Training Techniques

Are your muscles reaching their full potential from your daily workouts? Have you ever felt like you are just going through the motions? Blast through plateaus, create maximum muscular hypertrophy, and boost your training intensity by experimenting with different training techniques!***Train past the pain***

Keep in mind that there is no “right way” or “wrong way” to train. So don’t give up on an idea before trying it! Switching up the routine can confuse the muscle and force it to grow like never before!

Muscle presence

Muscle presence is defined as keeping “the mind in the muscle “. Muscle presence is key in any exercise. The mind is as powerful as the body. Arnold Schwarzengger fully believed this theory. When the body fails, the mind is what keeps the body moving through that last painful rep. With each rep in the gym full concentration should be placed on the muscle being worked. Therefore, if the burn/tension is not felt in the desired muscle then the exercise itself can be considered pointless. Feel the burn and visualize the muscle growing with each rep. Feel the pump and the extra blood flow being directed to the desired muscle. Visualize what you want the final goal to be whether it’s such and round thick shoulders or a great peak on the bicep. Creating a visual image in your mind will create the image in which your body will grow.

Drop Sets

Drop sets are best done with a machine, that the weight level can be adjusted quickly and easily, or dumbells/barbells, which can be switched immediately. Drop Sets can also be done with an Olympic bar such as the bench press for example, if you have a training partner that can swiftly drop some plates off the bar after each failed set. Drop sets are best used at the end of your workout with the intention to create an extended period of failure in the muscle. Muscle failure can be described as pushing the muscle past the point of fatigue. Some people believe that reps should start being counted once the muscle is burning, or has reached failure, because these are the reps that count! As most people know failure=growth. At the last set of your last exercise (really a drop set could be done on the last set of any exercise), lift the weight using the heaviest amount of weight possible, for a few reps until the muscle fails. Put down the weight stack and immediately take a lower weight, and work until failure. Then skip to another lower weight, and another. Rep out until failure. Done!

Partials (reps)

Partial reps are good for burning out the peak of the muscle. Once your muscles are nearing the point of fatigue where proper form and full extension of the muscle is becoming too difficult to complete, “partial” rep it out. That means quickly pumping the muscle in half reps, or the peak of the reps, in order to further reach muscle failure.

Negatives

Negative reps allow for constant tension on the muscle, which enables activation of fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fiber. This training technique helps you use every potential of the muscle! To execute a negative rep, think “explode” on contraction, and “slowly” return to starting position while keeping that constant tension on the muscle. Experimenting with tempo, such as during negative training, may help the feeling of isolation of a desired muscle. Negatives are generally done best on the last set of any exercise.

Rest/pause technique

Rest Pause technique is similar to drop sets, without adjusting the weight stack. Get the extra few reps in by dropping the weight for 3 seconds only. Just enough time for the muscle to rest slightly, then pick the weight back up and “rep out” or finish until you are no longer able!

Fascia Stretch training

Fascia is the tissue that envelopes the muscle tissue. For the muscle to reach maximum growth it is important to stretch this outer layer of fascia so that the muscle has room to expand. Stretching the targeted muscle immediately after finishing a set for 20-30 seconds will promote the direction of large amounts of nutrient rich blood flow to the muscle. This allows for hypertrophy of the muscle and maximum recovery and it feels great too!

Burnout

Burnout is another method of bringing the muscle to failure. Technically one can “burnout” the muscle using any of these techniques to really fatigue the muscle. When lifting for power and strength, a good principle is to have 75% of your exertion focused on the first two exercises. The first major exercises are best chosen to be compound exercises, such and bench or squat, leaving isolation exercises (smaller muscle groups) to be trained last. Burnout is a great finisher for these compound exercises, by finishing the last set with a significantly lighter weight, for many reps. This encourages blood flow to the muscle and allows for the full execution of the muscle.

Hope these techniques can be useful in switching up your routine! Best regards and Happy Training!

Celia