What is training?
When trying to achieve your fitness goals and getting in shape it can be difficult at first as there is so much information on the internet causing us to get confused with where to start. This page will be provide you with useful information if your just starting out on your fitness journey, but predominently explaining factors realted to muscle building, weight training and weight loss.
Nutrition first
After you have firgured out your nutrition and created some goals the next most important factor is incorporating physical activity. Resistance training also commonly known as weight training is a form of exercise intended to increase muscular strength and endurance.
Follow people you admire
When first starting out, everyone wiil be willing to give you free advice. Although you should listen to different perspectives, it is important that you only take advice from people you want to become and making your own personal judgements is crucial.
How to get abs
When I first started out I wish someone had told me in simple terms of how to get abs so in the paragraph I'm going to do just that.
In order to reveal your abs you must simply be in a calorie deficit over a sustained period of time (0.5% of total body fat per week or -500 calories per day). This simply means you need to consume fewer calories than your body needs to maintain your current body weight. This is because it is simply impossible to loose your total body fat within 1 week and if it weere true everyone would be extremely lean.
An example of a weight loss program for a 85kg male with a maintenance calories of 3000cals trying to gain muscle and lose fat over 12 weeks might look like:
| Weeks | Calories | Cardio |
|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1 & 2 | 2600 calories | 3 sessions - 10 minutes each time |
| Weeks 3 & 4 | 2400 calories | 4 sessions - 15 minutes each time |
| Weeks 5 & 6 | 2200 calories | 5 sessions - 20 minutes each time |
| Weeks 7 & 8 | 2000 calories | 5 sessions - 25 minutes each time |
| Weeks 9 & 10 | 1800 calories | 5 sessions - 30 minutes each time |
| Weeks 11 & 12 | 1600 calories | 5 sessions - 35 minutes each time |
Misconceptions with loosing bodyweight
People commonly misunderstand that by doing lots of situps will not make you loose weight on your abs or by doing tonnes of cardio exercise will help you loose fat. And although it might beneficial to incorporate cardio fitness you will be unable to loose fat if you are eating in a calorie surplus. For example, if your maintainence calories were 2000cals and your were eating 3000cals even if you were to walk for an hour on the tredmill and burn 500 carlories you would still be in a calorie surplus of 500cals (3000cals - 500cals = 2500cals).
Another big miscconception is eating to little calories, which this will cause your body to slow down your metabolic rate causing you to hold on to body fat. This is because your energy will decrease and also elevating your bodies primary stress hormone, cortisol.
Example muscle building training splits
In this table below I have displayed some training programs that you could utilise when starting out in the gym to build muscle.
| 3 Day | 4 Day | 5 Day | 6 Day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Full Body | Upper | Push | Push |
| Tuesday | Rest | Lower | Pull | Pull |
| Wednesday | Full Body | Rest | Legs | Legs |
| Thusday | Rest | Upper | Upper | Push |
| Friday | Full Body | Lower | Lower | Pull |
| Saturday | Rest | Rest | Rest | Legs |
| Sunday | Rest | Rest | Rest | Rest |
What exercises should you do
I won't go into to much detail about what exercises you should be doing on each day because there is plenty of great informative people on youtube and online. Make sure to do some research by searching these training splits and stay consistent.
Hypertrophy vs strength training
Hypertrophy refers to increasing the size of the muscle, which is done by increasing the overall volume of your workout (sets x reps). Strength training refers to increasing the ability of a muscle to produce force, which is done through lifting heavier weights (above 85% of 1 rep max).
Powerlifters who specifically train to gain strength use a measure called RPE, which is the rate of perceived exertion. RPE is used to measure the intensity of an exercise by using a score of how difficult a particular exercise feels while you're doing it. For example, using RPE 1 would be super easy, where as lifting at an RPE 10 is basically your max weight you can lift for 1 repitions.
Lightweight's vs heavyweight's
Ideally if your looking at building muscle through hypertrophy training you should be lifting moderate weights around 60% (RPE 6) for 8-15 repitions per set. If your goal is to build strength you should be lifting heavier weights around 85% (RPE 8.5) for 4-8 repitions per set.
Progressive overload
When training or going to the gym it is important to continually push yourself because your body will be forced to adapt with that new load. Progressive overload is when you gradually increase the weight, frequency, or number of repetitions in your strength training routine. For example, if you had just joined the gym in weeks 1 & 2 you were training biceps with bicep curls doing 3 sets with 12 repitions per set. However, in weeks 3 & 4 you might increase the sets pushing yourself to do 4 sets with 12 repitions per set.
Repitions, sets, and volume
In order to effectively build muscle the ideal weekly training volume is to train each muscle group between 20 - 40 sets per muscle each week. When performing exercises you should undertake 10 - 15 repitions for 3 - 4 working sets, with around 1 - 2 minutes rest in between each set. It is important to feel the muscle group working by controlling the movement and ensuring you are training with each set ending with 1-2reps of failure to maximise muscle growth.
Getting caught up in endless information
On the internet there will be hundreds of fitness influencers and personal trainers saying that there diet is better or their perfered excercise is better, when really what suits your lifestyle will give you the best results. For example, if you have bad knees maybe barbell backsquats maybe not the best option for you to grow your legs and looking at an alternative such as the machine leg press might give you better outcomes.
There's no silver bullet
Unfortunately there's no silver bullet and once you have a program in place you have to simply just put in the work. Although there is such thing as being ineffective in the gym, working hard and showing up on the days you don't feel like it are the most important days because it will strengthen your self discipline.