Workout Things That Took Me YEARS To Learn (that you can know in five minutes)

Workout Tips That Took Me YEARS to Learn

The 7 Day Cycle:  I’m going to ask you a simple question:  Who invented the week?  People did, your body didn’t.  This means that although it fits better into our schedules, the seven day lifting cycle is a completely arbitrary one.

More Work = Bigger Muscles:  Muscle grows not in the gym, but outside the gym, during rest and sleep periods.  Most workouts are designed by people on steroids, FOR people on steroids, and they trickle down to the normal people like you and I.  The human body doesn’t get that much better at repairing muscle and joints, and the rate is set by the internal organs which act as filtering mechanisms (not nuclear power plants) for the raw building blocks of the human body.  Proper cycling time PLUS weeks off are incredibly important.  Three rules for putting on a consistent amount of size:

 1.  8 Hours of sleep.

       2.  Eat Protein

       3.  Do not work-out too much.

However, this doesn’t mean you can half-ass it in the gym and expect results.  It means you need to sorta kick your ass without murdering yourself.  This brings me to my next point:

Lifting for Tone:  No such thing.  Being ‘toned’ just means someone has a low body-fat %.  Classic ‘toning’ exercises tend to be exercises that hit stability muscles that most people have difficulty hitting with standard hypertrophy exercises.

Ten pounds of muscle in a month!:  Another lie.  The most lean muscle a normal male can put on in a month is about one pound.  Two pounds is for a serious genetic freak following a perfect diet and lifting program.  Most people who put on “Ten pounds of muscle” are adding water weight, intramuscular fat, glycogen around the liver, or just plain fat.  I can put on five pounds of water weight in a day by laying off the coffee, eating pickles, and drinking whey + water.

No pain, no gain:  Advice normally given by ex football players who are plagued with injuries and can’t workout past their mid-twenties.  This is what it means when your body is in pain:

              
It is being damaged.

If an exercise hurts, it means one of three things:

      1.  You are doing the exercise incorrectly

      2.  You are not strong enough to do the exercise (due to weakness, muscle imbalance, etc)

      3.  It is a bad exercise

None of these reasons are anything to be ashamed about.  I myself have muscle imbalances and  a strange bone structure that determines my workout.  Weakness and pain are useful information to determine the next step you take.

Next Week:  Exercises to avoid, forever, and a delicious recipe.