All posts for the month February, 2012

Cardio Before or After a Workout?

beginner strength training cardioThere’s a lot of debate out there right now about whether you should do your cardiovascular exercises before or after your beginner strength training routine. To be fair, there are a lot of valid arguments on each side, so I’m only going to offer my opinion on the matter.

Cardio Before Your Workout

The people who say to do cardio before a workout usually state that it’s an excellent way to get your circulation going before you get into the heavy lifting. They usually recommend light cardio before you start lifting weights, but I don’t think it’s the right approach.

In my opinion, a good stretching routine – which you should ALWAYS do – will do the job of getting your circulation up and running and really get the blood flowing for your workout.

Cardio After the Workout

When it comes to me, I have to say that I’m with the people who say to do the cardio after your workout. The reason is simple. Intense cardio activity will really drain your strength, and you are going to need that to get the most out of your strength routine.

If you get into a full aerobic workout before the strength training, your muscles will already be fatigued by the time you hit the weights, and you’ll work out less and with fewer reps. The idea is that cardio has more of an impact on strength training than strength training has on cardio.

The Best Time to Do Cardio

Ideally, you should actually do your cardio at a completely different time of day. If you have the schedule for it, you can even push it over to a different day completely. This gives you the highest possible energy levels for your beginner strength training.

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by Andrew on February 9, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in beginner strength training, bodyweight, Mental Focus
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Posted by Andrew on February 9, 2012

https://bodyweightcommando.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/cardio-before-or-after-a-workout/

Beginner Strength Training Tips- Are Complex Exercises Good for Muscle Gain?

beginner strength training complex exercisesIn a word, yes. Complex exercises are very good for your workout routine, although many beginners are tempted to cut them out completely until they learn the ropes a little better. Unfortunately, if you train your body to stay away from those, you’re probably going to end up avoiding them for the rest of your life.

Get the difficult exercises in early and they’ll be much easier once your beginner strength training is becoming more advanced.

Multi-Joint and Single-Joint Exercises

Most exercises are classified into two categories: multi-joint and single-joint exercises. For a single joint exercise, you could look at the bicep curl as a prime example. Only your elbow joints are moving for this.

Multi-joint exercises are the bench press, dead lift, and squats, among others. In these you are using two or more joints to complete the full range of motion. For example, the bench press uses your elbows and your shoulders.

Which Ones Are Better?

There’s no single exercise that is better than any other, so you should focus your beginner strength training on utilizing a combination of single and multi-joint exercises to hit the most muscle groups. The multi’s really get in and hit complex muscle systems that would otherwise be left out of the loop in a workout routine.

However, single-joint exercises are great for hitting those main muscles like your biceps and shoulders. If you’re looking for muscle gain, you have to be sure to include all of these so that your body grows symmetrically as you train.

Squats are great exercises for a full body workout because they use both the lower body, for the lifting motion, and the upper body, to keep everything stable. You should try to use these as much as possible in your beginner strength training routine.

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by Andrew on February 8, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Andrew on February 8, 2012

https://bodyweightcommando.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/beginner-strength-training-tips-are-complex-exercises-good-for-muscle-gain/

Beginner Strength Training Tips- When To Eat For Maximum Muscle Gain

beginner strength training when to eatA lot of beginners easily get confused about when they should eat. There are people who say that having 6 meals spread out through the day is best, but there are actually two specific times when you should be sure to get food into your body for beginner strength training.

Eating Right When You Wake Up

The most important time to eat is right after you wake up in the morning. If you’re planning on training hard, you need to have enough fuel to get through the workout. If you don’t get that precious fuel early in the day you’re going to be out of energy before your training routine has finished.

So what should your breakfast look like? Most of it should be carbohydrates. The general mandate for high energy levels throughout the day is carbs in the morning, protein at night.

That being said, you should include at least some protein as well, but don’t make it your main macronutrient. If you can get some low fat yoghurt or some cereal with milk you’ll be able to get a good start. Go for plain, un-sugared cereal like regular granola or oats though, because that will be healthier.

Eating Right After Training

Just as it’s important to eat in the morning, it’s also vital that you eat immediately after your workout. After a hard beginner strength training routine, your cells are going to be more accepting to nutrients that will replenish all that energy that was lost in the workout.

The best way to do this is to have a pre mixed shake or smoothy that has plenty of protein and carbohydrates. While this is ideal for the minutes immediately following the workout, you should also aim for a full meal within the next hour and a half to give you some complete protein and complex carbs.

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by Andrew on February 7, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in beginner strength training, bodyweight, Food and Nutrition, Mental Focus
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Posted by Andrew on February 7, 2012

https://bodyweightcommando.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/beginner-strength-training-tips-when-to-eat-for-maximum-muscle-gain/

How to Get Started With a New Workout Routine

beginner strength training runningThe first time you pick up a dumbbell, you might lose a little faith in your ability to pack on those muscles. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that hard as long as you know how to get started with your beginner strength training. It can be a little difficult to learn all the proper techniques, especially since each type of exercise comes with its own oddities and unique patterns.

Of course, don’t take the words slightly evolved to mean nuclear physics. You shouldn’t shy away from starting a new workout routine just because you don’t think you can get the technique down. It’s all about educating yourself before you begin. The easiest way to learn your individual techniques for each workout is by going online, of course. Here at ripped workouts we don’t have all the specific training guides, but you can probably get a lot of help over at bodybuilding.com.

How Difficult Should a Workout Routine Be?

The difficulty should ramp up gradually as you get used to the repetitive motions. For starters, you can always get going with the basic bench press or bicep curl. Use low amounts of weight at the start so that you don’t injure yourself before you get all the right techniques down. Remember that if you’re doing it right it shouldn’t hurt or feel strange.

As you get used to those basic workout techniques, you can start to add extra weight and go for more reps. Always listen to your body, because that is going to be the main indicator that you are going too far.

Once you get into the gym, every machine has a set of simple picture instructions that you should be able to follow without any difficulty.

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by Andrew on February 6, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Andrew on February 6, 2012

https://bodyweightcommando.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/how-to-get-started-with-a-new-workout-routine/

Beginner Strength Training Tips- Keep Your Reps Low

beginner strength training repsAs we all know, there’s a very strict science behind beginner strength training, and strength training in general. There are actually people who study this and put definite figures on what works best for optimum results and the best muscle gain.

When it comes to reps, we are lucky to have some pretty good numbers for how many you should do. If you’re looking to gain muscle mass, the best range for number of reps is somewhere between eight and twenty.

The Science Behind How Many Reps to Do

Basically, when you’re looking for optimum results from your strength training routine, you should lift a weight that’s about 60% up to 80% of the weight of what you’d be able to lift for only one rep. To put that into an example, let’s say you can curl 60 lbs one time without being able to pull off a second rep.

60% of 60 lbs is 36 lbs. That means that you should go for 15 or 20 reps at 36 lbs for the most efficient muscle gain.

The idea is that when you are lifting at 80% of that one rep weight, you should do between eight and ten reps. If you are lifting at 60%, you should go for fifteen or twenty. Generally, somewhere around 12 reps is going to be the best choice, but it all depends on what you feel comfortable with and what your body can handle.

Why Shouldn’t You Do More Reps?

Basically, going for more reps usually means that you’re not lifting enough weight. If you can do 25 reps with the weight that you’re using, it’s probably less than 60% of what your one rep weight would be. Boost up the weight and go for fewer reps.

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by Andrew on February 6, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Andrew on February 6, 2012

https://bodyweightcommando.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/beginner-strength-training-tips-keep-your-reps-low/