Whether you are performing cardiovascular or resistance exercise overworking your muscles is dangerous and can greatly alter your peak performance.

 

Thankfully a fitness product has been designed to help combat muscle fatigue from resistance exercise and can help you recognise the early signs of dangers ahead. Jym displays your muscle strength from various training positions and by keeping track of this data can help alert you when there is a weakness in a muscle group. This in turn helps you to appropriately rest the muscle group.

 

Jym is recommended to be used as part of every workout so you can keep a record of the progress of your muscle strength. Without adequate recovery time outside of the gym your muscle size and strength will not increase and in the case of an overtrained muscle most of the time it will lose strength. Give your muscles at least 72 hours of rest before training them again.

 

 

Some signs of muscle fatigue:

 

Decreased performance (strength, power, muscle endurance, cardiovascular endurance). This can be easily checked by using Jym at every training session. Decreased training tolerance and increased recovery requirements. Again this can be monitored with Jym Decreased motor coordination Increased technical faults

 

 

If overtraining from resistance exercise has occurred, follow one or all of the steps below to get back training as soon as possible.

 

Increase the number of recovery days between your sets Add variety to your training sessions to avoid over working a muscle group. Avoid repetitive training. Avoid performing every set of every exercise at every session with no variation. Jym can be used to avoid having an absolute failure during exercise using resistance training from the body Avoid incorrect exercise selection (overuse of certain muscles or joints)

 

 

Exercising should be fun and should not cause permanent injury if done properly. With a product like Jym you are more likely to maximise your performance and avoid over training your muscles which will benefit your overall health and wellbeing.

 

Visit www.jym.me

If you are interested in working out to become a bodybuilder you need to educate yourself about bodybuilding workouts for beginners.  In your research you will find countless articles offering a variety of opinions to help get you started.  The information can be overwhelming.  This article provides a foundation for the basics to guide beginning bodybuilders in the right direction.

If you want to maximize your success in the gym you will need to build your physique on a solid foundation of proven techniques and principles.  This will enable to you see results relatively quickly.  Once you understand the basic principles you can modify them to meet your own needs as well as tailor your training program to how your body responds to your workouts.  Here is a breakdown of what you need to know to get started:

1.  Types of bodybuilding routines – full body and split. Full body means that you work all major muscle groups in one workout session 2 or 3 times a week.  Split routine means that you work different muscle groups on different days (i.e. chest, shoulders, triceps day 1; legs abd day 2, back, biceps day 3, etc).  How do you know which one to choose?  There is no definitive answer to this question.  My recommendation would be to use a full body routine 3 days a week for the first 3 months if you’ve never lifted weights before, then switch to a split routine.  

2.  Muscle Fiber Recruitment – it will take up to 90 days of training (if you are a newbie) to maximize your body’s ability to recruit the most muscle fibers during a lift.  When you condition your body to recruit as many fibers as possible your workouts will become much more efficient and your muscles will respond accordingly with increased strength and growth.  This is how you can build a solid foundation to grow on.

3.  Establish A Routine – you must enter the gym with an established workout plan.  If you go to workout randomly doing whatever exercise you feel like doing that particular day you will limit your potential.  You cannot monitor your progress or track your results if you are not working off of an established plan.  Keep a notebook with you that has your workouts written out prior to going to the gym.

4.  Train Hard/Rest Harder – the most common mistake that I see in bodybuilding workouts for beginners is overtraining.  This means that you are not allowing your muscles adequate rest time in between workouts to repair themselves and grow.  Overtraining keeps your muscles in a constant state of breakdown.  Most people don’t understand that their muscles are not growing during the workouts, they are breaking down.  Growth comes during the rest periods.  Allow yourself at least one day in between if you are doing a full body workout; two days if doing a split routine.

5.  Switch It Up – another common mistake that beginners make is that they stick to the same exercises and same routine month after month.  Your muscles will accommodate to the stresses placed on them.  In order for your physique to change, your strength to increase, and growth to occur you must stimulate your muscles in different ways.  You should be adding increased resistance to your exercises whenever you can perform all sets and reps without failing.  Even if it’s only a few pounds.  Be sure you change your program every 6 weeks or so.  Add, change or substitute different exercises.  This will ensure that your muscles will continuously be challenged and grow.

Many new initiates suffer the mistake of becoming pros long before they join an appropriate body building program.

What happens is that, they solicit for advice from the pros, whom the understandably admire and respect, and when they get it, they don’t consider the fact they are not pros. The will copy the number of sets the pros are doing and begin with them when their bodies are not only inflexible but also weak.

When a new initiate follows the advice and recommendations of professional body builders who have been in the game for many years, they become inpatient with their body’s development and in most cases overtrain. The problem with modern body building is that most of the pros who are admired and whose muscle sizes and density would otherwise form good role models, are on steroids. Others are naturally predisposed to muscle accumulation by genetic factors that can not be attributed to their efficient body building efforts.

The kind of workout exercises that most pro get down in one day’s session, can kill an average guy or new trainee, if taken in an equal measure. This are power lifters with enough muscle power to pack sets upon sets with the barbells that normally stay put in a corner of the local gym. The sets and reps the7 use for an average workout can overtrain a beginner to levels that such a beginner can not recover from.

If on the worse side, these pros are steroid bozos, their ability to engage high intensity workouts is drastically enhanced just like their recover after overtraining is quickened. In the days when a body builder’s body has not developed to handle a workload that can go anywhere near the pro’s workload, his or her effort ought to be in coercing further muscle generation not in tearing and killing the muscle cells already accumulated.

If the new trainee is not lucky to belong with the genetic body building elite and then he or she is not using steroids and or performance enhancers, then he or she doesn’t have that exclusive luxury of totally unlimited recovery and repair ability that most pros enjoy. Beginners especially must gently and gradually train the body to make the most of each and every set and or rep they7 do. This helps consolidate gains and the beginner can start going up the ladder of body building success.

Remember, at these early stages the budding body builders need to just pop in and then out within a period of only a few minutes. The recovery process and rest durations during which additional muscles are developed and the exhausted ones get renewed in vigor, are usually the points of key emphasis. The body building stages of consolidation muscle power is usually far of and more of a tall order.

Given that body muscles are built not while training but while recovering, when infant body builders train like pros, and therefore overtrain, they ruin the whole deal. Such mistakes can never be recovered from especially if they extend for quite some duration.

Resting or minimum heart rate can be a very reliable indicator of your fitness level.

 

Resting heart rate or RHR is the number of your heart beats per minute measured when you are inactive.

 

The best time to calculate your RHR is when you are awake first thing in the morning.

 

You can place your index and middle fingers either on your carotid or on your radial arteries and count your pulse for 20″. Multiply by 3 and you are OK.

 

I won’t recommend this methodology. I prefer a heart rate monitor.

 

Relax and count your pulse for about 60″. Your RHR is the lower number on the dial. For a more reliable measurement you can use the average indication of three consecutive days.

 

 

 The RHR is dependent on various parameters. Some of the most important are:

 

 

 - Age: A 20 years old man should have a RHR reduced by 3-4 beats/min from a 50 years old man (for the same fitness level).

 

- Sex: Women have RHRs higher by 3-5 beats/min when compared with men of the same age and fitness level.

 

- Stress: If you are stressed, your RHR will be higher up to 10%.

 

- Fitness level: The lower your RHR the more fit you are. Average, healthy men in their thirties have RHRs in the range of 70-75.

 

If their RHR is 85+ beats, they will have to do something because their heart overworks.

 

Conversely if their RHR is less than 60 beats/min, they are in an excellent form!

 

 - Overtraining: Overtrained people can have their RHRs increased by 10% or even more compared to their normal measurements.

 

 You can lower your RHR with systematic aerobic activities. This will make you heart a more efficient pump with a higher stroke volume. In other words it will be capable of sending more blood around the body with each beat.

 

 Compare an athlete with a RHR of 50 beats to an unfit man, same age, with a RHR of 100 beats: The second man’s heart has to do double job for the same result!

 

 RHR is used to determine the training heart rate zones. This is an issue we will address very soon.

 

 Chris Strogilis

 

Civ. Eng. – MBA – DipM

 

 http://totalfitness-christos.blogspot.com

Ever since the days of the Charles Atlas ads featuring the skinny boy who is getting sand kicked in his face, millions of young boys everywhere wanted to take up body building to try to achieve a body that would be both feared and marveled. This leads many to pick up the sport of bodybuilding in order to try to build and develop their musculature. The fact is body building requires an intense amount of both skill and commitment in order to achieve the goals that most are looking for. Simply picking up some weights at your local gym and lifting them on a daily basis will not do the trick. Let’s examine some bodybuilding basics that everyone should know before they make this rigorous exercise a mainstay of their lifestyle.

First, it is important to start slow. Many times people who start out wanting to build bigger muscles begin lifting without regard to the effect it will have on their bodies. This can lead quickly to overtraining and being sore for days at a time if not injuring themselves in such a way to see them laid up for weeks or months. Bodybuilding and weight training can be very dangerous so start with light weights and build up to heavier ones as your muscles grow and adapt.

One of the most important things you can ever keep in mind about body building is that muscular growth occurs during rest phases, not active ones. It is important that you give your body plenty of time to rest or the growth may simply never happen. Those that are new to bodybuilding often want to overdo it by training every day and this usually leads them to the opposite effect which is their muscular growth stops altogether. Getting a full night’s sleep and taking off at least a day between heavy workouts will be your key to success in bodybuilding.

If overtraining is the first mistake that new bodybuilders make, then nutrition is a close second. In their rush to gain a new physique, many new bodybuilders rush out to buy the latest supplements on the market to help them speed up their muscular growth. The fact is, the only thing you need to be focused on at this time is eating a healthy balanced diet and getting plenty of rest. If you wish to focus on eating more calories of lean proteins such as meat, chicken, and fish, that is fine but there is no need at this stage to rush out and buy the latest supplements.

Finally, those that are new to bodybuilding should do themselves a favor and seek the help and guidance of a personal trainer at least initially. This will help to make certain that your form with particular exercises is spot on and that you don’t hurt yourself before you reach your desired results. Once you have mastered many of the exercises you will be doing while creating your perfect body, you may no longer have the need for this personal trainer but starting out with one at the beginning can greatly speed up the results.

Things That Affect Overtraining

Overtraining is an emotional, behavioral and physical condition that occurs when the volume and intensity of an individual’s exercise exceeds their recovery capacity. They cease making progress, and can even begin to lose strength and fitness. Overtraining is a common problem in weight training, but it can also be experienced by runners and other athletes. An example of overtraining would be lifting at high-intensity with the same muscle groups 2 days in a row.

Personally, I would suggest training each body part twice per week at high intensity with between 2 and 4 sets of 3 different exercises. A routine like this would increase size and strength as well as improving muscular endurance. 

   • Monday – Legs, Chest and Back



Tuesday – Arms and Shoulders

Wednesday – Legs, Chest and Back

Thursday – Arms and Shoulders

Friday – Rest

Saturday – Rest

Sunday – Rest



This workout puts high demand on the muscles, but gives them a day off in between and a large rest, or an opportunity to do cardio work, at the end of the week.

Nutrition:



Nutrition is vital in training. To build muscle, you should aim to get at least one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. If you go into the gym and lift to fail, your muscles straight away start the process of rebuilding, and if there isn’t enough protein to repair the muscle, the next time you workout and tear the muscle fibers they are going to be too strained and the result is going to be overtraining.



Genetics:



There is something that you should remember about overtraining and muscle recovery and that’s Genetics. Someone who has good genetics might be able to train with more sets and still make good gains without feeling they have overtrained, but most people don’t have these kinds of genetics.



Sleep:



Sleep deprivation can affect muscle growth and repair as your muscles grow while you sleep. If you do not get enough sleep your body cannot repair your torn muscle fibers for your next workout. I aim to try and get around 8 hours a sleep a night to allow for maximum muscle recovery and allow for me to have enough energy to hit the gym hard!



Some of the symptoms of overtraining are:



1. Fatigue

2. Overly sore joints and muscles

3. Lack of appetite

4. Insomnia

5. Recurring illness



When you lift heavy weights, your muscle fibres tear. It is while you are resting hat an increase in size and strength occurs. If you overtrain, your muscle fibers tear and your body does not have enough time to heal the muscles before you go back into the gym and tear the fibers again. 

Overtraining can cause a loss in size and strength, rather than a gain.

Things That Correct Overtraining

The best thing to avoid overtraining is to take a rest from exercise to allow your muscles to fully repair. Take a week off every couple of months, or substitute a workout day for a day of rest or active recovery.

2nd and last part



So what to do?

 



 



*choose weights that can properly tax your muscles

 

 

Repetitions should be in the region of 6-8.Increasing muscle mass needs hard effort and demands exceeding our limits!

 

Throw away the 5kg dumbbells which devour your most valuable resource and grab some decent stuff!

 

 

*Exercise at least 3 times/week with total body workouts.Leave split workouts for the bodybuilders.Try to involve the biggest muscle groups.Perform only compound,multi functional exercises.

 

 

*minimize or completely eliminate the breaks trying thus to impart an aerobic character to your workouts and achieve maximum fat loss.

 

 

* perform strenuous workouts but don’t omit to allow ample recovery time to avoid the very existent danger of overtraining!

 

I know many fitness enthusiasts that have fallen victims to overtraining.So much effort in vain! It’s a pity! With weight training, more in not better!

 

Let’s go now to fat reduction

 



 



 

Ceasar’s wife should be honest and look honest!!

 



 

Ok! We have developed an impressive musculature .Though, it is not well discernible.Why?

 

Because our fat percentage won’t permit it.Our muscles are hidden under a layer of subcutaneous fat.

 

 

You should do two things to reduce your body fat percentage:

 

 

*aerobic exercise

 

*adopt a sound nutritional plan

 

 

Nutrition is the most critical parameter for fat loss!

 

 

Aerobic activity

 



 

Properly done, an aerobic activity of medium to high intensity will help you shed a lot of fat and it will achieve this relatively quickly.

 

I know people with single digit body fat who will never involve in aerobics! But they are monsters of self-discipline!They are the exceptions!

 

 

Let’s see what our options are :

 

 -If you are really fit and your schedule is hectic, HIIT is unbeatable!

 

:-Another option is to run for 30-45′ at about the 80% of your MHR just below your anaerobc threshold.If you have the stamina to do this you will shed tons of fat!!

 

Personally, I would never underestimate the aerobic part of the fat loss equation.I consider this of vital importance!

 

 

When your workout includes both resistance training and aerobics,do ececute them with this order.

 

You will need your maximum strength and endurance for your weights session.

 

 

About nutrition





As far as it regards muscle definition ,a sound nutritional plan is considered to be an absolute must.

You may exercise 1hour/day but there are another 161 hours/week that you don’t !!

Put it simply:all your hard efforts will go in vain if you don’t make right nutrition a top priority!

You will never see your fetish abs!

Check about nutrition here





Essential parameters of nutrition







-If you aim at fat loss you will have to create a slight caloric deficit:burn more calories that those you consume

-While you are trying to achieve definition you will will have to exclude any type of junk food.

Give great emphasis to high quality protein.Every meal should contain a source of premium quality protein.

-You will have to reduce starchy carbs and fruits in favor of vegetables. Eat vegetables at your will. Include them in every meal.

-Only 15% of your caloric intake should come from fats.First choices: omega-3 and monounsaturated fats.

In conclusion







To achieve most coveted muscle definition you will need:

- a taxing strength training program

-to increase and intensify the aerobic part of your training regime

-and the most important:to follow an impeccable nutrition plan

Chris Strogilis



 

There is much advice floating around both on and offline about how to build muscle fast. As a personal trainer myself here are a few little known facts and secrets that I personally consider worth your while contemplating on your quest to build muscle mass:

I often hear that you should train each muscle group just once a week. Whilst this may be provide optimal progress for extremely hardgainers it is not true for the vast majority of people. Of course you need to avoid overtraining but in life generally you get good at things by doing them  more often not less and this is true to some extent in bodybuilding too. Muscle groups should be hit at least twice a week, no less. In fact ideally you should push your body through periods of near overtraining an then drop off into periods of undertraining. This provides times when there is a lot of stress for the body to handle and other times when the body has more time to recover and build momentum for another push. This will prevent you from hitting training plateaus.

Ensure that your training sessions don’t exceed 45 minutes. If you think that is not long enough then either your routine is too long or you don’t workout intensely enough. Focussing on intensity and quality should ensure that 45 mins is more than enough time. If your training session lasts more than this then testosterone levels fall significantly because of the increased cortisol production which actually causes the body to eat muscle tissue plus store fat. completely the opposite to what we are after.

You need to cycle your training. after a while a workout loses its ability to stimulate growth as your body has already adapted to it. You ought to alter your session before you stop making gains from the program. You need to ensure that you don’t change your training sessions to frequently either. Doing so could confuse your bodies muscles overly so and stop it working its way into a nice groove.

Big gains are unlikely to occur for you if you don’t use the correct exercises. The classic time proven muscle building exercises are the multi-joint exercises otherwise known as compound exercises. The best ones are: dead lifts, bench presses, rows, squats, pull ups, shoulder presses plus any exercise that moves your entire body through air ie, not just moving individual limbs. If you use these exercises, with a few of their variations and correct muscle building nutrition then you can’t help but stimulate muscle mass growth. With those points in mind it is time to go hit the gym and get huge.

 

Overtraining is NOT evil. Overtraining can be exactly what you need to achieve continuous and rapid results in your training.

But first, what is overtraining? Overtraining is, most simply, training too much. Your body is unable to recover from the volume or frequency of training and begins to break down. You not only lose motivation to train, you become more susceptible to injury and illness, and you may even start to go backwards in your training, getting smaller and weaker on almost a daily basis.

So how can overtraining possibly be good for you? I’ll tell you.

It all begins with the incredible adaptive power of your body. As you become more advanced in weight training, you will generally notice that you cannot make consistent gains for a long period of time on one training system. Your body quickly adapts to whatever training system you’re using and hits a plateau. To get around this, it’s usually recommended that you change your program every three to six weeks.

The question now is how to use this adaptive ability to your advantage.

It’s really quite simple. You gradually build up to a state of temporary overtraining, then, when you’re overtrained and your adaptive processes are working to their fullest capacity for recovery, you back off. This backing off results in what is called overcompensation.

Imagine you’re driving a car and climbing a hill with the gas pedal to the floor. You’re giving it everything you’ve got but you’re still going up slowly. This is similar to overtraining. When you reach the top, the going gets a lot easier. If you keep the gas pedal on the floor when you go over the top and head down, you’re going to go a lot faster very quickly. This is overcompensation and this is where the results are.

On a normal program, you work a bodypart, it becomes temporarily weaker, then becomes stronger as it overcompensates so you can lift more next time. What a normal program does on a small, local basis, this overtraining program does on a full body, systemic basis.

Sound good? We’re not done. Now we’re going to harness the power of overtraining by using what I call “Controlled Overtraining.”

The overtraining or ramping phase of this Controlled Overtraining program lasts three weeks, which is about the time it takes the body to adapt to a training program. It then backs off to a fairly easy phase for three weeks.

Notes:

- Take all sets to failure. The rep ranges are simply guidelines – if you can get more reps, do them.

- Be sure to keep your workout time to less than 45 minutes for best results. Much longer and you will break yourself down too much.

- Use a timer or stopwatch to time your rest between sets. It is critical to the success of the program to keep your rest periods consistent.

You start out doing 3 sets for your bodyparts the first week, 4 sets the second week, and 5 sets the third week. While you’re increasing the volume, you’re simultaneously decreasing the rest period. This gradually builds you up to overtraining.

For the next three weeks, you decrease the sets and reps and increase the rest periods. This allows you to recover from the overtraining and take advantage of the overcompensation that occurs when the body is still working at dealing with the hard work and then you cut the hard work. Though it may feel like you’re hardly doing anything at all, you should see some great results.

Continue this lower-volume training for at least three weeks. If, at the end of those three weeks, you are still making progress, keep going! Don’t cut yourself off from any results. This phase could last as long as 6 weeks or more. When you start to slow down, however, it’s time to ramp back up to overtraining. Keeping up this cycling of volume and intensity is a strategy that gives consistent results over long periods of time.

The first time you do the program, keep it exactly as it is. This will give you the best, practical experience as to how the program feels.

After that, you can try playing with the numbers a little following this general outline, perhaps starting at 3 minutes rest for the first week, 90 seconds the second week, and then dropping down to 30 seconds by the third week.

If you do decide to play with the numbers, be absolutely certain to reduce your training volume and increase your rest periods for the second three-week phase. If you don’t, you will continue to overtrain yourself and you will break down.

The program that I’ve outlined uses a rep system called Micro-Periodization (Periodization is the cycling of rep ranges. It is traditionally conducted over a period of months, e.g. three months high reps, three months, medium reps, three months low reps.). Dividing the week into three separate phases, such as in this program, is called Micro-Periodization. It is an extremely effective format for building strength and muscle mass.

As you can see, overtraining is not always the horrible thing it’s often made out to be. Training on the edge is where the real results are. Those who shy away from it will never make as good of progress as those who embrace it!