Steroid Articles

Is your weight training program on the right track? Be careful not to make one of these 4 very common mistakes!

No matter how much you know about strength and power training, or if you're a beginner, you have a great chance of making at least one of these four mistakes. Avoiding them leads to further progress. Let's see what these mistakes are and how they can be corrected.

1. Interferences between aerobic and strength training
Numerous studies show that aerobic workouts interfere with maximum strength development. The hormonal response, the enzymatic changes and the neuro-muscular patterns associated with the aerobic workouts are very different from those that occur during the strength training. Therefore, when working on improving both aspects at the same time, very small improvements are obtained from both.

As the Soviets said: mixed training gives mixed results! If you need strength but also aerobic power, it is advisable to alternate between macro-cycles (2-4 weeks) that improve either the strength or the aerobic capacity.

2. You work only in one movement plan
Most training programs favor the development of strength in just two dimensions, flexion and extension. But for the maximum development of the force (and implicitly also of the muscle mass) it is necessary a good development and the force of the rotators of the trunk. Weight training should include adduction, abduction, flexion, extension and internal / external rotations of the hips, shoulders and torso. In the case of knees, only flexion and extension movements should be used.

3. Lack of variety
The lack of variety, which leads to physiological and psychological stagnation, is the main cause of inefficient training programs. For maximum accumulation of muscle mass and strength, you have to change your workouts often. Some Soviet research has shown that the training program needs to be changed at most 4 weeks.

Romanian weightlifting coach Istvan Javorek put his athletes to work in 24-week cycles, in which no training was the same.
For optimal results you should vary repetitions, sets, rest intervals and exercises from different macro-cycles (2-4 weeks).

4. Use only a few repetitions for hypertrophy
Bodybuilding supports the idea of ​​many repetitions for increasing muscle mass. But there was a tendency to have strength as well, which means little repetition. In addition, the basis of any great physical is muscle strength. But from here he got to do only exercises with few repetitions, even when the main goal is to increase muscle mass. Using only 4-8 reps to increase muscle mass is wrong.

Training with few repetitions is responsible for stimulating only 40-50% of the muscle fibers. It also requires repetitions of 8-25 to stimulate the maximum muscles.

You should use both intensity zones in different macro cycles. Alternate between periods of 2-3 weeks in which you do many repetitions and periods of 3-4 weeks in which you do fewer repetitions with higher weights.