Increasing Training Intensity: Intermediate Principles

In an early post I spoke about the two most basic ways to increase your training intensity in the gym; increasing your resistance, and increasing the number of repetitions in your sets. Throughout your training you will encounter a number of training plateaus, which are essentially barriers to achieving your goals. In order to keep achieving results and progress in your training you need to know how to break through these plateaus, which incidentally get longer and longer the more advanced your training state. One of the most effective ways to break through these plateaus is by increasing training intensity, which can be done a number of ways.

You should by now be quite experienced with the concepts of altering your training resistance and reps, and so I won't address them directly within this article. Instead I want to talk about varying the duration of your rest between sets. The first change you can make to your workout in order to increase the intensity is to shorten your rest period by around 15%. It is quite common that training programs prescribe a 60 second break between sets. As a start, try cutting that back to just 45 seconds. You should find that the workout on the whole is considerably more intense, and more difficult to sustain the same performance levels. This is of course a natural physiological response, and your body will again adapt over time to accommodate the increased workload. It does this by increasing the muscle strength, commonly by increasing muscle size.

Once you find that your body has adapted to the shorter rest period, you can do a couple of different things. You can of course alter the resistance, the number of reps in a set, the number of sets or progress to supersets. A superset is the term given to performing to sets back to back without a rest period between them. Supersets can target the same muscle group, opposing muscle groups, or different muscle groups altogether!

Probably the most common type of superset is the one that targets the same muscle group. For example, you perform a set of barbell bicep curls followed directly by dumbbell concentration curls without a rest period. This increases the intensity twofold: firstly because of the absence of a rest period, and secondly because the bicep is already in a fatigued state from the first exercise before performing the second exercise. One of the reasons this is so popular is because it has a dramatic effect on increasing muscle size. It has been show that when a muscle has to perform work while in a fatigued state the muscle increases its size more rapidly than without this stimulus.

The next most popular is the opposing muscle group superset. For example, you perform a set of dumbbell bicep curls followed directly by a set of dumbbell triceps extensions. The intensity is increased due to the absence of a rest period, however the emphasis with this kind of superset is to promote symmetry between the muscle groups. This is exceptionally important in order to prevent chronic injuries later on. It is simply not healthy to work the 'beach muscles' such as the biceps and chest while ignoring the triceps and back muscles as you might create an asymmetry and cause a hunch back for example.

The above techniques are based on the principle of altering the rest period between your sets, and in some cases eliminating it altogether. You wouldn't superset every exercise, in the same way that you don't need to reduce the rest period between every set. The aim is to increase the intensity, which you might only need to do in the first half of your workout in order to cause increased intensity through fatigue in the later half.

Alexi has studied and worked in the health and fitness industry for over 10 years and specializes in health, lifestyle and fitness topics. Alexi has a number of websites that provide valuable information on equipment that helps you get the most out of your training sessions. One such site is Harbinger Gloves HQ. Harbinger make a great range of weight lifting gloves and you can get the low down on a variety of Harbinger gloves for men and women before you buy some.

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Five Tips About High Intensity Training

I often see people in the gym working out hard, sweating and reaching the limits of their body endurance. Is this wrong? The answer isn't that simple. High Intensity Training known as HIT or any other variation of training where you aim muscle failure can make the difference in muscle development.

Many great bodybuilders adopted such training methods and achieved to become champions. However, what many of us fail to understand is that there isn't any training method that will bring results if you keep doing it forever. The key to understand the way to build the body of your dreams is to acknowledge two important things about muscles: Firstly, that they adapt to every workout routine and secondly, they need resting or low intensity periods to recover.

High intensity training actually shocks your muscles to trigger muscle growth. If you keep training in that pace for more than eight weeks the development not only ceases, but you might end up with an injury. Here, I give you five tips so that you will get the maximum out of HIT:

1) No More than Eight Weeks
As mentioned above after about eight weeks of working out in full intensity, alter your training routine to something where you consume about 70% of your energy so that you don't leave the gym like a total rack.

2) Take a Vacation
Once or twice a year take a vacation from the gym for two weeks and clear your mind and your body from anything that involves weights, training, bodybuilding, supplements and proper nutrition. I know that many of you will be wondering what in earth, I'm talking about. You won't believe how beneficial this is for your body and your spirit. Everything in life that is being done without a break, no matter how much we love it, can become boring. You shouldn't worry that you will lose muscles. As long as you are back in the gym in two weeks, there is no harm done. Personally, I prefer to take a break from the gym for a week in the summer and one week around Christmas.

3) Single Muscle Groups
It is not always possible for many of you due to lack of time, to work out five times a week, but it has been proven that HIT works best if performed on one muscle group a day. Whenever you reach muscle failure, massive amounts of blood are concentrating around the muscle you are working on triggering its growth and giving this special pump feeling, which sometimes lasts for many hours after your training. If you divide your training in two different muscle groups, it's easy to understand that those effects described above will be reduced.

4) HIT Only when Feeling Fit
Training intensively in a certain day where you are not feeling OK will only have the opposite results than the ones you aim for. It is preferable to do a lighter workout or even stay home.

5) HIT Requires Muscle Recovery Supplements
High Intensity Training puts a lot of pressure in your muscle, the skeletal and endurance system way more than in an average person. Your body needs certain assistance in order to develop muscle.

Muscle recovery supplements like Protein Powders, BCAAs, Glutamine and Creatine are necessary.

Follow these five simple rules and you will witness yourself how effective High Intensity training can be.

Keep those muscles pumping!

Chris G Pap
Since 1993 involved in bodybuilding and fitness area.Visit the following link for more info about bodybuilding, supplementation, workout routines and nutrition.
http://www.strengthtrainingmuscle.com/

Original article

Two High Intensity Exercises That Will Boost Your Fitness Results

Virtually every fitness program, no matter how well designed it may be, eventually has to be changed or modified if we want to continue to improve. Our bodies have this amazing innate ability to detect change and immediately begin to adapt as an instinctive form of self-preservation. This naturally occurring phenomena is wonderful if we find ourselves suddenly with no food for several days... but when it comes to strength training or specific fitness goals it's known as a plateau.

Plateaus are not uncommon to fitness enthusiasts. They tend to occur after a prolonged period of diet and training where our bodies simply adapt to the routine we've been following and progress is stopped dead in its tracks. Most fitness experts agree that incorporating a varied and different approach to your work-outs is the best way to avoid plateaus altogether.

However, hitting this plateau wall can and does eventually happen to everyone that trains long-term. Maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle is the greatest investment you can make in yourself. Letting a set back or a lack of progress discourage you from continuing can and should be avoided. In this article, I'm going to show you two categories of exercises that have excellent results on your body and will help shock your system into growth again.

Sprinting

Dozens of university studies have linked a direct correlation between sprinting and the release of specific hormones within our body. Depending on the study, growth hormone, thyroid hormones, and testosterone have all been shown to have elevated levels immediately following the sprints and days later. For the average lay person, all you have to do is look at the bodies of Olympic sprinters, as compared to a long distance, marathon runner.

The tremendous intensity that comes from a 90% to 100% all out sprint sends shock waves through our bodies which in turn brings about an increase in these much needed bodybuilding hormones. It doesn't have to be relegated to just running... all out sprints on a stationary bike will produce similar results.

Squats And Dead-lifts

Squats and dead-lifts, when performed correctly, can provide a similar level of intensity that sprinting does. Without a doubt, the muscles in our lower body are huge when compared to the muscle groups of our arms or shoulders. By adding squats and dead-lifts into our routine, we use so much oxygen and energy in order to complete the desired number of sets and reps that the internal hormonal response is often overlooked.

Once again, the key component to these moves is the intensity. Going heavy is not necessary either... high intensity can also be reached by incorporating very strict form with higher reps. Either way, these muscle groups in the legs, thighs and glutes are so big that you should be exhausted when finished. Shaking, out of breath and maybe even a bit nauseous is ok according to the fitness experts that use these in their routines.

It's All About Intensity

The intensity that these exercises have on our system is the real magic behind it. As we get older, particularly after the age of 30, our bodies don't produce these hormones like they did at an earlier age. Each year those levels drop and this becomes a huge contributor as to why we age. Mixing in sprints one or two days a week, and squats or dead-lifts every 5 to 7 days is an excellent way to proceed. If your workouts have hit a plateau, try these out for 12 weeks and you'll be very happy with your results.

George C Taylor has been a fitness enthusiast for more then 25 years. He currently resides in Southeast Asia where he works as a freelance writer for internet marketers and web masters around the world.

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