The Numbers Game

Lynn Folsom, one of are great trainers here at GymIt, tells all of her clients to forget the scale and go by the jeans test—if the jeans fit better than what you are doing is working.

“Bodyweight alone is not a great indicator since if someone is training correctly they will put on muscle while reducing body fat so weight may not change much, but they will be healthier and fitter,” says Lynn. “Scales are where eating disorders are born. It really comes down to how you look and feel.”

The same holds true for the amount of weight being moved in the gym.

Sure if you’re training for World’s Strongest Man or for something sports-specific, you might need to keep adding weight. But if you’re looking to just add muscle or get lean or tone-up a bit, the number of pounds may be overrated, as this study shows.

“Using metabolic resistance training and circuit or intervals can really build muscle, improve conditioning and burn body fat all at the same time,” adds Lynn. “It really comes down to training hard—which means not resting 5 minutes between sets—and smart as opposed to how much you can lift.

“If you think the 70-pound dumbbell is too light, first make sure your form is correct, then cut rest time, then try that chest press on a stability ball and you may find out you can work your pecs just as hard with 35 or 40 pounds,” Lynn concludes.

In the end, it isn't how much you weigh or how much you lift. It really comes down to the healthier and fitter you are the better you'll look in your jeans by having reduced body fat and increased muscle mass.

 

 

Photo credit: Ambro

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6 Moves for a Stronger Core

Lying face up on the floor, hold a stability ball above the chest in both hands with the arms extended. Bend the knees and hips 90°, keep the feet lifted and feel your lower back firmly pressed into the floor. Raise the ball behind the head while extending the legs out to a 45° angle, still keeping the low back in contact with the floor. Lift the head, neck and shoulders off the floor as you reach with the ball to place it between the legs. With the ball trapped between the legs, extend your legs away from the body while reaching the hands overhead. Repeat this combination, passing the ball back and forth between the hands and legs. If this is too challenging, keep the knees above the hips and do not allow them to move as you perform the exercise with the upper body only.

Target: Obliques (Sides)

Side Balance

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5 nutrition mistakes that you must avoid

Nutritionist Scott Baptie helps MF reveal the biggest mistakes you’re making when it comes to nutrition

There’s more to reaching your goals than being an avid gym-goer. A thousand crunches a day may make you sore but certainly can’t make up for an unhealthy diet. Proper nutrition is an important factor in reaching your fitness goals, and sports nutritionist and personal trainer Scott Baptie is helping us cover a few of the biggest mistakes you may be making in the kitchen.

Mistake #1: Avoiding fat

Many men looking to get shredded abs and cut triceps often make the mistake of avoiding high-fat foods at all costs. The belief that eating fatty foods makes you gain weight isn’t entirely false- fat contains more than twice the calories as its protein and carbohydrate counterparts. However, avoiding fats altogether is nutrition mistake #1. Fat has a variety of nutritional benefits, including its aid in brain development and the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. Fat also provides linoleic and linolenic acids- the fatty acids that our bodies need but cannot produce on their own. Try opting for avocado, nuts, or salmon, all healthy sources of the essential fatty acids our bodies need.

Mistake #2: Banishing certain foods altogether

While some foods certainly provide more health benefits with fewer calories than others, deeming a food

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Total-body Plyometrics Workout

2- to 3.5-kg) medicine ball.

Quickly remove the hands and drop them to the floor slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.

Make sure to land with the elbows slightly flexed.

Continue to flex the elbows and drop the chest to almost touch the medicine ball.

Explosively extend the elbows and push up so that the hands return to the top of the ball. Note: This exercise is appropriate for elite-level clients only.

Supine Vertical Chest Toss

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How to Select the Right Rest Intervals and Post-Training Recovery for Your Clients

Before training the same muscle groups.

Without adequate rest between sets, the quality of future efforts becomes compromised while greatly increasing the risk of developing delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). For an individual new to exercise, DOMS creates the perception that exercise is painful, which could provide an excuse for failing to show up for the next class or training session. Just because you may feel that muscle soreness is an indicator of a good workout doesn't mean that a client who finds making it to the gym a challenge will agree with you. Gradually increasing intensity while shortening the rest interval and adding an extra set or two is an extremely effective way of increasing the level of difficulty of a program without changing any of the exercises. 

The longer recovery period between workouts allows time for repairing damaged muscle fibers and rest for the nervous system responsible for initiating muscles contractions. It also gives muscles a chance to remove metabolic waste and fully replenish all fuel stores. Again, a client could have a specific goal requiring shorter recovery periods between workouts to help that individual adapt to exercising in a slightly fatigued state, but overall the optimal recovery time between strength-endurance workouts is approximately 24 to 36 hours. The recommended recovery time between high-intensity strength and power workouts is anywhere from 48 to 72 hours. This is why most bodybuilders and competitive weightlifters follow workout programs that call for training specific body parts or movements on separate days. A bodybuilder can do a high volume of chest training on a Monday, back training on a Tuesday and leg training on a Wednesday. When Thursday comes it's time to train chest again, because these muscle have had a full 72-hour recovery period.

One thing I try to drill into my clients’ heads is that the preparation for tomorrow's workout starts at the end of today's class or training session. Hydration, proper fueling (nutrition) and adequate sleep all play a critical role during the post-workout recovery process. As a fitness professional you should be able to recommend specific recovery strategies for what to do after the workout to ensure that the exercise stimulus has the desired effect. Designing a program with too many high-intensity workouts too close together will not allow time for your clients’ bodies to rest, replace lost energy stores or rebuild new muscle tissue. The right rest intervals during a workout and recovery strategies between training sessions can greatly reduce the risk of injury while promoting the optimal response to the exercise program.

Change does not occur without a preceding stimulus. The body is a very complex and adaptable organism that can adjust to almost any physical stimulus applied. If our job is to help clients make changes, then we need to challenge them to be uncomfortable. This does not mean that we hurt them or cause them physical harm, but it does mean that we need to ask them to work harder than they may be accustomed to. After all, that is why they're hiring us or coming to our group workouts in the first place. Hopefully, this series on the variables of exercise program design has given you some ideas about how you can challenge your clients to work a little differently on the way to their goals.

Part 1: How to Select the Right Exercises for Your Clients

Part 2: How to Select the Right Intensity and Repetions for Your Clients

Part 3: How to Select the Right Sets and Tempo for Your Clients

Part 4: How to Select the Right Volume and Frequency for Your Clients

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How to Select the Right Volume and Frequency for Your Clients

Intensity—the amount of weight used equals the client's 8-rep max for that lift.

Training Frequency

Frequency refers to the number of training sessions per a specific period of time such as week, month, quarter or year. The frequency of workouts should be based on an individual client’s training goals, experience and current fitness level. Clients just starting a workout program for the first time or restarting after an extended layoff should set an initial process goal of exercising only two to three times per week. Oftentimes, a new client may claim to want to work out every day; while laudable, this is an unrealistic goal for someone with a history of being sedentary. It also can lead to discouragement if he or she has to miss a workout for any reason—the client may see it as a failure, which could lead back to the behavior of skipping the gym altogether. Helping a new client set a realistic goal of exercising twice per week and once on the weekend increases the likelihood that he or she will meet that goal. Once that goal is achieved and the client feels successful, other goals can be established. The key to losing 50 pounds is losing the first two (then the second two, the third two and so on). Helping clients set small, realistic goals can help establish little victories and develop habits that will last for a long time. 

Other variables that help determine training frequency are intensity and volume. In general, there is an inverse relationship between training volume and intensity—when the intensity of a workout is high, either from heavier loads or more explosive movements, then the volume and frequency of workouts should be lower. When the exercise program features higher-intensity loads, or exercises that include more challenging movement patterns or movement velocities, increased demands are placed on the neuromuscular system that require longer recovery periods between the workouts to ensure adequate adaptation and recovery. High-intensity workouts place a significant amount of mechanical stress on muscle tissue and metabolic demands on the anaerobic energy pathways; therefore, fewer reps, sets and training sessions per week should be performed. High-intensity workouts require rest time to allow the nervous system to recover and the muscular system to repair and refuel. Too much high-intensity training in a short period of time could lead to an overuse injury or overtraining.

Sample Training Frequency for One Week of a High-intensity Weightlifting Program

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Active Recovery:
Long bike ride

Pushing Lifts: Moderate
Sprints

Yoga

Pulling Lifts: Moderate
Sprints

Pushing Lifts: Heavy

Off

Pulling Lifts:
Heavy

In the program above, each day after a heavy day is either a rest or active recovery day, to ensure that the nervous system will be able to recover from fatigue and the muscles will have enough time for protein re-synthesis and glycogen replenishment.

On the other hand, when training intensity is relatively low, like for endurance training, the number of repetitions and sets can be higher and the rest period between workouts can be shorter. Endurance training uses the long-term mitochondrial energy pathways, which need less time for replenishment and refueling between submaximal workouts. When the exercise program features a lower volume or lower-intensity exercise, less time is required between exercise sessions for adaptation and recovery. The fitness level and goal of each individual client will determine the volume and frequency of his or her training program.

Guidelines for Resistance Training Frequency Based on Training Experience

Training Status

Training Experience

Frequency Guidelines
(sessions per week)

Training Intensity

Beginner

≤ 2 months

2 – 3

Low

Intermediate

2 - 6 months

3 – 4

Medium

Advanced

≥ 12 months

4 – 7

High

Reference:  NSCA Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning (3rd ed.) 2008.

Monitoring Volume and Frequency

Periodization is the science of applying training volume and frequency. In short, periodization organizes a training program into specific blocks (periods) of time that alternate between high-intensity workouts and lower-volume and frequency and more frequent lower-intensity workouts with higher repetitions ranges. There are countless way to organize periodized programs, from linear where each block of time becomes a little more challenging, to undulating where the workout intensity changes from day to day. Think of every client and training session as a sort of mini-experiment—if you want to develop training programs that consistently deliver results, it is important to keep accurate records of clients’ programs to identify the most effective exercises and workouts for specific outcomes.

For many clients with goals related to general fitness or improving health, monitoring training volume might not be that important. However, if you are working with clients who have specific performance, weight-loss or aesthetic goals (e.g., training for an obstacle course race, losing weight after the birth of a child or preparing for a physique competition), recording and monitoring training volume is extremely important to identify what works and what might need to be adjusted for future training plans. For example, if you train a lot of women preparing for their weddings, you might want to have a record of the workouts that your clients felt gave them the best results.

Another benefit from writing down clients’ workouts—especially the intensity, reps and sets—is that it gives you a way to monitor the applied training stress. Training intensity records combined with daily feedback from your clients regarding other stressors will help you know when to increase the training intensity during periods of reduced outside stress and decrease intensity when they might have higher stress levels from deadlines or increased demands at home. If a client is going through a period of stress at work or home, it could affect his or her sleep patterns or dietary habits, both of which could interfere with the ability to properly recover from a training program.

Consider, for example, a mother with two school-age children home for the summer. She will be busy organizing her kids’ activities and may not have as much time for training, so she would need a maintenance program. Once her kids are back in school, she may return to a more consistent schedule that gives her the ability to recover from harder, more intense training sessions. A second example would be an accountant who will be slammed at work for the six weeks prior to the April 15 tax-filing deadline. During this high-stress period, the accountant will need lower-intensity workouts to help reduce the stress from work. Once tax season is over it would be appropriate to increase the training intensity to work toward specific goals.

The reason why Arnold and other bodybuilders follow split-routine programs where they focus on just one or two body parts per training session is to allow their muscles sufficient time to repair and recover between workouts. If you look at the training program of any top performer, whether an athlete or a physique competitor, you will see how they use periodization to adjust volume and frequency of the training intensity. Knowing how to adjust frequency and volume to develop periodized programs means that you are more than just a trainer to your clients—you become a fitness specialist who can provide effective workouts throughout the entire year. This helps ensure you remain relevant in their lives and retain their business. However, real success from an exercise program requires the knowledge of how to structure rest and promote recovery, which will be the topic of the next and final part in our series.

Part 1: How to Select the Right Exercises for Your Clients

Part 2: How to Select the Right Intensity and Repetions for Your Clients

Part 3: How to Select the Right Sets and Tempo for Your Clients

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