Gym & Tonic - Strength Training for Men

STRENGTH TRAINING with weights

Gym & Tonic explodes the myths.

Are you still feeling puffy and flabby?

Have they given up kicking sand in your face as a bad job?

And is the strength training with weights making no difference?

THINK AGAIN!

A bloke’s introduction to weights workout - and five things to avoid...

So you work out and lift weights in the gym. You might think you’ve been doing everything right, but your muscles still have less definitiion than a Chinese dictionary. So how come you’re still pumping and not ripping?

If you’ve been putting your back into it with no visible result, there’s probably nothing wrong with your tenacity and will to win. So blame the exercises – and the way you’re doing them.

Here's five possible areas where you could be going wrong.

Take a look, then put our wise words into real actions.

You’ll start seeing that honed, buff body a darn sight quicker than you might imagine – and so will everyone else.

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1: You’ve forgotten the warmup Don’t be suckered into thinking there’s no point in it: the pre-workout warmup is crucial. A brisk walk, a treadmill jog or a couple of fast klicks on a static bike or turbo-trainer will warm up tendons and muscles, readying them for the rigours to come and leaving you much less prone to injury. And apart from anything else, you’ll start burning off those calories from the get-go.

2: Someone’s misjudged the weights Too light, and there’s no point. Too heavy, and you could be going home with a hernia. If strength training with weights is new to you, kick off with one or two sets of 15 to 20 reps with a relatively light weight (about 50% of what you can lift straight off, or ‘maximum lift’). As you get stronger, kick up to two or three sets of 10 to 15 reps with a heavier weight (60 to 75% of your maximum lift).

3: How’s your form?

One fairly certain route to injury is lifting too swiftly. And using inertial momentum could even be a waste of time. When it comes to strength training with weights, slow is good.

Taking your time lets you produce more muscle force, with less stress on your joints.

But if you’re using inertial training and not barbells, the weight almost carries itself, giving you much less of a workout.

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4: You don’t vary your disciplines If you spend your time in the gym throwing the same shapes, staleness can set in. That’s because your muscles get used to being worked in the same way. The strength gains you see early on start to level out. So vary your workout, trying different moves every few weeks. Don’t get so used to bench-presses that you’re forgetting other disciplines. Want results?

Giving your muscles a good kick up the barbell every now and then could work wonders.

5: Don’t stand around between sets Resting between sets like you’re hanging around for a bus? You’re probably missing a trick. While you wait for for the next bunch of reps and your muscles to stop screaming, get on a skipping rope or the treadmill and burn off a few more calories. It’s another good way to mash it all up, combining solid strength and cardio-vascular training within your overall regime.

Copy that?

At Gym & Tonic we’ve spent years researching and testing the programmes that can deliver the honed, powerful results you’re seeking: the secret of beautifully ripped and sculpted musculature through properly-applied strength training with weights.

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