How to Structure a Workout

The structure of a workout is the determining factor in how successful a weight lifting routine will be. There are many things that I see people doing wrong at the gym, that can hinder their progress. Some of them are just illogical while others are potentially dangerous. One of the major problems I see is how people structure a workout. There are three main structure problems that reduce the effectiveness of a program...

>>> The first and main problem is that people often don't split up their workouts. They try to do everything at once, and because of this, lose focus. Focus is the factor that decides whether you will make progress or not, and if your working out without focus and determination, you might as well not lift weights at all.

>>> The second issue is that people don't understand the difference between a compound and isolation lift. A compound lift for example is a shoulder press which hits all the parts of the deltoids, as well as the trapezius to a certain degree. An isolation exercise would be a lateral raise where the medial head of the deltoids is targeted. The order that these should be in is from top to bottom or if you wish to picture it this way, as an inverted triangle. Start with one overall lift like shoulder press and give it everything you have. Once you have completed several sets to failure then start to target the individual muscles of the region, an example of this is below.

Shoulders

• -Shoulder Press -Compound-(overall shoulders)
• -Shrugs -Isolation-(trapezius)
• -Front Raises-Isolation-(anterior head of the deltoids)
• -Lateral Raises-Isolation-(medial head of the deltoids)
• -Bent over Raises-Isolation-(posterior head of the deltoids)

>>>The Third Problem is that people often do not correctly split up the muscles when making a body split. When designing a serious weight lifting routine, you should hit a body part only one directly a week and then maybe another time indirectly. An example of this would be doing biceps on arms day and later in the week working back, where almost every back exercise uses the biceps to some extent. You should split your workouts up into this pattern if you wish to avoid overtraining and thus diminished returns for your hard work.

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When I first started lifting, not matter what I did, it seemed I would gain muscle and improve my lifts. But after a few months my gains had tapered down to practically nothing, and I felt like I was treading in water. I looked all over to find the secret to gaining muscle, I forked out over 400 of my hard earned dollars trying to find the holy grail. I wasted a lot of money, but I wont lie I learned a lot about diet and different training methods. But all I got was a lot of suggestions and never a complete strategy, finally I found a program that worked together in harmony to grow my muscles like I was a beginner again.

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Best Advice I can Give

You know, the fastest gains I have ever made in my entire life wasn't made with a fancy supplement, Special weight machine, or some secret weight routine. In fact it was made with hard work and forcing food into my body. I think that the biggest limiting factor in any weight routine is your diet. I mean when I first started lifting I really had no idea what I was doing, I used horrible form, over-trained, and didn't change my diet at all, yet I still made decent gains in strength and size. Eventually I reached a point where that wouldn't work for me anymore and so I decided to get serious.
I went out and bought a bunch of protein shakes and bars, as well as about 40 cans of tuna. I started eating about 250 grams of protein a day along with working my ass off at the gym five days a week. The hardest part was eating so much and so often, I was eating between six and seven times a day, and finding it to be practically punishment. But it seemed that every Monday, when I went to do bench press, the weight felt lighter. For about six weeks straight my bench press was going up ten pounds a week. My strength was going through the roof, and I had gained ten pounds of muscle.
My point in writing this, inst to say that supplements don't work, or to say diet is the only thing that's important. I am merely trying to point out that diet is much more important than many people believe. Eating enough protein to repair your muscles everyday is hard, and without the help of protein supplementation it can be almost impossible, This is why I recommend everyone should make the small investment in protein shakes and/or bars to squeeze in some extra protein while your in class, at work, or in transit. In the end it will pay off big time.

Best Creatine

Creatine is in my opinion the greatest natural supplement ever to hit the weight lifting supplement market. I'm not going to go into depth in this article about what it is scientifically and how it came about. What I am going to do is outline a few of the major types of creatines and their innovations. There have been loads of new creatines and amazingly "super formulas" but most of them are just hype in my opinion.

The first thing to happen was the explosion of creatine monohydrate, this is the basic and most common form. It is essentially the precursor to ATP or (adenosine tri phosphate) which is muscle fuel. The problem with creatine monohydrate is that it takes a few weeks to benefit from the supplementation since it must be built up in your system through a process of "loading". Regular creatine monohydrate has a very low absorption rate in your body and also has a nasty problem of upsetting many peoples stomachs. The next innovation was micronized creatine which is the same chemical formula except smaller particles which have a higher absorption rate due to a smaller surface area. This change was accompanied by the alleviation of most stomach discomfort. Following this was the addition of sugar to either creatine monohydrate or micronized creatine. This spikes insulin levels in the body to increase absorption and can be extremely effective. It is also necessary to note that almost all of these forms are available in pill or "cap" form.

Basic creatines are great, and give many benefits but also have their share of negatives. For example the low absorption rate which makes it so that large doses have to be taken, of up to 20 grams per day. Also it can cause bloating which is creatine drawing water into all the muscle cells in your body. Because of these side effects a miracle creatine recently hit the scene known as creatine ethyl ester (CEE, CE3, etc). This is the creatine molecule with an ester attached which supposedly allows it to permeate the cell membrane or in other words increases the absorption rate to nearly perfect. I have tried several forms of this creatine and found that it remains effective with a much lesser dose and no bloating.
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These are the major creatine improvements and I believe both creatine ethyl ester and creatine monohydrate and its variations are both highly effective and a must for anyone serious about transforming their body. All these supplements can be found at the cheapest prices on the internet through the link bellow.

Mass Building Routines

If you are looking for a way to add some muscle to your frame, you've come to the right place. Mass building is undoubtedly the biggest reason people begin weight lifting or bodybuilding. The main principle behind it is that the trauma and micro tears in your muscles, caused by weightlifting, forces your body to respond by rebuilding your muscles bigger and stronger. I've read many books, and experimented a lot myself with mass building. But if there is one thing I have found its that there is a lot of crap information out there!

First of all I want to introduce some basic information which is necessary to bodybuilding success. One of the biggest problems I notice is that people believe, that if you are lifting a heavy weight, you will get bigger. But I can tell you that, there is much more to it than that. I am 6 foot 2 and 225lbs with 11% body fat, but when I do bicep curls, I usually do sets using a 60lb barbell. The little guy next to me swinging a 100lb bar up and down usually seems confused as to why my biceps are twice the size of his, when he is using so much more weight. The simple reason is that he puts his entire body into the motion, which takes the stress off of his biceps, thus causing no stimulus for muscle growth. What he should be doing is trying to isolate the biceps and really feeling the muscle contract. What your essentially trying to do is trick your body into thinking it has to grow bigger and stronger to survive and so it truly is "no pain, no gain"

Another Huge factor is the rep tempo and set range your using. What I mean is that the tempo should be similar to 2:1:2 this applied to a bench press would be two seconds down, one second at the bottom, and then two seconds back up again. this optimizes stress on your muscles and this is ideal for muscle building. When i refer to set range i am talking to the number of reps in a set. For example for bodybuilding the ideal rep range is between 8-12 reps per set, below i have listed rep ranges for other goals.

Goals Reps per Set
Strength 2-6
Bodybuilding 8-12
Toning 15-20

Now for the actual routine, I believe that for bodybuilding and mass building the ideal split is a body part split in which a body part is worked to failure and then given a full week to regrow.

Monday (Chest/Abs)
-Flat Barbell Bench Press
-Decline dumbbell bench press
-Dumbbell fly's
-Weighted Crunches
-Cable Ab pull downs

Tuesday (Back)
-Bent over row
-Pull downs
-Hyper-extensions

Wednesday (Legs)
-Squats
-Leg extensions
-Leg curls
-Calf Raises

Thursday (Shoulders)
-Shoulder Press
-Shrugs
-Lateral Raises
-Rear deltoid raises

Friday (Arms)
-Barbell Curls
-Dips
-Concentration curls
-Triceps extensions


These tips and recommendations are all things that I have learned through personal experience and research to be a great way to put on mass and bulk up. These ideas should be combined with a diet high in protein and calories. If you are having trouble getting all the protein you need (which should be about 1-1.5grams of protein per pound of body weight) then you should invest in some protein bars and protein shakes. They are a great way to stack up the protein in a hurry for a very affordable price. I personally reccomend Optimum 100% Whey Protein- Bodybuilding.com's #1 Supplement and Protein Powder, 3 straight years!
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Beginner Diet

Diet is a word almost synonymous with calorie counting and obesity. But all a diet really is, is a plan geared toward reaching a particular goal. A calorie is simply a measurement of energy, if you eat more calories than you burn off through exercise and daily life then you will gain weight, if you burn more than you will lose weight. These are the undisputed facts of life. But what we are interested in as weightlifters are what we are losing or gaining, fat or muscle.

if a person is eating a surplus of 500 calories a day over what their body uses then in roughly 7 days that person will have gained a pound of body weight. If that person has been eating unhealthy like cake, candy, and empty calories then they will be gaining a pound of fat. But if that person has been taking part in a weight lifting regime and has been eating a large amount of protein and healthy foods then the majority of that pound will be muscle with a small amount being fat. Generally a person wants to eat about 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, and as an example a can of tuna has about 31g of protein.

Now anyone reading this wanting to lose fat is probably thinking "how is this relevant to me?" But its extremely relevant because if you lift weights correctly and eat an excess of healthy protein filled calories then you will gain mostly muscle and that muscle will burn about an extra 60 calories per day. So if you gain 10lbs of muscle, when you decide to tone up and drop some extra belly fat you will burn about an extra 600 calories per day making it far easier to drop that extra weight and you will look much better also.

Just to review...

1 pound of fat = 3500 calories

1 extra pound of muscle burns an extra 60 calories per day

more muscle means = you can eat more calories!

As you can imagine getting roughly 200 grams of protein isn't and easy job, and most of the stuff you see on store shelves barely has 1 gram! but thankfully there are ways to supplement your diet and to get more protein. The solution is protein bars and Protein shakes. These handy little weight lifter's friends allow us to get up to 40 grams of protein per serving. The problem is that at the regular department stores they can empty your pocket and nobody wants that. I have done research for hours before and I cannot find a better deal anywhere on the internet than Optimum 100% Whey Protein- Bodybuilding.com's #1 Supplement and Protein Powder, 3 straight years!
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Beginning Weight Lifting

When most people think about weight lifting, they envision a culture of steroid using freaks who spend the majority of their time lifting enormous weights over and over. This is about as far from the truth as possible. The average guy cant spend all day at the gym doing endless amounts of exercises, and even if you could the human body isn't a tank and would over-train almost instantly. I know for a fact when I first started weight lifting at the age of 14, I thought if i just worked out everyday, in no time I'd be one of those guys you see in the magazines. But in exchange for my hard work I received no gains, that's when I realized, I must have been doing something wrong.

The Human body like everything in nature responds to stimulus, in this case the stimulus is a weight being lifted to the point of exhaustion, and the response is muscle growth and adaption. This is the basic principle that all weight lifting is based on. Choosing the correct stimulus for your goal is key if you wish to receive satisfactory results. In this section I will discuss the basics of Weight Lifting, benefits, and typical reasons people begin weight lifting.

The first thing you need to know is some common terms...

Exercise: A set movement used to target muscle(s).

Barbell: A metal bar from 3 to 5 feet long with weights that are either permanently attached or can be added to increase the barbells weight, usually used for multiple join movements with both arms or legs.

Dumbbell: A short bar usually under a foot that also has permanent or temporary weight attached to the ends, usually used held by a single limb for isolation movements involving few muscles.

Rep: A single movement of raising and then lowering a weight, whichever comes first depending on the exercise to contract and then release the targeted muscle(s).

Set: A group of "reps" doing a certain exercise to exhaust the targeted muscles.

Split Routine: A weight lifting routine which splits parts of the body into different days. For example Monday-arms, Tuesday-chest, Wednesday, shoulders, etc.

Full Body Routine: All parts of the body are done every day that you work out. For example Monday-full body, Wednesday-full body, Friday-full body, etc.

Usually in the beginning of weight lifting people combine all three goals and therefore do a very basic routine such as a Full body routine this allows you to build up strength, and learn the form needed to accomplish the exercise correctly. Below I will give an example beginner routine.

This routine should be done three days a week (such as Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

Beginner - Full body routine

Legs- Squats- 4 sets of 12 reps -
Back- Cable Pulldowns- 3 sets of 12 reps-
Chest- Barbell Flat Bench Press- 3 sets of 12 reps-
Abs- Inclined Crunch- 4 sets of 15-20 reps-
Shoulders- Shoulder press- 3 sets of 12 reps-
Arms- Triceps Extension-3 sets of 10 reps-
- Bicep Curls- 3 sets of 10 reps-

Anohter well known basic principle of any good routine is progressive overload this is used to force yoru body to continue growing and adapting so that you can transform your body. Sometimes this is acheived by increasing the reps but in the above workout its doen through increasing the weight used every week.

This is a very basic workout which anyone who wants to start weight training can do. Be careful doing every single exercise and dont overdo anything, follow form correctly and results will come.