With this post, I’m going to hit a small milestone: 150 posts. A question I got, and get, quite a lot is: how is there so much you can write about training? The answer is somewhat related to the amount of bullshit printed by mainstream fitness media: if Men’s Health magazine can basically write the…
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If you follow my site you know that I believe there are 5 essential exercises you should be doing, no matter what your goal is, and you can find them here: Related article: the 5 core exercises On the other side of the coin I’ve been asked what I think are the least useful and…
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It’s obviously no secret that Bruce Lee holds a pretty high status not just among martial arts aficionados but millions of people the world over, based largely on his near-mythic athletic exploits. I have just started to read more into him , and while there seems to be a fair amount of the expected hubris…
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So, you’ve got over the initial hump of making the gym a habit. You’ve been past the honeymoon period where lifting that first weight felt amazing, and you’ve got past the 2 month sticking point where most people give up (normally around the middle of February). You can call yourself a regular gym-goer and you’ve…
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I personally find long and convoluted ab workouts quite tedious and unnecessary. As I keep repeating doing more crunches or reps will not get you looking ripped any faster, or indeed at all. It really is mostly diet and bodyfat. The important thing to remember is that when you train your abdominals you’re not training…
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Everyone struggles for motivation sometimes. Here are some of the things I have found myself thinking about when I’m walking to the gym that always help me get in the mood to make a potentially lacklustre session into a positive one. 1. Live in the present I always find it a bit cheesy when people…
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In an earlier post I wrote about the benefits of using low reps AND high reps, if you are beyond the beginner stage. Here I’ll go a step further and describe how to do this effectively in one workout. To sum up quickly the principles for best muscular development are: Low reps with heavy weight…
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Ah, the leg press machine. The ultimate ego booster. Struggling with your squat? Putting a lot of effort in to only be able to put 10 kgs more on the bar? Like to move a lot of weight? Head over to the leg press and start loading plates! As you might have guessed, I’m not…
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If you read a magazine or ask a trainer about the number of reps you should be doing for your sets you’ll probably get the following breakdown: If you want tone/endurance, do high reps i.e. 15-20 If you want the combination of strength and size then do medium to high reps i.e. 8-12 If you…
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What is the optimum length for a training session? If I spend 2 hours in the gym am I spending too long in there? Is 2 hours in the gym long enough, since I read in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s autobiography that he used to train for at least 3 hours? If you do a bit of…
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