Sunday, May 18, 2008

Results come from intensity and intensity alone

What's intensity?
For me, it means that at each workout and for each exercise, you reach a point of failure, you just cannot do another rep, your muscles are just plain dead.

Do you reach that point of failure?
Most people think that they do but they actually maybe are not even getting close to it. This is especially true on exercises where it's dangerous to be in such a situation like a bench press. You don't want to be stuck with a 100 KG loaded bar on your chest... and this prevents you from going to your maximum level.
This is why you either have to select exercises that allow you to reach that point of failure like pec flies, anything with dumbells, machines or have a partner for more dangerous stuff like squat or bench pressing.

How many reps?
Your weight must be high enough to hit from 8 to 12 reps on each set. If you do more than 12 then you need a higher weight and the opposite if you can't do at least 8 reps in proper form.

Proper form!
That's critical, an uncontrolled rep without proper form doesn't mean anything, it doesn't count and has no value, 8 to 12 quality and controlled reps!

Rhythm?
Yes you need rythm, most of the time, 1 second contraction, 1 second pause at the peak and 2 seconds to go back to start position is right. Do not skimp on the negative 2 seconds (going back to starting position) and contract on that peak!

Increasing difficulty
Keep a log of all your workout and make sure that each one is a little bit harder than the last. This is really import for grow. Say that last time, your last set was 10 reps, this time you need to reach 12, it it was already twelve then you MUST add weight. Muscles only gain when they have new stress else, they don't have to and they are even more lazy than you!

To be continued...

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Bodybuilding 3 universal rules

Bodybuilding is one of those fields were you can find tons of opinions and experts whether online or on paper. This becomes really overwhelming especially because it's not uncommon to find a good tip and then the opposite from two different but both relevant sources... Hard to know where to start from...

I am not even talking about all the junk articles and bad advertising out there...

I came up with a really simple list of 3 rules that apply to the core of bodybuilding and should never be forgotten, keep those in your mind every time you think of your routine or want to try something new:
  1. To gain weigth one needs to digest less calories than his maintenance weigth, to lose weigth one needs to digest more calories than his maintenance weigth
  2. Weigth gain or loss do not equal muscle gain or fat loss, it's always a mix of water, muscle and fat
  3. Results come from intensity and intensity alone
I'll come back to explain those 3 rules in following blog posts.
What do you think?

Friday, May 9, 2008

On a keto diet since 8 weeks

I am on a successfull keto diet since 8 weeks now. I want to start recording my next progresses here. I am 28 and I lost 4 kilos in 4 weeks then started to modify my diet to a muscle building one instead of just fat lost on week 4 and I am now 8 kg heavier than when I started but with less body fat percentage...

I feel that I can still do much better on that diet, I've been searching on the web and it's a really good source of information on ketogenic diets but not a lot of examples. This is why I created this page to log my progress!