Strength Training: Hypertrophy

Once folks have built up some basic endurance and stability, the next step depends on what their goals are.  One possible goal is hypertrophy.  That’s a five-dollar word for building big muscles.

 

People working toward hypertrophy still need to work all their muscle groups, but the way we want to do it changes.  We choose weights that are heavier and we do fewer reps.  We want weights that allow us to complete only 6 to 12 reps at a time.  Our tempo also changes a little, in that we lift the weight fairly quickly and lower it more slowly.  We want to do two to three sets of each exercise with at least a 30 second rest between sets.

 

(This is why circuit training is so useful!  We do one set of all our exercises and by the time we get back to the beginning, the first muscle group has had plenty of time to recover.  We get out of the gym sooner!)

 

Next week, we’ll talk about two other possible goals. 

Strength Training: Muscle Groups

Another important thing to consider when we begin strength training is that we need to work our whole bodies.  We do this by targeting different muscle groups with different exercises.  One way to think about this is to recognize that some muscles bend our joints and other muscles straighten them back out.

For example, our biceps and its helpers on one side of our arms bend our elbows.  Our triceps and its helpers straighten our elbows.  If we only do bicep curls, we are not building strength for extending our elbows and we end up, at the extreme, looking funny and not working too well.

 

So:  we need to work on bending and extending, front and back, lateral movements, twisting movements, pushing and pulling.  We will find that we like some of those more than others.  It is tempting to skip the ones we don’t like, but it’s pretty important that we don’t.  Having strong muscles on every side of our joints (looking at you, knees) helps keep them functional in all our activities.

Workout: Posture

One of this week’s themes is posture.  Holding the hands behind the head during squats helps ensure that the back stays nice and straight.  Three rounds.

 

kb swings	30
kb twist	20
kb 8s	10
prisoner squat	30
rows	20
kickbacks	10
tap backs	30
curls	20
windscreen wiper	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Chest Supported Row

Today the Amazing Stickie is working with her incline bench in a different way doing chest supported rows.  She sits with the front of her upper body leaning on the inclined portion of the bench (n.b., this does not mean that she does not keep her abdominals active) holding dumbbells in her hands.  Then she rows the dumbbells as she would do if she were standing.

Sets of ten to twenty are good, depending on the weight.

Strength Training - Stability

Yesterday we talked about endurance as a basis for our strength training program.  The other base we need is stability.  In other words, we need to work on balance.

 

There are, of course, lots of ways to work on balance.  Perhaps the simplest way is to do something we normally do standing on both feet standing on one.  Things like single leg squats, single leg deadlifts, and the like fall into this category.

 

Another way to work balance is to add an element of instability to our workout.  This is where we get to use toys.  A stability ball that we roll out on to do our bench press instead of lying on a bench is a good example.  Anything we do with a BOSU is another good example.  Many TRX exercises put us in positions where we have to stabilize while we work and thus improve our balance.

 

Yet another way is to do a bit of cross training with Pilates or yoga.

 

A word of caution:  start small.  Balance, like any other skill, is best built gradually and safely. 

Strength Training - Endurance

I’ve spent the last two months talking about why strength training is good for us.  Now it’s time to talk about how.  Not surprisingly, there are plenty of ways to go about strength training.  It all depends on the goal.

When we first start out, we need to start by building some endurance and some stability.  That means that, generally, we are going to be lifting relatively light weights in relatively long sets and we’re going to do some balance work.  (I’ll talk about balance work tomorrow.)

 

Let’s define “relatively light weights.”  Sort of.  My relatively light weights are not anybody else’s.  A relatively light weight is one that I can use to complete a set of twenty reps.  This might take a bit of experimentation.  I may optimistically select a five hundred pound weight (I am being ridiculous on purpose because people get weird about numbers sometimes) for my curls and discover that I can only do 10 reps.  That is a perfectly respectable set, but I will want to choose a lighter weight for my next set.

 

A relatively long set is a little easier to define.  It’s somewhere between 12 and 20 reps.

 

We combine the two things like this.  I find a weight for which I can complete 12 reps.  I keep using the same weight until I can complete more and more reps.  When I can complete a set of 20, I increase the weight and drop back down to 12 reps.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  We do the same process for each exercise.

Monday Workout: Bulgarian!

This week we’re doing Bulgarian split squats.  People with troublesome knees can substitute either lunges (to reduce the load) or any other exercise they like.  Three rounds.

 

mountain climbers	30
bulgarian split squat	20
farmer carry	10
squat raise	30
bench press	20
lateral raise	10
woodchoppers	30
flies	20
plank up down	10