hypertrophy – Page 3 – Never Give Up PT

Hannibal Lecter

Because I don’t know anyone’s specific goals in the gym I don’t randomly start telling them what to do. Even as a PT in the gym where I train and I suspect poor form or an alternative exercise might be useful I don’t approach a gym member and start telling them what to do.

If I get into conversation with somebody and we talk about training then I might offer advice if they want it. But otherwise I don’t intrude on their workout. Perhaps that’s bad practice for a PT who runs his business by people joining him for PT. My first day as a PT at Pure Gym I remember being told to go around and correct people’s form to get business. That lasted 5 minutes. I’m not a salesman. And anybody who trains in such gyms will probably know what I mean. You’re on the tready, earphones in trying to get a PB and Todd (that’s what his name badge says) tells you to go incline to work your quads. Todd, who needs to move around in the shower to get wet, can do one. When you’ve achieved your PB, go up to him and ask him what the names of the quadriceps are called. See if he knows.

Today, I didn’t have Todd approach me. He wasn’t even a PT. He was an old school weight lifter of about 70 years old. He had obviously lifted for a number of years but his body fat percentage meant that I couldn’t see his hard work. That’s fine. That’s what he does. He does what he does and I do what I do. So why did he want to disrupt my workout?

I had just finished a dumbbell press and he asked me how many reps I had just done.

“Ten” I replied. He laughed and told me that I should do double that amount. I laughed back and explained that I am currently staying in a specific weight and rep range for a few weeks. He then proceeded to lift something very heavy for a few half reps, barking and seething with each one.

His shoulders, wrists, knees and elbows were heavily strapped and he had a very tight lifting belt on. Had he been wheeled in with a muzzle he would’ve reminded me of Hannibal Lecter.

In the hour and half that I trained he hobbled over to at least ten different people and tried to instruct on their form, give advice or make quips on their previous set. Yet, without meaning any offence, Hannibal was pretty crocked. The straps give me the impression that there’s joint issues and wearing a belt during lat raises tells me his lower back must be weak and in pain. He might have lifted for many years and I hope he enjoys his workouts, but he didn’t inspire me to follow in his footsteps.

If I’m strapped up in 20 years time then I’ve not been training correctly for the past 20 years. But the old school training was a ‘lift heavy or go home’ sort of attitude. Rep ranges, splits, time under tension and nutrition isn’t really something associated with old school training.

I hadn’t seen Hannibal before. Perhaps his gym had closed, which isn’t unusual these days. The spit and sawdust gyms are being priced out by cheaper national gyms offering not just a gym, but swimming pools, fitness classes and in some cases squash courts, saunas and steam rooms. And the past two years has seen lots of small businesses suffer. The old school trainers are slowly making their way into the mainstream gyms.

Todd approaches people because he is trying to earn a living and build a career. Hannibal is doing it because he thinks he knows more than you from talking to some bodybuilder in 1970. I’m sure there will be a Todd or a Hannibal in your gym. You might have spotted them already. Todd will give up eventually and as for Hannibal, just throw him some fava beans and a nice Chianti and he’ll be on his way.

The Leg Press

If I were asked (which I am almost daily) what exercises are best for reaching a particular fitness goal my answer almost always involves using free weights. Free weights enables us to move in a non linea way which not only helps in avoiding joint pain/injuries but works the target muscles much more efficiently. Simply put, your muscles need to use more energy when working with free weights.

But that should not mean abandoning the resistance machines altogether. With a well constructed training programme they are still a very useful component in reaching fitness goals.

And one of the most useful of them all, in my opinion, is the leg press. In this article I will attempt to state my case for the leg press machine!

The leg press has one major advantage over the standard squat and that is foot position. Indeed, we can place a bar on the back or on the front side of the shoulders and we can can alter our foot position slightly during squats, but we can’t emphasize these positions quite as easily as with the leg press.

If you are uncomfortable with performing squats then I would suggest keeping them to body weight only or using lighter kettlebells or dumbbells. Squats, after all, are fantastic exercises. But if you want to either add weight or isolate different muscle groups in your legs then the leg press will allow you to do this with confidence.

Just like your arms, shoulders, chest and back your legs need to be worked not only by using compounds but with a variety of isolations. Below is an image to help you understand how your foot positions can help target different muscles in your legs… including your glutes!

Here’s another couple of pointers for performing the leg press…

* To grow Spartan legs you will still need to perform squats and deadlifts with heavy weights. Just like growing every other body part, skipping the free weight compounds for the easier adaptions won’t get the muscle growing for myofibril hypertrophy.

* People often use the leg press because they are suffering from back pain and therefore leave out the squats. But the leg press can cause back issues too if you lower the sled too low with very heavy weights as this can cause your glutes and lower back to lift from the seat, putting your lumbar disks at risk of injury.

* Never lock your knees. Not only will it take the tension from your target muscle but it will put the pressure onto your knees.

* And here is a very contentious one that might have the purists grumbling! But I see no issue with placing your hands on your knees at the lowest point of the sled. Why? Just like when you use a spotter to help you through a sticking point in a rep or when you perform a heavy set, you’re spotting yourself by placing your hands on your knees! It is only cheating if you use your upper body to assist in the push. Cushioning your eccentric rep is similar to your friend guiding your forearms on a chest press.

The bottom line is that the free weights section plays a huge part in our progression within our fitness goals, but resistance machines such as the leg press will complete a well rounded programme. Working your lower body is an essential part of any fitness goals as this is where most of your largest muscles are found, with the gluteals being the largest of them all. So make sure that squats and leg press are a part of your routine!

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The Car Park Walk

In the previous gym that I trained in the car park was huge. The gym was attached to a busy shopping centre and, despite its high demands, the car park was never even half full. The gym I train in now shares its car park with the college, university and the Town’s football club stadium. It is massive. Not everyone’s gym has such luxury, admittedly, but if you are a member of a nationwide gym then I would imagine that it is a part of a shopping or leisure complex with ample car parking.

It is striking how many people I observe parking as close as possible to the gym entrance (even the naughty tinkers parking in a disabled spot without a badge in an attempt to get even closer) and then proceed to warm up on a treadmill.

I might have mentioned in a previous blog that I find treadmills excessive in these nationwide gyms. Simply put, I think that they take up too much room. These gyms are lucky to have two squat racks whilst rows upon rows of treadmills take up centre stage. Gyms do this for two reasons…

1. They are appealing to a mass market where consumers still believe that running on a treadmill burns more calories than resistance training.

2. Their PT’s don’t need to have a variety of knowledge standing next to someone on a treadmill. Teaching someone how to squat needs strength and conditioning experience. Cheering someone along on a treadmill is as good as getting the pom poms out. Teaching movement is a skill.

Machines and cardio equipment are easy and comfortable enough for the gym goers and the gym staff to work around and it sells memberships and cheap PT. A brand new gym member with little experience will always make a beeline for the tready first. It’s a comfort zone. Also, treadmills tell you how many calories a user has burnt during their time on it whereas a round of German Volume Training doesn’t. But guess which comes out on top?

Yet nothing can tell us how many calories we have burnt in any given activity. There are rough guides which is what we read from a tready, but unless your £40 a month gym has invested in the same high tech equipment as at Harvard Sports Science then we, the general public, are left with an estimate based on how fast you set the treadmill for.

Walking and running, however, are fantastic exercises which is why the treadmill has its uses, they just don’t need to breed so heavily in a mainstream gym. Yet walking and running can be done anywhere, even on the spot at home, in the office and the best of all in the great outdoors! Walking and running can be incorporated into a kick ass fat loss routine that gets results. That is proven. So what’s so bad about the carpark walk? Surely it can save you time in the long run.

If you have one hour to train, getting your heart rate up and your blood pumping with a swift walk across a car park is ample enough. Your cool down, too, can be the walk back to your car. This gives you more time to focus on more reps, sets and activities with everything else in the gym rather than warm ups and cool downs eating up your precious time.

If my trainee is performing deadlifts, then I will ask them to do a couple of warm up sets at deadlifts. I see no evidence to suggest that being on a treadmill will warm them up any better or as efficiently as the movement that they are about to perform. Likewise, if they are training for a marathon I wouldn’t warm them up with deadlifts prior to their run. Soccer players kick and run before kick off. Tennis players rally with each other. A boxer will shadow box in the locker room, not perform the Riverdance before their bout. It needs to remain relevant to your goals.

So let’s stop wasting time, use your training time wisely and, if you really want to get your steps in, do the car park walk.

Do You Know What Your Problem Is?

Your fitness journey is a problem. Make it your problem.

Ok. So before you criticize me for being all Negative Nancy on you, let me explain.

This problem is not a bad problem. If you think of a mathematical equation, a riddle, a puzzle or a science experiment, these are all set to challenge us but are also something to solve.

To solve this problem there are no time limits.

I was asked today ‘At what point will you be satisfied with your fitness achievements?’

I think I answered probably by 70 years old, but that’s incorrect. To a certain degree I’ll never be completely satisfied. I want to keep on learning, developing, defying the ageing process and become stronger. To do this, my fitness journey needs to be my problem that I can succeed with, fail with, become really pissed off with, cry and laugh with.

Some logical decisions have been made to help me continue succeeding, but there are the ones that must be avoided and that is comparing myself to others. It doesn’t matter what Big Dave from sales is deadlifting. He’s a good 20 years younger than me, genetically blessed with quads of steel and is performing in the next Pro-Am bodybuilding contest. That’s HIS problem. I’ve got my own.

The only young whippersnapper I’m comparing myself to is my 30 year old self. I want to be ahead of him. If, as I get older, I’m still ahead of him then I’ll be a bit closer to cracking the code. One thing that I know now that my 30 year old self doesn’t is that once you crack a code, there’s a whole new challenge to engage with. The problems stack up. There’s a bigger puzzle at the other side of the door. He doesn’t know that and it immediately puts me at an advantage, despite my age, because I’m prepared for it.

My health is important to me, but maybe not in the same way as you might think. I won’t live my life just to stay alive. But I will live my life to enjoy it way into my later years. It is rare that I see an elderly person and think ‘I want to be like that when I’m their age’. Instead they give me more reason to get my ass to the gym. I don’t want to struggle when I walk or run. I don’t want to have weight issues that cause breathing difficulties and bad knees.

And, unashamedly, I want to look the best too. I want to be confident in my clothes. I don’t just want to be strong I want to look strong. Be it at 50, 60, 70, 80 or 90 years old. After that I might quit my gym membership and just watch Loose Women all day. I’ll decide on that if and when the problem arises.

What I can’t do, then, if I aim to achieve all of this, is give up on my problems. What’s the alternative to giving up on the gym? If I aren’t happy with my progression in my fitness goals then I’m certainly not going to be happy if I sack it off. The answer lies with the willingness to solve the problem and persist.

My favourite Einstein quote says,’It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer’.

To really begin to solve problems we must really dig deep and keep trying to find answers. If we quit, the problem is still there, it’s just that now it becomes an unsolved pain that we have to live with rather than one to embrace and celebrate after another success. And the success, no matter how small it might seem, is another piece of the solution.

We don’t have to be smart, we just need to never give up.

What Does ‘Shocking The Muscle’ Actually mean?

Shocking the muscle is a term that I have used many times myself and, despite the physiological inaccuracies, I’ll use it again within my career. However, muscles don’t exactly get ‘shocked’ into growing. If only we could quickly grab a couple of heavy ass dumbbells and complete one curl for our biceps to say,’Whoa dude you got me good that time. How big do you want me?’

Training for muscle growth requires adaptation cycles that create new stresses to the muscle. Through repeated exposure to a certain exercise or training programme the body adapts. Once the body adapts, you need to ‘shock the muscle’ by creating a new stimulus that compels it to adapt and grow. And so the cycle continues.

So this is why the term shocking the muscle becomes overused and misconstrued. A shock refers to a sudden, surprising experience or event. And as anyone in the natural bodybuilding game will tell you, there is nothing sudden in muscle growth. In fact your muscle doesn’t need a surprise party. It needs a well thought out plan that you commit to almost every day for months and years until it understands what it needs to bring to your party.

There is a difference between the maintenance resistance trainer and the adaptation resistance trainer. 95% of trainers in the resistance area of the gym are maintaining their current physique, which is great by the way, yet I’m not convinced that this is their goal. Shocking the muscle to most people is doing a set of deadlifts because ‘I haven’t done them in a while’. Give it 5 minutes and I guarantee they’ll be curling again. They’ve ‘shocked’ their muscle enough for this week.

Like I say, getting to the gym, maintaining muscle and staying active is great. But you must understand that being in a room full of people lifting weights to me is like a roofer watching people try to fix their own roof. They might eventually get a roof, but the drips will appear shortly. So a maintenance job is all good and well until you find that what you’re getting isn’t what you wanted.

Since moving most of my business online I have found out that, for most men in particular, they don’t want me to be physically stood next to them in the gym. Regular gym goers already have a decent grasp on their form. But what they didn’t understand and why they approach me is to help them create a progressive programme that takes them through adaptation cycles. They didn’t know how to shock their muscle onto another level. Many of these guys have impressive physiques too, but the more experienced they are in the gym the harder it is to create extra muscle growth… especially with stagnant workouts that they’ve done for years.

It’s not always about just keeping the rain out, some people want thatched roofs, skylights and solar panels. And for that I’d get a qualified roofer.

Muscle And Aesthetics

If you currently follow a fitness programme the chances are one of the goals on your list will be to look your best. That’s totally natural. Hitting the gym to be fitter and stronger also has this great bonus of actually making you look your best. And if you train with the purpose of muscle hypertrophy then you might even prioritize the aesthetics over the health benefits. Either way, training can be fun when we start to see things happen to the body as it can make us feel more confident about ourselves. In fact, I fail to see a single negative aspect of exercise. It literally ticks all the boxes.

But a massive tick for lots of people is the box titled ‘aesthetics’, AKA ‘looking damn fine’, AKA ‘smokin’, AKA ‘sun’s out, guns out’. This type of training is commonly known as muscle hypertrophy and recently I read an article about the muscle parts that are seen as the most attractive and appealing. It focussed quite a lot on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s chest and Hulk Hogan’s biceps and I’d like to add my own entries there with Beyonce’s rear and Jack Grealish’s legs. But I’m pretty sure that most of my readers are not movie star bodybuilders, WWE wrestlers, global pop superstars or Premier League footballers. So I’d like to address hypertrophy and which muscle can look the best for the every day folk. After all, we don’t all have time or money for an in-house PT or a fully equipped home gym to train in everyday to acquire the hypertrophy that our celebrated friends have.

Firstly, it is important to point out that your genetics are different from the next person. Your body will be able to adapt to something much easier that someone else but they will have different qualities to you. Therefore going to the gym to blow up your shoulders five times a week won’t progress them past the sarcoplasmic (pumped) stage if you ignore the rest of your body… especially the stuff that you are particularly good at!

So this is where you need to begin. Start with the stuff that you enjoy and are already good at. Your mate might have big shoulders because A. It’s their favourite body part to train or B. They are helped along by freaky genetics that enables broad back/shoulders. If your friend’s dad needs to enter a door sideways then there’s a very good chance that they will too. Add that fact to what is their favourite body part to train and they will end up with pretty impressive shoulders. But that doesn’t mean it is where you will excell. You need to find your own niche.

Your friend will still need to train the rest of their body. If they don’t, their genetics and well worked delts will look odd if they have underdeveloped legs or chest.

For natural muscle hypertrophy for aesthetics, you need to train every body part. But even if you can only manage three gym sessions a week there’s gains to be made with the correct planning and nutrition. In a one hour session your focus should be hitting high reps on as many muscle groups as possible for more than half of it and then you can focus on your best bits on a series of isolations. If it’s your chest, then do dumbell pullover to flyes supersets. If it’s your legs then perform leg extensions to lunge supersets. Not only would you see progression in your underdeveloped areas but the muscle groups that you naturally excell with will keep you wearing t-shirts or shorts well into December.

Play to your strengths in every session, but make sure that you do the other stuff first. Compounds that hit every muscle will compliment your best bits. Compounds increase testosterone,muscle and bone density, regulates fat distribution and red blood cell production. So the most attractive and appealing muscle group that you have is the muscles that you are the most adept at working…as long as you’ve put the ground work in on the rest!

Personally, my shoulders are my trophy muscle. They stand out nicely in a T. But as I said earlier, this is helped by genetics along with my calves which have always gained attention since playing football as a kid. So training these areas are pleasing to me because I see rewards instantly. I give a nod to these muscles regularly because I like how they make me look, but I know that I can’t ignore my other muscle groups even if it means performing my least enjoyable exercises. And despite being a PT I have many.

Aesthetics is something that we don’t always want to talk about as Personal Trainers. We’re supposed to be promoting the physical health benefits and the need to exercise for our mental health has been well publicised in recent years. But if you see muscle development and you feel pretty damn good about yourself because of your aesthetic look then don’t be ashamed that this is what you trained hard for. Looking good helps your mental health too! So give a little tense and a pose the next time you walk past your mirror. No-one is looking!