There are a lot of subtle differences in the weightlifting world regarding rep ranges, how many sets to perform, and how long the rest time between sets should be.
A lot of this depends on whether your main goal is increasing strength, gaining muscle mass, or getting leaner.
These are the best rep ranges for weightlifting and endurance according to science.
Not everyone looks forward to performing cardio workouts, as they are not always the most exciting thing to do. That’s why I created the following 10-minute HIIT jump rope interval training to spice things up.
Yet, good cardiovascular endurance is necessary for a long, healthy life. It will also help you feel better and perform better in your daily life.
However, cardiovascular training is not limited to running, walking, or biking for an endless amount of hours. There are other workouts we can use to achieve the same results.
Before we get into the argument between isometric vs isotonic contraction to figure out which one is better, let us take a look at the different types of muscle contractions.
They both sound very much alike, but there are a couple of key differences between these two forms of muscle contraction.
Developing your postural muscles is of vital importance to prevent injuries. Even more so in modern times, because we often bend over and have poor posture due to looking at our cell phones, and sitting in front of our computers all day.
That’s why you should add barbell rows to your workouts to strengthen your postural muscles and correct poor posture.
How to build a home gym is a question that often comes up during the COVID-19 times and the frequently associated lockdowns.
While a bodyweight workout can also be performed at home without any equipment, bodyweight training is rather limited and not ideal for strength and mass gains.
That’s not to say that you can’t get fitter and more toned with a no-equipment workout, of course.
Few weightlifting exercises develop the pectoral muscles as much and effectively as the bench press does.
The bench press, also called the chest press, is one of the most effective and well-known exercises to develop the chest muscles. Various grips can be used when bench pressing to target different parts of the chest.
A lot of weight can be moved with the chest press because it’s a compound exercise. This has a lot of benefits for building strength and muscle mass.
However, since large amounts of weight can be moved, it’s important to lift with proper technique to prevent injuries.
Training at home is becoming increasingly popular.
Today, we’ll be talking about dumbbells because they are a versatile training tool that can easily be bought, stored, and used at home to get stronger, build muscle mass, or just overall get fitter.
With this 5-exercise dumbbell workout, it’s possible to perform training without having the inconvenience of having to move to a gym.
Resistance bands are elastic bands that, as the name suggests, add resistance to an exercise.
This added resistance makes you work harder, thus helping you grow stronger. Resistance bands can be used as a way to incorporate light strength training into your workout routines.
I like to use resistance bands when I’m performing high-intensity interval training workouts. Because it is way more challenging and taxing on my body.
A resistance band is so small and light, which means you can carry it with you everywhere. There’s a large variety of exercises that can be performed with it. This is one of the many advantages, which we will discuss down below.
It is possible to get in shape without having to lift heavy weights in the gym every day. A lot of people get burned out and spent from going to the gym day in day out, doing the same routine every day and often, for years. This is why I advocate switching up your training routine sometimes.
Working out at home, performing a hard full-body circuit training workout, is both challenging and fun. The reasons? Being able to fit 25 minutes of circuit training into someone’s schedule can easily be done. If your goal is to get in shape, whether it is for the summer or just to be more fit overall, then it means this workout might be suited for you.
Research and my own experience have shown that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) works great and is quite possibly the best for fat loss. This means that a short but intense workout is better at burning calories and, thus, losing fat rather than spending countless hours doing low-intensity cardio workouts for fat loss. Like, for example, running or walking for an hour.
This 25-minute intermediate circuit training workout also has the added benefit of increasing your cardiovascular health and efficiency.
This means that we can use this intermediate circuit training HIIT workout to transform our bodies in only a small amount of time for the better. In turn, we feel better, look better, and get more fit.
Who said every workout needs to last for hours to be effective?
The possibility to easily alter the program from beginner to intermediate as you get more advanced as a trainee is also an added advantage that a lot of people will appreciate out of convenience. Just changing a couple of exercises, reducing rest time, and/or increasing the intensity is already enough to make this program much harder.
This strength training program is designed specifically for intermediate lifters.
I would recommend starting this program when linear progression on this strength training program for beginners or any strength training program that’s geared towards beginners is no longer possible.
Not being a novice lifter anymore means that it’s no longer possible to add weight to every workout, even after you tried to deload to break through this strength plateau. Thus, you must switch to a more advanced strength training program with more advanced programming.
This will eventually happen to all of us if we lift long and heavy enough. With this intermediate strength training program, you will still be performing full-body workouts. It will however teach you valuable and more complex skills like programming, deloading, non-linear progression, and most importantly, varying training intensity to recover adequately. These skills are all vital for making progress as an intermediate lifter.
The biggest difference in this intermediate strength training program compared to my beginner strength training program is the non-linear form of periodization. This means that the amount of sets, reps, and weight being added is not constant and will vary from workout to workout. Instead of adding weight to the bar every workout to get stronger, we’ll try to hit a new 5-rep max each Friday. Our volume days on Mondays and recovery days on Wednesdays are calculated based on our hopefully new weekly 5 rep max.