The beginning of another year is almost here and as the age-old practice goes, most of us would go and renew our gym membership which most of us might have seldom used, isn’t it? Since the breakdown of the novel coronavirus in our world, people have become very serious about their body’s health and function. The novel coronavirus has taught us the importance of keeping a body fit and healthy and ensuring that the immunity game is strong.
When it comes to the world of bodybuilding and gym, it is the way training for muscle building has gained popularity the most of recent years. You could be a beginner at the gym or a fitness enthusiast — everybody wants to start weight training in order to keep the muscles toned and stronger than ever.
Most of the time, it is a lack of knowledge about muscle building that makes us fall prey to injuries that could be easily avoided. And this article is all about helping you understand the fundamental principles of weight training for building your muscles. This will not only help you become informed about the choices you make when it comes to your body, but it will also pump the right kind of confidence in you to achieve those dream body goals in the healthiest way! Read on to know more.
First: Know Your Vocabulary
It is very important to understand the terminology that is used for weight training when you need to build your muscles. Most people do not really know the actual practical meaning of the words that are used by their personal tailors or gym buddies and they end up working out either more or less that always creates a negative impact on the body.
- Rep: One complete motion of a particular exercise right from start to end is called one rep. For example, 1 complete squat is considered to be one rep.
- Set: A group of reps equals one set of examples, your workout might ask you to do three sets of eight reps. The first eight reps are equal to 1 set.
- Compound Exercise: this form of exercise is considered to be a movement where you are using more than one joint of your body to perform that movement. For example, we can consider a squat to be a compound movement as this involves the joints from your ankles, knees, and hips. And person trainers always recommend gym goers to prioritise compound exercises for greater results.
- Isolation Exercise: This is a form of movement where only one joint is used. For example, an isolation movement can be seen in a bicep curl. Only the elbow joint is involved here.
- Drop Set: When you’re performing any kind of movement, if you reach a failure point, you end up picking up lighter weights and you continue until you reach failure again.
- Superset: if you are performing variant exercises in each set without taking any rest in between — this is called a superset. This routine keeps your heart rate elevated and ensures that your muscle fibres are involved more and therefore you end up burning more calories.
- Pyramid Set: when you increase your weight with each set that you perform and you lower your reps, then it is called a pyramid set.
- Supinated grip: this is a grip position where your lower needs to be rotated so that your palm faces upwards.
- Pronated grip: this is a great position where your palms face downwards.
Second: Overload
You are considered to be overloaded if you expose your muscles to excessive weight stimulus or resistance that they can go through when compared to their normal everyday activities. The weight that you pick for any given exercise should allow you to complete all the repetitions incorrect form. If you struggle to maintain the technique while performing the petitions, you need to go back and complete your first set by decreasing the weight. On the other hand, if you successfully complete some extra Repps then you need to choose a heavier weight because your body has already recovered and got adapted to the tension that you made it go through.
Third: Progression
As we exercise more, our body gets stronger, and lifting the same weights that you did probably a week ago will not push your body as much as it did earlier. Therefore in order to ensure that the results are continuous, you will need to start overloading your muscles with more and more weight that is more stimulus over time. This is called aggressive overload and it is very necessary because your muscles continue to adapt. However, you don’t really have to always increase the weight. You could also increase your reps instead.
Fourth: Rest & Recovery
When you work out the stress from the overload causes minor damage to the muscle fibers. And when you sleep well, eat well, and rest, your body gets to start working by repairing and also reinforcing the little tears or damage that has been done to your muscle fibers. This process is like a look and can only be carried out when you are resting. Therefore never ever skip a rest day and secondly, you should not be training any harder than how you are being able to rest.
Fifth: Connection Between Muscle And Mind
Pushing, pulling, and lifting can be seen as very simple patterns therefore it is very easy for our mind to wander off and leave the bodies to go through the motions. However, we need to build our mind and muscle connection as it is just like meditation. It’s very important for us to get back to the present moment when we start thinking about our post workout meal while we are right in the middle of a set.
Ensure that for every single rate of exercise that you perform, you need to gather your attention on the muscles or the muscle that you’re working on. You need to visualise the concentric and eccentric contractions, you need to maintain awareness of the posture and alignment of your body and you need to also beware of any tension or stress that the muscles shouldn’t be facing when you are performing that exercise.