Top 10 Faulty Exercise Tactics
![Top 10 Faulty Exercise Tactics Top 10 Faulty Exercise Tactics](img2016/artimg/march/Exercise-Tactics.jpg)
Resistance
training is one of the few activities where women act in ways that directly
undermine the goals they are trying to reach.
In the name of
making
progress, the sad irony is that virtually all the tactics that are used do
not help progress, they actually undermine progress.
Here is a list of faulty tactics for you to consider. They are presented in no special order since it is difficult to put some absolute value on each one.
Doing many
sets and believing that volume training is the key. If you're doing more
than one set per movement and more than two or three movements in one workout
per muscle group at the least you are wasting time and more than likely
preventing gains through overtraining. There is virtually no evidence that the
volume of training is related to gaining strength and
increasing
muscle mass.
Moving quickly to
"activate fast twitch fibers". Quickly accelerating and decelerating movements
often leads to injuries. But it doesn't make sense as a training modality even
if it was safe because you are simply loading and unloading muscle groups. The
long established size principle indicates that muscle fibers respond to
intensity and tension and that when intensity is high, fast twitch fibers are
readily activated. When you move slowly with a great deal of focus and
intensity, you are activating fast twitch muscle fibers. Consider anything
faster than 3 to 4 seconds to raise the weight and 3 to 4 seconds to lower the
weight too fast. In gyms around the world, the speed of each rep is closer to a
1,1 cadence - exactly the opposite of what is really optimal.
![Top 10 Faulty Exercise Tactics Top 10 Faulty Exercise Tactics](img2016/artimg/march/leg-presses.jpg)
Limiting the range
of motion. Unless you are in physical therapy and recovering from an injury,
then doing as large a range of motion as is comfortable is what needs to be
done. Doing leg presses with gigantic weights but where the weight only moves a
few inches is not impressive. Moving rapidly with
squats to
at best a half-squat position also with a huge weight is also not impressive.
It's really quite meaningless and a good way to destroy a lower back.
Training too
frequently in the hopes of gaining more. When your body is a bit sore and
nonresponsive, it is telling you something. It's saying: " I need some rest. You
shouldn't be training!" You simply can't force your body to respond. Few
motivated people have ever not succeeded because they trained too infrequently
but many have failed because they trained too much.
Training
instinctively and having no plan. Most people can't improve by constantly
improvising and training basically in an unplanned, clueless way. What, if
anything, in life really works that way?
![Top 10 Faulty Exercise Tactics Top 10 Faulty Exercise Tactics](img2016/artimg/march/make-the-reps.jpg)
Grimacing, using
body English and screaming and grunting to make the reps. This tactic only
suggests that you are not effectively targeting the muscle group and are using
other muscle groups and momentum to move the resistance. So, who is fooling whom
here?
Gaining a great
deal of weight to lift a great deal of weight. People who exercise but are
obviously overweight and overfat are again not impressive. The idea is to gain
muscle - difficult to be sure - and to be strong for your size at a healthy,
relatively low
body fat.
Getting fixated on
the "numbers". Exactly how much resistance you can use in any given exercise
depends a great deal on such factors as leverage and neuromuscular efficiency
(genetically mediated factors not subject to change), range of motion,
repetition cadence, acceleration and deceleration in reps, order of an exercise
in a routine, and time between exercises. Your muscles respond to intensity and
tension not a specific force as represented by resistance per se on a bar or
machine. If you practice the absolute best form, you may not be using "big"
weights in various movements but you will be providing your muscles with an
optimal stimulus.
![Top 10 Faulty Exercise Tactics Top 10 Faulty Exercise Tactics](img2016/artimg/march/Planning-nutrition-supplements.jpg)
Planning
your
nutrition around
supplements.
There's virtually nothing in any "nutritional supplement" that you can't obtain
at a fraction of the cost from real food. Plus real food has many other
nutrients not found in supplements. Most supplements have little or no
scientific data to back any claims made
Further, various hormone derivatives
sold over-the-counter as "nutritional supplements" are basically untested,
unproven, potentially dangerous substances.
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