seem to make good progress, regardless their efforts.

 

They seem to be running in circles even though they are training well with a  consistent regime.

So why is that? Why can’t everyone build an impressive physique? Isn’t consistency supposed to be the biggest factor?

It’s the little things that go on unnoticed.

You know how we sometimes form bad habits unconsciously (like picking our nose when we are alone)? We don’t really think about it, but we do it on a daily basis. Well, the same applies to working out.

In this post, we’ll go over 6 things you need to be conscious of and fix to ensure that every workout is effective and keeps you healthy and injury-free.

Let’s jump right in!

Warm Up Properly

Before we actually get into the workout, we first need to warm up correctly.

But what the hell does that even mean? We hear and read it everywhere and I don’t blame you if you felt a bit annoyed after reading it now (really, it’s okay).

We know that warming up your body before putting it under stress is a crucial factor in the long-term pursuit of muscle.

But what qualifies as  a “good warm up”?

Well, there are 5 main things a good warm up should achieve:

1. Gets your heart rate up and increases blood circulation.
2. Activates the muscle tissue around your joints to help stabilize them.
3. Warms up the synovial fluid in your joints, which reduces friction and helps protect them in the long run.
4. Helps you practice your technique and prepare mentally for the work you’re about to do.
5. Reduces the risk of a muscle or ligament injury. Allows you to lift heavy weights safely and with a comfortable full range of motion.

Warming up prior to your workout should be divided into 2 sub-categories:

General warm-up

Low-intensity cardio for 5-10 minutes (treadmill, jump rope, stair master, elliptical trainer, etc.)

Your goal here is to raise your body temperature, get your heart rate up and warm up your synovial fluid (as mentioned above).

Specific warm-up

After you’re done with the total body warm-up, it’s time to give extra attention to the joints and muscles you’ll be using during a specific workout.

This means you should do a few warm-up sets and slowly work your way up to your working set weight.

For example – If you normally bench 225 lbs for 5 reps, working your way up would look like this:

(Keep in mind that you should never take a warm-up set to failure. Only do as many reps as you feel comfortable with.)

Set 1 (warm-up): 45 lbs (bar only) for 15-25 reps

Set 2 (warm-up): 95 lbs for 6-8 reps

Set 3 (warm-up): 135 lbs for 5 reps

Set 4 (warm-up): 180 lbs for 3 reps

Set 5 (first working set): 225 lbs for 5 reps

The goal of the specific warm-up is to activate your muscles, stabilize your joints, and prime your nervous system for the heavy lifting you’re about to do.

I like to emphasize the shoulder joint with a longer warm up and a variety of different movements. This is especially important before chest, arms, and shoulder day.

Here is a video by Scott Herman demonstrating a great warm-up routine for the shoulders (it takes less than 5 minutes):

Final thoughts on warming up

I constantly see guys at my gym walk in, put a couple of 45-pound plates on the bar and start benching.

This would be cool if they were Olympic-level lifters and could bench 600 pounds, but most of them can’t break 225.

Taking the extra 10 to 15 minutes to warm up before each workout is not only going to keep your body safe from injuries, it’s also going to help mentally prepare you for the work. This is going to help you when lifting in the lower rep range to consistently add weight to the bar over time.

Lift Some Heavy-Ass Weights And Start Off With a Compound Movement

“Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder but don’t nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass weights.”
– Ronnie Coleman

I’ve seen countless workout programs on different websites and magazines and each one has supersets, giant sets, drop sets or pretty much any intensity technique you can think of.

They all sound complicated enough to be effective, but what most of them lack is the aspect of getting stronger over time. If you’re always working with the same intensity, volume, and resting times without any goals in mind, you’re not training, you’re exercising.

You can spend an hour each day kicking your ass in the gym, hopping from one exercise to the next, but if your numbers are the same as they were a year ago, you are wasting your time and you need to change something.

Enter progressive overload

So what exactly is progressive overload? In short, it means “doing more over time”. This can be seen in a variety of different ways so it’s not just the poundage you need to worry about.

6 different ways to achieve progressive overload: 

1. Lifting heavier loads(more weight on different exercises).
2. Lifting same load for more reps.
3. Lifting the same load with a longer range of motion.
4. Lifting the same load with better control and smoother form.
5. Lifting the same load with smaller rest breaks.
6. Lifting the same load with more speed and/or explosiveness.

Why is progressive overload important?

Your body’s main goal is to keep you alive and functioning. Period. It doesn’t care about your workouts or your goals, and it certainly doesn’t care if  you look good naked. Adding calorie-hungry muscle mass is not on its priority list.

From a survival standpoint, having more muscle mass is simply a waste of energy. Your body is smart and capable of adapting to its environment and maintaining its current state.

Put it this way: Your body won’t change the way you want it to unless you force that change to happen. You need to strategically increase the physical demands on your body and force it to grow stronger and adapt to these demands.

But how do I safely “push” my body into growth?

Follow the progressive overload principle and try to improve your performance week after week.

You don’t necessarily need to lift more weight every week (you most likely won’t be able to, anyway) and the improvement doesn’t need to be major.

Remember: Just being able to do a fuller range of motion with the same weight, one more rep, or even a smoother execution of each rep are all improvements.

Start off each workout with a heavy compound lift at a weight that allows you no more than 5 to 6 reps per set. Do 3 to 5 sets of that. Bench presses (incline or flat, dumbbells or bar) for your chest. Rack pulls, deadlifts or rows for your back. Squats for your legs and overhead press for your shoulders. You get the point.

This week you might be able to squat 225 for 2. Next week you might be able to go a little deeper, notice that your squat feels smoother and you’re not as shaky. You might even go for a third rep, even if it’s not as good as the first two. All these small improvements add up.

Granted, progressive overload won’t be linear. Some days you will be able to crush the weights, others not so much. Here is a graph that perfectly illustrates what progressive overload looks like over time:

And this brings me to the next point…

Listen To Your Body

Aside from a proper warm up, listening to your body is the second best thing you should incorporate into your workouts.

If you’ve been going to the gym for a while now, you’ve probably had a few bad days where your energy was non-existent. Maybe you even felt a nagging ache in a joint during an exercise.

Learning how to interpret these signals from your body might actually save you from an injury or overtraining.

There are lots of famous inspirational quotes such as “No pain, no gain” and “Pain is weakness leaving the body”.  There’s even an abundance of “bodybuilding motivation” videos floating around YouTube.

I have nothing against them. I’ve even watched quite a few of them before working out. They can work as a great motivator for the mind, but there is also another side of things that nobody talks about.

We often feel like a workout hasn’t been productive because we felt bad on a particular day or we had to take it easy with the weights because our shoulder or knee was nagging us.  The reality is that you cannot avoid these days and it’s better to step back than to stupidly push forward.

A potential injury might keep you out of the gym for months, or even years. Overtraining and not taking a step back can also bring your progress to a halt. These are things you can avoid in the long run by listening to your body and taking it easy when necessary.

You should also include a de-load week where you reduce your total training volume and/or training intensity by 50% and don’t take any sets to failure. One of these every 8-16 weeks will allow your body to recover.

“Listen to your body” also has a positive side.

If you DO feel more energetic and motivated on a particular day, attack the weights with all your might.

Increase the load, do more reps and even throw in a couple drop sets. As long as you take your time, warm up well, use weights you can control and rest between sets, those are going to be some of your most productive workouts. Take advantage of them!

Quit It With The Bad Form

One of the most important factors for muscle growth is progressive overload.

If you don’t progressively improve over time, you won’t build muscle. However, the times we live in have taught us to be impatient. There are hundreds of fitness websites out there that promise us fast results. Training programs, supplements, diet plans, you name it.

We’ve all seen people lifting enormous weights with impeccable form but we don’t consider how many years it took them reach that level.

We’re so focused on getting stronger that we destroy our bodies by lifting more weight than we can handle. We all want to deadlift 500 pounds. Yesterday. We forget that getting strong and building an impressive physique TAKES TIME.

And I’m not talking about the “60 days to a shredded summer physique”crap programs that we see everywhere.

Why is training with good form and less weights much more beneficial to training with large weights and sloppy form? 

By focusing on good form throughout your workouts, you are learning how to perform each exercise correctly. This is a huge factor for long-term muscle and strength gain while also staying safe and uninjured.

Let me ask you this –

Which person is going to get the most out of their alternating bicep curls:

• Person A who uses a pair of dumbbells way out of his league. He swings them up and down, uses his shoulders, leans back, has no control over the negative portion (bringing the dumbbell down) and lifts weights with this mindset: “I must bring this weight up from point A to point B by any means necessary.”

Or

• Person B who uses a pair of dumbbells that are just right. He actually uses his biceps during curls (crazy, right?), there is minimum shoulder involvement, his torso is stable and so are his elbows. He can also control the negative for a good 1 to 3 seconds.

As I already said above, there are many ways to achieve progressive overload.

You shouldn’t obsess over how much you can lift. That one dude who’s been lifting for 8 years might be able to pull a 500-pound deadlift while you’re struggling with 205.

Does it mean you should slap on more weight and try to reach his level immediately? No, it doesn’t. It means you should keep doing what you’re doing, focus on improving over time and before you know it, you’ll be the next guy everyone looks up to.

Rest Optimally Between Sets

Resting the right amount between sets is another factor that will determine the effectiveness of your workout.

This is one of those subtle things that we don’t generally put much thought into, but finding the sweet spot of resting is crucial. There aren’t specific numbers that work perfectly for everyone, but there are guidelines we can follow.

There are 2 major factors that you should keep in mind when determining your resting period: 

1. What is the intensity/rep-range of the exercise you’re doing?
2. How demanding is the exercise on your body and central nervous system?

Now, let’s take a look at both of these factors individually to come up with a final verdict on resting.

What is the intensity/rep-range of the exercise you’re doing?

• If you’re doing an exercise with a load that allows you no more than 4 to 6 reps, your intensity is high and your rest time should also be long. Aim for 3 to 5 minutes.

• On the other hand, the lower the weight and the more reps it allows you to do, the lower your intensity is. Your resting periods should also be shorter.

So if you’re progressively decreasing the load and increasing the reps as you get further into your workout, your resting periods should also decrease.

A study at the State University of Rio de Janeiro1 analyzed the rest intervals between sets targeting specific training outcomes (endurance, strength, hypertrophy and power).

They found that when training in the 50 to 90% of 1 RM, resting for 3 to 5 minutes allowed the athletes to perform more reps over multiple sets, which led to greater increase in absolute strength.

They also found that when the main goal is muscle hypertrophy, moderate intensity with shorter resting intervals (between 30 and 60 seconds) can be very beneficial.

Their conclusion:

In summary, the rest interval between sets is an important variable that should receive more attention in resistance exercise prescription. When prescribed appropriately with other important prescriptive variables (i.e. volume and intensity), the amount of rest between sets can influence the efficiency, safety and ultimate effectiveness of a strength training programme.

How demanding is the exercise on your body and central nervous system?

All exercises are not created equal.

Each one places its own demand on your body. The more muscles and joints an exercise requires, the more rest you’re going to need.

For example: Let’s compare the deadlift and barbell bicep curls. Deadlifts take take much more energy than a set of barbell bicep curls, even if they’re both in the same rep range.

This is because the deadlift is a whole-body compound lift, which means it requires more joints and muscles. The barbell curl is an isolation exercise, which means it focuses on the muscles around a single joint (your elbow).

Now, there is no bullet-proof way to calculate your rest times in the case above. You should go by feel more than anything else. Both exercises in the low rep range should have a 3 to 5 minute rest in between sets, but how long you rest depends on how your body recovers from each set.

Don’t Push Each Set to Failure

Training to failure, i.e. the point where you cannot do any more unassisted reps, can be rewarding for our egos.

We get a better pump and feel like the Terminator afterwards, at least for a little while. But taking each set to failure is actually counterproductive.

Training to failure is extremely taxing on your body and central nervous system. In fact, regularly taking your sets to failure can even hinder your body’s ability to recover.

A study conducted by the Physical Education Department in Charleston, Illinois2 suggests that, while training to failure can be a great tool to help advanced athletes break through plateaus, it should never be abused.

This is especially true if you’re still in the beginner or intermediate stage.  Pushing your body to its limits dozens of times per workout will eventually lead to overtraining and injury.

Taking each set to the last possible rep can lead to an injury. As our bodies become fatigued, we tend to overcompensate (e.g. leaning back during a set of barbell curls) and use mechanical advantage to lift the weight.

This often will compromise your body, putting it in perfect position for an injury. A study by Human Performance Laboratory (University of Western Sydney)[3] studied this and proved that training to failure often leads to bad form.

How often should I train to failure?

When abused, training to failure will do more harm than good.

That being said, it has its benefits, as long as it’s done safely. Avoid training to failure early on in your workout, especially during heavy compound lifts. When you do take a set to failure, make sure to maintain proper technique.

And in terms of how often to actually train to failure, research, experts and my personal experience collectively say that you shouldn’t reach muscle failure for more than a handful of sets per workout.

I recommend reserving it for your last few sets, especially when doing an isolation exercise where good form is already hard to maintain.

And to re-cap your productive workout to-do list:

1. Warm up well. The 10 or 15 minutes you dedicate to warming yourself up can make a huge difference.
2. Start off each workout with a heavy compound lift. Don’t be afraid to go heavy, as long as you can control the weight for a few good reps.
3. Listen to your body. Whether you feel exceptionally good or bad on a particular day, you should always take note of that and adjust accordingly.
4. Maintain good form. I know this seems like a no-brainer, but again, it is one of the key requirements of a good and productive workout.
5. Rest optimally between sets. You should always adjust your resting periods based on your training intensity and the difficulty of the exercise.
6. Don’t push each set to failure. Again, doing so for a couple of sets within your workout is okay, but it should never be a benchmark for a productive workout.

What are your thoughts on making your workouts productive? Do you have other methods and advice you’d like to share? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

Sources:

• Salles, Belmiro Freitas De, Roberto Simão, Fabrício Miranda, Jefferson Da Silva Novaes, Adriana Lemos, and Jeffrey M. Willardson. “Rest Interval between Sets in Strength Training.” Sports Medicine 39.9 (2009): 765-77. Web.

• Willardson, Jeffrey M. “The Application Of Training To Failure In Periodized Multiple-Set Resistance Exercise Programs.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 21.2 (2007): 628-31. Web.

• Finn, Harrison T., Scott L. Brennan, Benjamin M. Gonano, Michael F. Knox, Rhearne C. Ryan, Jason C. Siegler, and Paul W.m. Marshall. “Muscle Activation Does Not Increase after a Fatigue Plateau Is Reached during Eight-sets of Resistance Exercise in Trained Individuals.”Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (2014): 1. Web.

 

 

• Share on Facebook.
• Share on Twitter.
• Share on Google+
• Share on LinkedIn
• Pin It!
• Share on StumbleUpon
• Share on Twitter.