More Gains in Less Time: 5 Pro Tips

Building muscle and strength is closely tied to work output per unit of time – the more work you do in a week/month/year, the better results you’ll get. So, let’s review some proven time management and productivity strategies and apply them to weight training. Here are five methods, along with practical suggestions about how to apply them to your training routine. 1 – You Can’t Have Everything on the Menu Whenever I’m asked why I never use a certain exercise or training method, it’s rarely because that exercise or method doesn’t have value. Instead, it’s because I only have so much time and energy, so I’ve got to pick my battles. Pro Tip Although it’s not possible to utilize all beneficial methods simultaneously, you can incorporate a lot more of them by performing them sequentially. Here are a few quick examples: Let’s say you train legs twice per week and you’ve identified 16 exercises that work really well for you. If you wanted to run all 16 exercises within a weekly split, you’d need to do 8 exercises per session. Obviously, this isn’t practical. The solution is to run exercises 1-8 during one 6-week training block, followed by exercises 9-16 on the second 6-week cycle. Although it might seem like you’ll lose ground on an exercise that you haven’t done for 6 weeks, the exercise-specific strength you gain on one cycle will typically be enough to maintain or even improve your strength on the exercises that were put on the back burner. Rather than trying to improve strength and muscle mass simultaneously (within the same training cycle), train these adaptations sequentially, again using 6-week cycles: For 6 weeks use sets of between 6-12 reps, followed by a 6-week cycle where you train in the 3-5 rep bracket. This way, the muscle you gain on the first cycle will support and potentiate greater strength when you return to low-rep sets. Rather than trying to build muscle and lose body fat simultaneously – a physiological stunt that tends to work only for fat beginners taking PEDs – focus on these contradictory goals sequentially. First, you’ll do a “building” cycle where you slowly gain weight (mostly muscle) by lifting hard and elevating your calories. Later, you slowly lose body weight (mostly fat) by lifting hard and reducing your calories. Rinse and repeat. 2 – Do the Important Stuff First If you run your own business and today’s agenda includes a potentially lucrative new client consult and refilling the stapler, you’d tackle that first item when your energy is highest. The stapler could be refilled any time, regardless of your energy levels. Similarly, if your top training goal is bigger arms, you’d ideally train biceps and triceps first in the week or first in a workout. You might even train them by themselves as a separate workout. Additionally, you might consider putting your best muscle groups on maintenance mode by using the minimum amount of training volume required to maintain, but not advance, their current development. Pro Tip Do your most injury-prone exercises last in the workout, rather than first. Here’s why: When you do your most “iffy” exercises last, you’ll have less energy, and therefore you’re less likely to harm yourself further by doing them. Second, your most bitchy joints are usually related to your most well-developed body parts. Let’s say that you’ve got great pecs, but also painful shoulders, from benching. Given that your pecs are now your best-developed muscle, you can afford to back-burner that exercise, allowing your shoulders to heal up. 3 – Batching: Don’t Wash Just One Pair of Socks Batching is a very effective productivity tool that involves completing all similar tasks in a single block of time rather than performing different types of tasks in the same sitting. As Tim Ferris explains, “You wouldn’t do your laundry every time you have a new pair of dirty socks… you wait for a certain critical mass of dirty laundry to accumulate and then you do your laundry.” This is because the time and labor required to do a full load of laundry is the same as you’d need to wash a single pair of socks. Also, switching back and forth between similar tasks requires more time and focus than focusing on a single task. As you consider the best type of training split, think in terms of batching. Although I explained my love of whole-body training splits in The Single Most Effective Workout Split, I can’t dismiss one powerful benefit of bro splits, upper-lower splits, and push-pull-legs splits: they allow you to focus on related tasks during each workout. This type of focus allows you to minimize warm-up time since the warm-up sets you do for your first exercise tends to keep you warm for later exercises as well. You’re also likely to work with greater intensity since you won’t need to “save yourself’ for other body parts later in the workout. Pro Tip Busy trainers often use a related tactic known as “training in the margins.” Rather than completing traditional 60-90 minute
Origin: More Gains in Less Time: 5 Pro Tips

Tip: 6 Quick Tips for Complete Pec Development

Building a Complete Chest I naturally had great shoulder strength early on, and that translated over into virtually all of my pressing (flat, incline, overhead, etc). The drawback? Because I was delt-dominant, my chest lagged behind. There’s always going to be some muscle groups that will be subpar compared to others, no matter how much specialization you do for them. But I do believe in giving everything the ol’ college try. So let’s talk about some principles you should be adding to go from being bird-chested to pectacular. (Totally cheesy, but I’m rolling with it.) 1. Train chest early in the week or whenever you’re fresh. This shouldn’t be an issue with most gym bros. Monday is International Chest Day, after all. 2. Get the chest out in front. With all pressing and flye movements you need to set the scapula deep into retraction and depression. Think about getting the shoulders down into your back pockets, and keeping the sternum high. When you look at this from the side, you’ll see that the pecs get into a deeper stretch, which will increase their activation, and you’ll reduce the involvement of the anterior delts. A little “hack” here is to use a rolled up towel in the middle of your back to facilitate a deeper setting of retraction. The towel is a pretty strong reminder to hold it there as well. 3. Push to the centerline of the body. This can be an internal cue to help establish better mind-muscle connection for the pecs as well. In all of your pressing, think about moving the arms to the centerline of the body to maximize pec activation and shortening. For a lot of guys who press in order to “train the movement” for strength, they simply press straight up. But if you want to get the pecs to contract as hard as possible during a press – and you do for hypertrophy purposes – then think about driving the hands towards the center of your torso. The external cue for this, if you’re pressing with a bar, is to think about bending the bar in half so that it would end up in a “U” shape. Just make sure you hold that deep scapula retraction and depression to bias the pecs in the pressing. Don’t let the shoulders roll forward at any time. 4. Know that leanness matters. There’s no “inner pecs” really. That’d be the sternal area of the pecs. And here’s the real reason why a lot of guys think they need more mass in there: they carry too much body fat to see the separation between the pec muscles. If you want that bad-ass pectoral “split” that runs down the middle, then don’t be fat. 5. Understand arm angles for complete pec development. The pecs have three different areas: the clavicular pec or upper chest where the fibers are attached to the clavicle; the sternal or middle portion of the pecs that attach to the sternum; the abdominal head of the pectorals which originates from the external oblique, often called the lower chest. If you want to bias a certain area of the pecs, you need to be aware of the angle of the humerus to the pecs themselves. This, and not the angle of the bench, will dictate what area of the pecs is the most activated and doing the brunt of the work. Sternal Pecs You hit this area more when the arms drive from the side of the body to the centerline of the torso. Upper Pecs You hit this area more when the arms drive at a 45-degree angle upwards, towards the centerline, in relation to the torso. Lower Pecs You hit this area more when the arms drive towards the hips and the centerline in relation to the torso. Prioritize movements based on what area of the pecs you’re trying to bias over the others. 6. Stress the pecs at different lengths. Not all movements stress the pecs equally in the range of motion. An incline press or flat press stresses the pecs maximally at the mid-point in the range of motion. A dumbbell flye places the greatest amount of torque on them in the bottom position where they’re maximally lengthened. And a pec-deck or cable crossover tends to stress them more in the fully shortened position. It’s a good idea to stress the pecs through all of these different ranges so that no fiber is left behind. So how would this look in program design? Day 1 Hit the sternal pec area: Do the dumbbell bench press for two drop sets of 8/8/8. Take the first 8 reps to failure Reduce the weight Take another 8 reps to failure Reduce the weight Take another 8 reps to failure Repeat one more time Hit the upper and lower pecs: Superset the low-to-high cable crossover with dips. Do 8-10 reps on cable crossovers to failure Do as many reps as you can on dips with bodyweight Repeat one more time Day 2 Hit the upper pecs: Use an incline dumbbell press, barbell press, or Hammer Strength incline press (shown in video). Do 10-12 reps to failure Rest 60 seconds Then try to get half the number of reps you achieved on the first set Rest 3 minutes Repeat one more time (technically this ends up being 4 total sets) Hit the sternal and lower-pecs:
Origin: Tip: 6 Quick Tips for Complete Pec Development

The Squat: 10 Damn Good Tips

The Question What’s your best squat tip? Bronwen Blunt – Nutrition and Strength Coach Do heavy squat stand-ups. Warm up to about 90% of your max but don’t squat this weight. Unrack it and hold it for 10 seconds then put it back down. Continue to add 5-10% for each set and up to 20% over your 1RM. Be conservative if it’s your first time trying this. This is a way to overload your squats, which will allow your body to recognize and adapt to heavier weights beyond your current capabilities. It stimulates your nervous system and makes you feel more comfortable with heavy weight on your back. Once you become more comfortable with these overloads, your current 1RM is going to feel a lot less taxing. Pay attention to your setup to maintain stability during the movement. Proper breathing and bracing is extremely important to avoid injury. Most people neglect the importance of proper breathing while unracking the bar. It’s a problem that can get you out of position and make or break your squat. – Bronwen Blunt Jake Tuura – Strength and Conditioning Coach Jump first, then squat. For years we’ve known about the benefits of something called “post-activation potentiation.” Get warmed up, then do a heavy, low-volume squat or deadlift. Afterward, do a jump or sprint. What happens? Explosive jumping and sprinting performance increases after the heavy lift. Put another way, loading muscles with high resistance acutely improves explosive muscle action. Heavy helps explosive. But we never look at it the other way. Will explosive help heavy? Research by Masamoto et al. tested this out. They tested the 1RM of several athletes: sometimes they did tuck jumps and drop jumps first; other times they just performed their usual warm-ups first. The result? When they jumped before squatting heavy, they lifted more weight. Next time you’re getting ready for a heavy squat workout, do a few jumps before training. Not only will it develop explosive ability, but it can significantly add poundage to your squat. Joel Seedman, PhD – Strength and Performance Expert Do eccentric isometrics – lower slowly and pause at the bottom. Visually, the squat pattern is simple. However, neuromuscularly and biomechanically it’s actually very complex. It requires a number of precisely executed components to lock the movement in. Some of these include: Set the hips back without bending over. Spread the knees apart but not excessively. Keep a neutral spine while maintaining a very slight natural curvature of the back. Squat somewhere between 90 degrees and parallel (don’t collapse or go ATG). Pull yourself into the bottom position rather than allowing gravity to push you down. Brace the core and tense your abs. Keep the chest out without hyperextending the back. Screw the feet into the floor by pushing slightly more to the outside of the feet. Keep the feet relatively straight and aligned with the each other. Pull the bar into your back by activating your lats. Keep the head neutral (don’t look up but don’t let the head drop). Maintain maximal full body tension each and every rep. Move in a perfectly vertical fashion without shifting horizontally. Load each leg as symmetrically as possible without favoring one side. And this list doesn’t cover everything. So how the heck do you actually learn to squat without going through an exhaustive myriad of endless cues? The answer lies in performing eccentric isometrics. Now I’m not talking about simply collapsing down into the bottom of a squat, then pausing for a few seconds while you hang out on your tendons and ligaments. That’s a bastardized version of an eccentric isometric squat, and it won’t do anything to improve your squat mechanics… not to mention strength or muscular development. Instead, squat with painstaking attention to sensory signals and proprioceptive feedback using Jedi-like focus and intensity. Lower slowly under control, stay tight, then pause in the naturally stretched position while attending to as much somatosensory feedback as possible. Why does it work? Your own body can provide all of the necessary feedback, coaching, and cuing you need. You simply have to learn how to listen to the sensory feedback coming from your proprioceptive mechanisms and you’ll immediately begin to use the “sense of feel” to make subtle adjustments and fine-tune your movement. The best way to do this is through properly executed eccentric isometrics. This also means learning to sense where the natural stopping point and optimal range of motion is, which happens to be somewhere between 90 degrees and parallel. And just in case you were wondering, no, your body is not an exception to the rule. A proper squat including optimal range of motion and ideal joint angles will look almost identical from human to human if it’s performed correctly, regardless of individual anthropometrics. – Joel Seedman, PhD Lee Boyce – Strength Coach and Performance Expert There are two that I recommend. 1 – Squat the bar
Origin: The Squat: 10 Damn Good Tips

5 Self-Improvement Tips for Lifters

The Question How can T Nation readers improve their lifestyles to become even more awesome than they already are? Give them something to try for the next week. David Otey – Strength and Conditioning Specialist Shift your bedtime forward by an hour. Different hours of the day are more productive than others. A one-hour shift in your day can give you a more productive hour that normally would’ve been squandered watching TV, eating unwanted snacks, or trolling the internet. So try this: Move up your bedtime by 60 minutes, then wake up 60 minutes earlier. For example, if you usually go to bed at 10:30 PM and wake up at 6:00 AM, try going to bed at 9:30 PM and waking up at 5:00 AM. Here’s an example of how to use that time: Prepare healthy food for the day. Get to the gym before the rush. Get your ab work done if you don’t already do it. Add in that cardio work you’ve been putting off. Getting one hour back in your day means you’ll be getting 7 hours back over the course of the week. It’s a shift from wasting time to making time. – David Otey Dan John – Strength Coach and Performance Expert Seek the middle ground. Create a routine. Get organized. Seek the Middle Ground I used to work with a guy, Phil, who did something interesting. During Lent, he gave up his health. He was one of those guys who combined yoga with meditative movements from every corner of the world, drank cocktails made of frog bile and various magic herbs and oils, and spent lots of time on his little rug balancing rocks. But, every spring, he stopped all of it. He ate doughnuts, drank coffee, and smoked cigarettes. He stopped doing everything healthy. When Easter came around, he told me he couldn’t wait to get back to his ascetic lifestyle. It never made sense to me. But, like the Atkins Diet, spending a few weeks emphasizing one thing after years of doing the opposite seems to help. So, on some level, I understand it. The only issue is that it goes against the thousands of years of Western tradition. Achilles’ search for “Arete,” striving for virtue that will last well beyond your lifetime, is based on understanding that “somewhere in the middle” of the extremes is the road we seek. Many people I work with are actually just like Phil. They just live on another extreme. They focus on a thousand things at once, answer every ping from the phone, scroll through social media for hours, try every diet and supplement idea all at once and leave everything in life unfinished, cluttered, and messy. And that brings us to the next point. Get Organized I have a new piece of advice for personal trainers working with new clients trying to lose fat: Walk with him or her out to the parking lot and look in the backseat of their car. Nearly universally, the backseat is a mess. Fast food bags, clothes, crap, and God knows what cover most of the seating area. If the backseat is cluttered, the car is cluttered, and this person’s life is cluttered. And the car smells of old McDonald’s French fries. You know that smell. And, yes, this might sound simplistic but the secret to fat loss is cleaning the backseat of that car. Stick with me here. The mind will struggle to focus on something as difficult as fat loss if everything is a mess. Significant fat loss is one of the MOST difficult things you can do without surgery, and a chaotic environment will make it even harder. Set a Routine Establish a bedtime. Two hours before, set the coffee maker (or whatever) for half an hour before your alarm clock. Take your supplements and medications. I take fish oil, vitamin D, and magnesium. Make your “to do” list for the following day. If you can eliminate one or two items (fill out a form, send an email, etc.) do it. Then if you’re a messy car person, here’s what to do every day for the next week: Day 1:Clean and declutter the backseat of the car. Day 2:Clean and declutter the glove box, the little wells in the driver and passenger seats, and the general front area of the car. Day 3:Open the trunk, if you dare, and clean it up. Put away all the stuff you should have put away years ago. Day 4:Clean and declutter your bathroom. Day 5:Declutter your clothes. Donate things you don’t wear. Day 6:Clean and declutter your fridge. Day 7:Open your computer and reorganize your folders. Put things where they belong. Add new folders and clean up the mess. Every minute decluttering seems to clear the mind more and more. As I type this, I noticed that my desktop needs a quick sweep; thirty seconds later, my mind is clearer and more laser focused. To quote the greatest philosopher of our times, Barney Stinson: “Challenge accepted.” – Dan John Chris Albert – Trainer, Gym Founder, Marine Corps Vet Take gratitude to the extreme for one week. We hear about people keeping gratitude journals these days. In them they write down three things that they’re grateful for every morning. The idea there is that, if you reflect on gratitude, you’ll have a more positive mindset and it will carry
Origin: 5 Self-Improvement Tips for Lifters