How much weight? Part III

Knowing where to start is one thing, but knowing where to continue is another. There’s often confusion on whether or not to use the same weight for every set of an exercise in a workout.

The other day, a friend had asked me to spot him during his flat bench sets. After his third set, I realized that he hadn’t adjusted the weight from his first set (he put up 10 reps with ease the first two sets). Upon asking him some further questions, I had learned that his goal was to gain size but he hadn’t thought to increase the weight because he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get the 10 reps his program called for.

I had him add 2.5 lbs per side to his third set, he did 10 reps. For his final set, I had him add 5 lbs per side, he did 8 reps, with barely any of my help. Clearly he could of been doing more than the 225 lb he did in his first two sets, he just didn’t give his muscles the chance to change.

Whether it’s your goal to bench 315 lb or just tighten up your arms, you must make sure each set of every exercise is challenging. If you are moving weight with ease, it’s time to add small increments.

I tell my clients that if you are lifting a weight that is not challenging, to finish the set and add weight next set. It’s important to first finish your set as you may fatigue more through out the set than you might think during the first few reps.

Whether lifting weights or moving to a new place - no matter the situation, change = growth.

My Breakfast

Breakfast has grown to be my favorite meal of the day but I didn’t always like it. I used to eat high fructose - empty calorie crap like pop tarts, Reese's Corn Puffs (which are still delicious) and other foods that gave my body nothing but calories. Soon after eating, I’d be hungry again and be running on low energy levels. Weird…

Those days of flavored cereal and tarts are done for me and should be for you too. Now my breakfast gives me sufficient amounts of nutrients and energy that allow me to get a great start to each day.

I change my breakfast recipes every few weeks but here’s my new favorite:

One cup dry oats
1 scoop lean dessert Chocolate Coconut protein powder
1/2 cup frozen blue berries

Simply pour the oats into a bigger size bowl (to prevent a future mess), add a scoop of the lean dessert and top the oats with water. Microwave for 2 minutes and stir. Add the frozen blue berries and stir again – deliciousness in less than four minutes.
IF you are in an even bigger rush, take the same ingredients and pour them into a blender to make a breakfast shake.

Fight to the Bell

This past weekend Matt Remillard’s opponent decided he’d be the ref and call himself to the corner mid round. He had thought there was a warranted penalty and that he deserved a break with time left in the fourth round.

What he didn’t think about was that there is no rule in boxing that requires your opponent to stop if you decide to take a break in the corner. Remillard like any other champion kept fighting and went on to knock the kid out with a perfectly legal punch to the jaw.

During your next workout, make your body sustain a challenge.

When you give up and stop because you feel a burn and things get difficult, you’re setting yourself up to lose.

Embrace challenges and make yourself work beyond the bell, song, interval or whatever it is that you train to.

Please understand that if you feel dizzy, light headed, feel a pop or sharp pain you should stop immediately.

Response to an email inquiry

“I need help, like many girls. Can you maybe post something or give me advice on how to work out my legs WITHOUT gaining more muscle and make them somehow smaller but toned.”

To “tone” legs or any other body part, there is a process that must occur:

1. Build lean muscle through lifting challenging weight - you can’t build a house without its base structure
2. Lose body fat in the given area. This is accomplished through high intensity interval training with both weights and cardio
3. This step is only relevant after one & two, use a higher rep count with your exercises - while making sure the weight is challenging for the entire set

Now that there’s a basic understanding into the process of toning, it’s important to understand that genetics play a role here too. Everyone is born with a unique genetic code e.g some people have a bigger skeletal structure, some do not. When setting your goals, your goal should be to achieve your best body, not someone else’s.
Here are a few tips to “tone your legs”

1. Train with challenging weight
2. Incorporate stretching movements into your routine; bent knee deadlift, plie squat, deep squat, lunge variations etc
3. Incline cardio: Turn the incline up as you perform your HIIT cardio training, this uses a larger part of your leg muscles (especially in the back part of your body)

Keep working towards your goals and make the appropriate changes to your routine, you’ll be amazed the great things that will happen.

I appreciate this reader’s email. If there is a topic that interests you and would like to see it on my blog, email it to me at joe@carabasetraining.com

30-10's

30-10’s are a timed based interval scheme in which you perform 30 seconds of work, followed by 10 seconds of rest.

Here are some reasons why timed based intervals are great:

• Involves zero rep counting
• Allows you to make each rep count, that is lift with proper form and muscle contraction - rather than just moving the weight to hit a certain number
• Crank your heart rate: Increase heart rate = Greater Calories loss and Fat Burn.
• Maximizes your time spent: Let’s say it’s your goal is to get to California. What would be of a higher value to you, driving (>40 hrs) or flying (4-6 hrs)? I think the obvious answer is flying. So if that is your mind set with travel, wouldn’t you want get more in less time spent at the gym?

This 10 second rest requires more blood flow to your muscles, carrying more nutrients, oxygen and energy to muscles while removing wastes thus allowing the potential for greater muscle hypertrophy (muscle building)

For timed based interval soundtracks check out http://www.workoutmuse.com/

Making it Happen

This past weekend I flew out to Kentucky to attend a Boot Camp Seminar. The weekend was full of intense workouts, marketing, sales, and retention strategies as well as interactive presentations on delivering better results using resistance bands, TRX and workout muse. Needless to say there was an information overload. With so many things to do and apply, where do you start?

After a weekend full of great conversations with industry leaders, I have learned that you can’t do everything at once. I think the exact quote was, “Pick a few things and dominate them.”

This new mindset will allow me to take my business to whole another level. Think about your situation, what part of your fitness do you want to improve?

Write down all your fitness goals or anything you want to improve on and rank them in order of importance. Rather than worry about reaching each goal right away, start with the first thing on your list and don’t even think about the others until it’s accomplished.

Once you make it happen, move on to the next one.

My response to a reader’s question on “spot reduction”

“I want to lose weight around my stomach and hips because that’s where I start to gain, what’s a good way to go about doing that?”
 

To the best of my knowledge there is no scientific research that proves that spot reduction (losing weight in one particular area) is possible. This means you can do as many twists and crunches as you’d like but it will not tighten up your stomach and hip area alone.
The best way to go about reducing body fat in that area is a combination of the following factors;

• Proper diet: What you eat and drink is 90% of weight management! How are your eating habits? Email me to set-up a free nutrition consultation.

• Full body weight training routine: In this type of weight routine where you are working multiple muscle groups in one session, you are building a larger amount of muscle tissue and burning more calories

• Weight training intensity: If fat loss is your goal, you should be getting cardio from your workouts. You can accomplish this by keeping your rest periods short and using various training principals

• HIIT cardio: High intensity interval training can increase your metabolism up to 24 hours!
By combing the factors mentioned above along with my own training philosophy, I have been able to help almost every client I have ever had trim inches off their waist.

The reason why this has worked for almost all my clients and not ALL my clients is because decreasing your waist line takes a lot of hard work and commitment. Are you willing to keep pushing forward if you do not see results immediately? Are you willing to make time and sacrifices? Are you willing to consult with a professional if things are not going right or if you are unsure of what you should be doing?
If you can honestly answer “yes” to the questions above, it’s only a matter of time before changes start to happen for you.
If you cannot honestly agree to the statements - stop complaining!

Free Evaluations

Muscular Endurance

To obtain your best body it’s important that you assess your strengths and weaknesses. Too often we tend to neglect things we are not good or strong at and focus more on the areas that seem to be superior.

The following are a series of tests you can use to assess yourself. Regardless of how advanced or novice you perceive yourself at, I am willing to bet that you will learn a great deal about where your body actually is by performing these tests.

How do your results match up?

Email me your results from each test along with your specific goals and I’ll send you a personalized evaluation on your current situation as well as how to improve any weak areas moving forward. joe@carabasetraining.com