brihoppy

Hey all,

I'm just into the second week of a month's course of Personal Training at my local Gym.

I was thinking I might do a blog, a la Snazy and his dieting, but I haven't got a clue how to get started...!!!

Any directions, help and advice on setting one up would be greatly appreciated...

Many thanks in advance,

Bri...

Snazy

Spaces home - Windows Live Spaces

Use an MSN one, well structured, can do it from any PC.

Or the other option is a hosted one.

Spaces is prob the best though tbh if you have no experience

Glad I inspired someone to do something lol

brihoppy

Cheers Snazy,

Just thought I'd give it a try, you never know, it might inspire someone else as yours did...!!!

I'm not doing anything as radical as you but I do have some specific goals and as I've now started some proper personal training, I thought I'd keep a log of it...

I'll have a look at the MSN spaces...

Keep a lookout...!!!

Bri...

Snazy

Nice one mate, thats what its all about, sharing experience, and inspiring others
If you need a hand with anything, shout up on MSN snazy911@ hotmail.com

Good luck

abbott

i havent seen snazys any chance of a link as im desperately trying to get in shape at the moment , i have tried so hard and only lost 2 stone in a year !!

Snazy

Snazy's Space

Read diet tracking, needs to be read backwards though, due to the order the blogs appear in.

Hope it gives you some inspiration too. Its extreme, but it works. 5 months later, im still maintaining just fine, and life is SO much better

abbott

descent thanks matey !!

im 27 years old and weigh 19.4 stone (was 22 last christmas) i seem to have just stopped losing weight ,

i play football every friday (run 100 metres then spu etc etc ) , i go swimming 3 nights a week 16 lengths each night and i just cant seem to shift anymore weight its really starting to get to me !

Snazy

I know what you mean mate, but you need to get your mindset right before you try anything, especially anything drastic.

Positive mindset it key, im sure most would agree. Determination and will power really help.
Exercise is one thing, but when you get overly big, its suddenly hard to shift.
I was running for an hour a day at times, 5-10kms daily, and plateau'ed at 110kg.

The abstainance diet was excellent for me, and really gave me a good new start to things.

Thing to do, it go back to basics, start over, and see where you head.
Whatever you do, DONT give up
If you need coaching, mentoring, or just a good kick up the ****, im right here

abbott

abstinance diet i cant do due to diabetes , but if i need a kick up the **** ill shout ..thanks buddy !

brihoppy

to any who may be interested, this is the link to my log...

its not up to much at the moment as this is the first time ive done anything like this so please bear with me, ill be tweaking it along the way...

next session is tonight and ill be hoping to get copies of my sessions so far so i can post them on the log and get it up to date as soon as possible...

cheers, bri...

Brian's Personal Training Log

Luan Pra bang

ON a slightly different note I had a week off form the gym last week as I was in italy. After a week off I lifted more than I ever have before and had to up the levels on the fitness programs I use as the old ones were to easy. Can anyine explain this ?

brihoppy

a few days off can work absolute wonders...

HPLovecraft

Read This:

High Intensity Training by Drew Baye - High Intensity Strength Training: More Aerobic Than "Aerobics"

It might help you.

HPLovecraft

Yes, I can have a go at explaining it.

You were overtraining. During the week off your body (especially the CNS) had time to fully recover and grow stronger. As I have pointed out previously recovery abilities vary greatly between individuals. You will not grow from a workout unless you allow enough time to fully recover and then to grow. The harder (more intense) the workout the longer the recovery/adaptation process takes. For the average trainee this period is ALOT longer than you would believe. For example if you do just one set each to momentary muscualr failure (in a 6-12 rep range) of Squats, deads and dips it may take you a full WEEK to recover and grow. A small number of individuals require even longer.

If you are working hard, but not making progress, increase the number of days rest between workouts until you begin to make progress again. Trust me.This becomes even more important if your workouts are brutal (eg. to positive failure, plus some forced reps or negatives etc). The harder you workout the less total sets you will need (or indeed can perform). If you are training each set to failure I recommend just one set each of 4-6 basic exercises (such as squat, deadlift, dips, chins, row etc.) and initially 2-3 days between sessions to recover and grow, extending this if neccessary.

For some good advice get Heavy Duty 2 by Mike Mentzer.

Snazy

Yup a short break is clearly what your body needed, maybe also loading up on dietry stuff you usually cut out.

Possible that you need to address both your intake and training regime. Could be over training and under nourishing yourself.

Luan Pra bang

I have been leaving 7 day gaps between muscle groups IE legs on monday upper body friday and cardio in the middle but the biggest change in strength and fitness has been on a week off. I am currently traing 4 days a week but I am starting to think this is too much.

Snazy

So you train parts of body, have you tried opposites ?

Pecs and tris, back and bi's etc.
Rather than whole of arms in one go.

4 days a week should not be too much, depending on your fitness level. But diet might have something to do with it. Getting enough carbs to train hard on ?

HPLovecraft

Four days a week might be too much for you.

Without seeing the routine you are following, and knowing how hard you work each set it is difficult for me to make suggestions. You say you are doing a split routine ? If this is being done with high intensity ie carrying each set to the point of momentary muscular failure then you not only tax the muscle groups you are working to a large degree, but also your recovery ability and central nervous system. All these require an adequate amount of time to recover and adapt. If you train hard then train again within a short period of time, even if you train a different set of muscles, you are still taxing (again) the CNS and your recovery ability. Doing you upper body on friday followed by only 2 days rest before hitting your legs may be too much. Repeated bouts will eventually push the body beyond its ability to adapt, since the body has only a finite amount of resources, and you are continually tapping them without allowing adequate time for replenishment. Thus you might be better doing a whole body routine on a 1 on 3-4 off (initially) and see how you respond.

Also remember that any other activity that you do which is even moderately demanding (eg. cardio) will also eat into your limited recovery ability. You can get great conditioning from your weight training simply by keeping the rest time between sets as short as possible.


If your primary goal is to gain muscle mass and strength, and you want to do it in an efficient manner (ie. not spend hours a week in the gym doing set after set) then give high-intensity training a go and switch your exercise emphasis to the true mass and strength builders - basic compound exercises such as the squat, leg press, regular deadlift, underhand close grip chins (or pulldowns if you can't), dips (if your current strength level allows, or you have access to a weight assisted machine), bench press, behind the neck or military press, upright row etc. Forget about eg. tricep pushdowns and lateral raises.

The book I mention above, by MM, details this kind of training. Brief, hard, and infrequent is the key to successfully building mass and strength in the shortest time. When training in this fashion ie. carrying sets to positive failure (or beyond at times), you will be surprised by how few sets you need to stimulate maximal growth. MM used these principles to successfully train thousands of clients who were literally at thier wits end as to why they were failing to gain muscle mass on traditional volume routines.

That being said some people cannot tolerate this kind of training. They find the pain induced by pushing sets to failure too difficult to cope with. In which case a more traditional routine would suit them better. If you look around you will see that the debate of intensity vs volume still rages. Both have been proven to work, so I try not to side, but if I had to choose I would choose HIT over volume.

A good, more regular (ie not high intensity) routine is HST. This isn't as demanding on the CNS and recovery ability so you can train more frequently but still make great gains. Given that your body is accustomed to weights you could probably skip the 15s and go to the 10s (read the following and you will see what I mean):

Hypertrophy-Specific Training : : Official Home of HST

Crap, time to do some work...

Luan Pra bang

Thats a good post and a lot to take in but I think you are probably right with regards the cardio as I do a warm up, then weights and after that I do another 20 mins hard cardio. I try to have at day off after weights before a cardio day but there are only so many days in the week. I have cut it to three days this week and I am only doing one cardio day.
With regard the he weights I do two sets of 15 followed by 5-6 reps or whatever I can manage at a higher weight. Only differentce is shoulders becuase I seem to struggle to life anything after doing triceps or chest press on the same day.