When you’re going to a gym, after some time you’re going to have to bring more than grit, guts and determination. Sometimes you want to give it that little extra push but something or the other is holding you back. Speaking of ‘holding your back’, you know what’s great for some added support for posture and increased weight lighting? – A lifting belt! See what just happened there? A little tip to help enrich your work-out experience. What’s that? Do gym gloves help alleviate pressure off the hands when lifting? Allowing you to lift more? – YES. They do. What just happened here? Another tip to help you lift better.
Being in the gym is not always comfortable. It’s the exact opposite. It’s painful, time consuming, slowly processing and requires determination. You may not find comfort in the gym, but you can always learn how to comfortable in uncomfortable situations. There’s always something you can do make your work-out routine a little more ‘convenient’. Here are a few tips to make your lifting experience, a better one!
Chill out on the Warm-Up:
Take it easy with the warm-up. Do not blow all your energy in one go spending all that fire on warm-up sets with heavy weights. Use that for the heavier lifting.
Wave Loading:
This is a great way to gain strength and muscle real fast. It’s called wave loading, where you start off doing a set of reps called ‘descending waves’. With each simultaneous set, you increase the WEIGHTS while decreasing the REPS by EACH set. So basically, as the weight goes up the reps go down. You can do this in reverse (ascending wave) too.
a) Descending Wave:
- 10 reps of 250 lbs.
- 8 reps of 300 lbs.
- 6 reps of 320 lbs.
b) Ascending Wave:
- 6 reps of 320
- 8 reps of 300 lbs.
- 6 reps of 320 lbs.
Irradiation:
This is when you squeeze all your muscles extremely tight when lifting weights. While you’re focusing on one specific area of the your body, harden up the rest of your body starting from the your calves, this expells all the strength that you haven’t used up into every rep – making every rep slightly more efficient. With constant repitition of this technique you will reap more rewards on each exercise.
Grip and posture:
Grip and posture really matter especially on the curl. You can use chalk or gym gloves to help you hold the weights with a stronger grip. Good grip also constitutes to better wrist to arm and overall posture to give you added benefit, working out the muscles that you’re trying to focus on without wasted effort.