Posts Tagged ‘weightlifting’

Top 5 Signs That You’re Overtraining

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

Don’t Let Overtraining Derail Your Progress

Sexy with Protein Shake
When you start working out, whether you’re preparing for a triathlon or pumping iron in order to bulk up for a competition, you may find that early successes give you the motivation you need to push harder, exceed your boundaries, and reach your fitness goals. And anything that helps you to stay on track when all you want to do is veg out on the couch with a bowl of pasta is a good thing.

Of course, there’s always the chance that you’ll get a little over-zealous with your training and end up doing more harm than good. So if you’ve been putting a lot more into your exercise routine than normal and you’re starting to wonder if you’re overtraining, here are a few signs that could help you to determine if you should forge ahead or take a breather.

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5 Tips for Treating Common Exercise Injuries

Friday, April 19th, 2013

Exercise ChickRegardless of the type of exercise regimen you’ve chosen, chances are that sooner or later you’re going to push yourself too hard and suffer some type of injury. Even if you’re careful, accidents can happen, so you want to be prepared when they do.

Luckily, the most common types of injuries that occur during exercise, such as sprains, strains, muscle cramps, and the like, are not too detrimental, although contact sports, for example, can certainly lead to more serious bodily harm. When it comes to addressing these issues so that you can get back on track with your workout routine, there are a few simple steps you can take to ensure a speedy recovery.

Here are some tips that should help you to treat any injuries you may sustain.

  1. Diagnosis.

    The first thing you need to do is determine the severity of your injury.

    For example, it’s important to know the difference between a muscle cramp, which may be treated fairly immediately through stretching and hydrating, and a sprain or strain, which will certainly require more than a few minutes of rest and light stretching to correct before you can get back to lifting weights or swimming laps.

    Although you may not be as qualified as a doctor to diagnose common exercise injuries, and you may therefore want to call your physician for an exam if you’re not sure about the cause of ongoing or chronic pain, most athletes and even amateur exercise aficionados can tell when something is seriously wrong and when they can handle recuperation on their own.
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Suggested Rehabilitation for Common Types of Shoulder Injury

Monday, March 25th, 2013

Shoulder Rehab
Fitness Shoulders
Chronic Shoulder Instability and Impingement Syndrome are the most common types of shoulder injury. Chronic Shoulder Instability occurs when the ‘head’ of the upper arm bone moves out of the shoulder socket. This results in a shoulder joint dislocation and causes great pain. On the other hand, impingement syndrome is prompted by friction occurring between the shoulder blade and rotator cuff. The friction from the rotator cuff and the shoulder blade may be caused by inflammation in a tendon or muscle.

Preparations to Rehab an Injured Shoulder

It’s important to remember that any injury needs to be checked and treated by an accredited physician.  They may recommend medication and several rehabilitation techniques to encourage the shoulder to heal and function as soon as possible.  The Physician will also be able to see the specifics of your injury that may alter they way you would treat it. Here are some tips to consider when preparing an injured shoulder for rehabilitation.
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Top 5 Benefits of Interval Training

Friday, March 15th, 2013

Interval TrainingFor many of us the hardest part about working out is motivation. This could be due to the fact that you haven’t made fitness a priority; when you’ve always got something more important on your plate it’s all too easy to put your health on the back burner.

Or maybe you’ve been exercising diligently and you’re simply not seeing the results you want, a situation that can be frustrating and discouraging.

It could even be that you simply don’t find your exercise routine particularly challenging or fun.

Whatever your reasons for skipping the workout day after day, the truth is that you need to find ways to get motivated, and interval training can provide you with several benefits that might just move you to get your butt off the couch and into gear.

Here are a few benefits of interval training to consider:
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What are Barbell Complexes?

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

Everything You Need to Know Barbell Complexes

Overhead Barbell Woman
Hitting a plateau can drive you insane. Some people take months just to bump their bench press up by five pounds. A plateau is a good indicator that there’s something about your routine that just isn’t working for you anymore, and it means that it’s time for a change. Adding barbell complexes to your routine is a great technique for breaking plateaus. Barbell complexes are difficult, requiring you to perform several barbell exercises in a row as one set with no rest in between sets.

Benefits of Barbell Complexes

As a form of cardio, barbell complexes have several benefits over traditional cardio workouts. Barbell complexes burn a ton of calories but do not release cortisol the same way traditional cardio does. Cortisol is a stress hormone partly responsible for inducing fat storage in the body. However, barbell complexes release anabolic hormones that help you cut fat, making barbell complexes a great tool for cutting fat while you get out of your plateau.

The time required for traditional cardio can also be a bit of a drag, clocking in at thirty minutes or more. Barbell complexes are very fast-paced, and depending on how many sets you do, you may finish in ten to fifteen minutes – half the time of traditional cardio.

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Can Lifting Weights Lower Your Risk of Diabetes?

Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

DB Deadlift ChickThere’s something you might not know about type 2 diabetes: anyone can get it. The onset of this form of the disease need not be related to heredity, although instances in your family may raise your risk for developing diabetes. However, you should also know that the condition is not unavoidable, even if you do have a family medical history to contend with.

What is Diabetes?

Type 2 diabetes develops when there is too much sugar in your blood, a condition known as hyperglycemia. Normally, your body creates insulin that breaks down sugar so that it can be stored in cells and burned off as energy. But over time, excess fat in the body can reduce levels of insulin being produced and create an insulin resistance in cells.

While the main cause of type 2 diabetes onset is thought to be obesity, the truth is that you can have a slim physique with a high percentage of body fat. The point is that even people who don’t necessarily look like they’ll develop diabetes may be prone to the disorder. And lifting weights can definitely help to lower your risk.

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The 5 Most Common Weight Lifting Injuries and How to Prevent Them

Monday, February 25th, 2013

How to Prevent Injuries that Will Derail Your Progress

Deadlift Girl Good Form
Adding weight lifting to your workout routine on a weekly basis can offer the average fitness buff a world of benefits.

For one thing, it can make you stronger, as expected, helping you to overcome obstacles in other types of exercise (running faster, throwing farther, jumping higher, etc.). But it can also help you to create the physique you’ve been trying for (whether it’s bulking you crave or simply a frame that features better muscle tone) and even lose weight if that’s what you want (muscle burns more calories than fat). And that’s just the beginning.

Weight lifting, when done improperly, can also result in a slew of injuries, most of which can be easily avoided by warming up and cooling down, building up to greater weights or more reps over time, using proper form, listening to your body, and asking for help from a spotter.

Here are just a few common weight lifting injuries that are best avoided:

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Finding Motivation to Exercise First Thing in the Morning

Saturday, February 16th, 2013

Morning ExerciseMany people like the energy boost that they get from exercising early since it stays with them throughout the day and leaves them pleasantly sleepy at night. But if you’re not an early riser, you might find that you prefer working out during your lunch break or in the evening, despite the fact that it can leave you pumped up and unable to snooze when your head hits the pillow.

Of course, you may find that exercising later in the day presents you with myriad problems. Perhaps you’re too tired or demands on your time inevitably pop up, preventing you from getting in your workout.

In any case, you might end up deciding that starting your day with a workout is the best way to go. However, it can definitely be difficult to roll out of bed an hour earlier than usual, even if you’re committed to making it work.

So here are a few strategies that should help you find the motivation you need to exercise first thing in the morning.

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The Top 5 Benefits of Weight Training for Athletes

Wednesday, February 13th, 2013

Enhance Sports Performance with Resistance Training

Female Deadlifting
Most athletes do whatever exercises are most beneficial for their sport of choice. Often, the focus of a workout regimen is geared towards the demands of the sport in question.

For example, marathon runners train by running, while cyclists – you guessed it – train by riding their bikes. But whether you play soccer or basketball, you’re big on Parkour, or your idea of a good time includes a kayak and white-water rapids, you may find, at some point that your training sessions are not delivering the results that they used to. Or perhaps you’ve found that you can’t seem to get over a personal plateau with a pure cardio routine.

Whatever the case, you may eventually come to the realization that adding weight training to your efforts could be beneficial to your overall health and fitness, taking you to the next level with whatever form of athletics you prefer. And here are just a few benefits that should help convince you to take the leap and lift some weights.

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How to Protect Your Back When Weightlifting

Tuesday, February 5th, 2013

Strong BackWeight lifting is a great way to exercise, build toned muscle, burn calories, and promote overall health–but it can be dangerous as well. Our bodies aren’t used to the stress of heavy lifting, and our backs are particularly vulnerable to strain and injury.

An injured back can keep you out of the gym for weeks, or even months at a time, depending on the severity of the injury and your ability to recover. If you want to stay healthy, strong, and transform your body into a work of art, always remember to protect your back.

Step 1: Warm Up

Never start a workout without warming up first. Your body just isn’t ready for the stress of heavy lifting when you walk through the gym doors. You need to get primed before you start hitting the weights.

  • A short cardio warm up on the treadmill or elliptical is a great way to warm up your muscles and get the blood moving in your body. It is not necessary to use high intensity during your warm up. This is just a 5 minute effort to get the muscles moving.

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Getting Into Peak Shape for a Big Event

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013

Big Event Fitness

A Short Term Solution

If you’re committed to your health and fitness, then you’ve probably got a regular routine worked out already. But you may have found that over time, your targeted regimen begins to deliver fewer returns in the way of results.

This is not such a terrible thing when you’re merely maintaining your level of fitness. But when you have to look your best for an event like a wedding, a body-builder competition, or even a stroll down the red carpet, you may be keen to up your game where your workouts are concerned.

The process starts with assessing your current state, determining your goals, and then figuring out the steps needed to get you where you want to be within a set time limit. So whether you have several months to prepare or just a couple of weeks, here are some tips that will help to get you in peak physical condition before the big event.

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How to Prevent a Back Injury When Weight Lifting

Friday, January 18th, 2013

Deadlift Chick

Injuries

Nearly everyone who trains, whether bodybuilding, powerlifting, strongman, or just a general fitness routine, has at some point suffered from an injury. And whether it’s a minor sprain or a broken bone it can definitely derail your progress towards your fitness goals, leading to weeks or months of recovery in which all of your hard work slowly slips away via loss of both muscle mass, strength, and conditioning.

My Personal Experience

I mean, I once walked into a Gold’s Gym after taking about a month off from training, with the intention to deadlift. I wasn’t planning to hit a 1rm or a PR that day. It was just simple sets of 5 to get back into the rythym. On the second set, at 50% of my previous 1rm, my back spasmed, I dropped the weight, and I was out of the weight room for another solid month.

Every athlete and weightlifter has some version of this sad story.

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Leg’s Day: A Workout Guide

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

Legs

Leg’s Day: A Workout Guide

Here is a brilliant leg training article from the team at JackedPack. If you don’t know, JackedPack is a membership subscription service that sends you a monthly box of the samples of the best in sports nutrition supplements.

You can subscribe for 50% off your first month by using the coupon code SWOLE at checkout.

One of the best feelings in the world is when someone says to you, “Oh my gosh, are those Giant Sequoias or are those your legs?” We hope that all JackedPack members and non-members alike are able to experience the satisfaction and benefits of leg strength and size, and that’s why we’ve dedicated this post to giving our lower extremities the attention they deserve. We want everybody to be squatting school buses and deadlifting beached wales back into the ocean. We have included a stellar legs day workout that incorporates some awesome exercises that are sure to have people singing Sir Mix-A-Lot every time you walk in a room.

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Swole 101 – How to Avoid Training Plateaus

Thursday, October 13th, 2011
Swole Fitness Tips

Don’t let Your Workouts Get Stale!

Going to the gym and doing the same workout over and over again is a sure way to prevent progress when it comes on to muscle growth. Repetition is a surefire way to make progress… in moderation. Too much repetition will leave you tired, bored, sore, lazy, and overtrained. Enough emphasis cannot be placed on the necessity of having a properly designed fitness program.

Overtraining Syndrome
Don’t let your progress plateau like this guy.

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Never Chase Fatigue, Chase Performance

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

For those who still don’t believe Werewolf Muscle Training works, here is more support of my theory that increased frequency combined with stopping short of fatigue, produces equal if not better results that training a muscle once a week for an hour, with a ton of volume, going to failure on most sets.

The central nervous system is extremely important for performance, and should be stimulated aggressively and frequently, but should not often be fatigued. This also helps explain why you can train muscles when they’re sore… it works just as long as the CNS has recovered.

In this video you will find Christian Thibaudeau from T-Nation. He is way stronger than you or I, and he is just about as ripped as I could ever hope to be. A true inspiration.

“Never Chase Fatigue, Chase Performance”

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Gain Muscle by Increasing Nutrient Utilization: These 3 Supplements Work

Monday, September 19th, 2011

While navigating a fitness website or browsing through a fitness supplement store, you may notice various muscle building supplements. You may wonder whether any of these 10,000 products really work to build quality muscles and enhance strength, or will they merely flush into the toilet? The answer is both yes and no.

The answer is ‘No’ for people who do not have patience and want fast results while they opt for an unhealthy approach. However, the answer is ‘Yes’ for people who go for the right kind of supplement, use proper exercises and diet, and wait for weeks or sometimes months to see the result.

Fortunately, you have a couple of good supplements which guarantee good results. These supplements for fast muscle growth can deliver the desired result within a short span of time. These include Whey Protein, Nitric Oxide and Creatine. Which happens to be the right choice for you?

Have a look in detail about the three supplements given below:

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How to Mix HIIT and Endurance Cardio

Monday, August 1st, 2011

How to Effectively Combine HIIT Sessions with Endurance Cardio

Ripped Woman

Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please: walking or jogging for hours on the treadmill, peddling for hours on the stationary bike, climbing a mountain on the StairMaster, and plodding away on the elliptical trainer is NOT the best way to burn calories!

We’ve seen a hundred studies telling us that high intensity interval training (HIIT) burns more calories and fat, speeds up your metabolism, and is less catabolic than hours of endurance cardio. HIIT can also be far less boring, will actually help you build more muscle tissue, and increases your resting metabolic rate.

HIIT: Twenty minutes of HIIT cardio improves your VO2 max, burns a ton of calories, increases your metabolism, and maintains or builds muscle tissue all at once.

vs.

Endurance Cardio: Sixty minutes of endurance cardio is not only boring as hell, it also increases cortisol, burns muscle tissue (protein) for energy, and halts protein synthesis.
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3 More Back Training Mistakes

Monday, July 18th, 2011

I am not going to get into a long detailed post today. Instead I am going to supplement my top 6 back training mistakes post with another guest post about back training by expert Mike Robertson. I’m not cool enough to get Mike to post on my website though, so I have to link to the post from another blog entirely.

Find it here: 3 back training mistakes you could be making.

Mike tells you how people go wrong by training without a neutral spine, without a neutral pelvis, and without paying attention to detail. This is just another example of how every aspect of your physiology has to be healthy and aligned, or you risk injury.

About Mike Robertson

Mike Robertson received his Masters Degree in Sports Biomechanics from the world-renowned Human Performance Lab at Ball State University. He is also the president of Robertson Training Systems and the co-owner of Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training, which has been named one of America’s Top 10 Gyms by Men’s Health magazine in 2009 and 2010.

About Rick Kaselj

Since the guest post is actually posted on his site, this is a lead in to another awesome fitness blogger, a guy named Rick Kaselj who is an expert on sports injuries. Hopefully he will write a couple guest posts for Project Swole soon. I’ve requested some serious rehab / prehab articles and I know if he can find the time to write them, you will be amazed.

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To Build More Power Train Your Antagonists Eccentrically

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

Plyos, Olympic Lifts, and Dynamic Efforts are not the Only Ways to Increase Speed and Power

Baseball Pitcher

Strength coaches around the world prescribe plyometrics and Olympic lifts to increase force production – to build speed and power. Powerlifters around the world utilize dynamic effort lifts – box squats, speed deads, board presses – to increase their speed and power.

We can all learn A LOT from those methods, but there is one constituent of force development that the above methods don’t take into account. Consider reversal and/or starting strength, acceleration, and stretch reflex actions of the muscles that act as the antagonists to the primary sports movement.

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Athletes Should Only Train Sport Specific Movements

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Should Athletes Train Individual Muscles or Only Sports Movements?

Adrian Gonzalez

As a trainer, I have to know how to train people from all walks of life. I’ve seen bodybuilders, strength athletes, middle aged men, obese housewives, trained athletes, newbies, weekend warriors, and about 100 other types of people and athletes. No one routine can be designed for everyone.

Even in niches like baseball athletes, strongmen, and Olympic lifters, there is no one-size-fits-all training routine. You can’t take a baseball pitcher and train the pitching motion for 5 hours a day, 7 days a week. It just won’t work. So how do you train athletes that only need a small variety of movements to be successful at their sport?

The Myth

A long standing myth about training for sports, is that you should only train the common movements for your sport, so that you can get better at those movements. If you know nothing about physiology, kinesiology, or basic physics, then logically that makes sense.

However if you think about how the body really works, you will realize that the body will always find a way to perform any intended movement. Have you ever bench pressed and altered your shoulder, elbow, hip, knee, or foot position in order to eek out that last rep?

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