A part of your weight training. We don’t need them to use weight training, therefore we don’t need to worry about whether or not they help or hinder our training. It’s not going to make or break your progress, because progress can’t be made while we’re in the middle of a set.
Weight training takes a lot out of us, physically and mentally. We do the long sets, we go to the gym for hours on end, sometimes days on end, and sometimes weeks at a time. We need our weight lifting program to take out as many demands on our minds and bodies as possible. And if we can’t do a set, we don’t keep going to the gym. And if we stop going to the gym, we give up our set. This is why a lot of people give up on the idea of being successful at lifting weights. It’s not realistic to expect anyone to take on the immense mental and physical commitment that it requires.
And yes, taking some time off from weight training would be ideal for most people, but it’s not realistic to expect it. In order to take some time off from the gym, you’d need to be doing something which took away some of your mental burden (like writing a book about lifting weights) And if you couldn’t do a set, you weren’t giving your body the rest it needed. The best approach to take would be to take the longest possible breaks and then do sets, as you come back to the gym.
So we’ve established that a successful weight lifting routine isn’t realistic. It would require a lot of sacrifice from the person doing it, and it would take some time off from the gym. It was unrealistic to expect that anyone would be able to pull it off. This doesn’t mean that a weight lifting routine isn’t important. The weight lifting routine is where we establish the range of motion we want for the muscles we’re working. It establishes the amount of reps we’ll do, and it establishes a general time frame that we’ll do them in.
The weight lifting routine we like is one that includes five sets of 10 reps. This is the most effective range of motion for our muscles, and the longest sets we can fit into our workouts without doing damage to our bodies. This is also the minimum number of sets that makes the routine challenging and keeps us working hard.
We set a goal for ourselves and we work toward that goal. We stay motivated by looking to our past accomplishments and thinking of all the progress we’ve made.
To keep working towards our goals, we need to keep ourselves motivated. To do that, we need to keep the weight lifting routine, as real as possible. We need to keep challenging ourselves with increased weight and increased time in a set. We need to keep our workout session fun and exciting. Most importantly, we need to look forward to each set and each workout. When we look forward to our workout, it’ll keep us going. When we look forward to our workout, we tend to work harder.
Here’s a sample weight lifting routine that anyone can do at home:
* 10 – – – – – – – – – – * 5 – – – – – – – – – – * 2 – – – – – – – – – – * 4 – – – – – – – – – * 8 – – – – – – – – – * 4 – – – – – – – – * 8 – – – – – – – – * 8 – – – – – – – – *
Start off with a light warm-up set on your non-competing muscle group. Do your 3rd set with 85% of your max weight. Then take a break. If you were lifting with 100 lbs, you’ll just lower your weight to 80 lbs. After the break, move on to your 4th set with 75% of your max weight. On your 5th set, lower the weight to 70 lbs, and then finish off with the 8th set with 65% of your max weight.
You’ll find that if you do the sets in this manner, you’ll be lifting about 65% of your max on the first few sets, and lowering the weight on the last few sets. You’ll be going a little heavier on each set, and you’ll be getting a much longer break between sets. This has the positive side effect of getting you in shape MUCH faster, because you’ll be getting in shape eating less calories while you’re training.
It is important to stay focused when you’re weight lifting. If you find that your eating is dropping too low, increase your calorie intake, as it is better to eat too little than too much.
There’s no need to increase your calorie intake unless you are a diabetic or a dietitian says you should. However, if you are concerned about the quantity of protein you’re taking in, just go down to 70% of your max weight on your non-competing muscle group, and increase your protein on your competing muscle group accordingly.
If you feel that you’re not getting an adequate break between sets, you can try increasing your rest time between sets. Lifting more weight on your non-competing muscles means that you’re going to be taking longer breaks, and therefore need more time between sets. Just do what works best for you.
There’s absolutely no need to do 10 reps or more on the last set. If you feel that the weight isn’t challenging, that’s OK. Just reduce your reps and rest time.
As mentioned earlier, when you’re weight lifting, your goal is to add muscle mass, not just to tone muscles. You’re trying to do as much extra muscle as possible, and therefore you should take a lighter stance with regards to the number of reps and rest time between sets.
* Rest between sets: If you don’t rest between sets, you will soon hit a point where your muscles just aren’t responding any more to weight training. That’s when you know you’re there where you need to be, and you’ll begin to really feel the effects of your weight training. For muscle growth, you need to rest, period. This is the only way your muscles will fully heal, or “grow”, between workouts.
As a rule of thumb, you should try to lift between 60 and 80% of your max for all muscle groups, with the exception of your chest and triceps, which should be 60 and 70%.
* Don’t rest with the intention of pushing yourself more than 15 to 20 reps beyond your limits. This will do nothing but injure yourself.