Tips of the week More muscular legs

Train heavy or go home?

What is the best repetition range for optimal leg development? We know that heavy training is an excellent way to stimulate the nervous system, which is especially the case with heavy multi-joint exercises. Stimulating the CNS helps to induce greater activation of high threshold motor units and rapidly contracting muscle fibers, while also releasing more growth hormone and more testosterone to support muscle growth.

This is all well and good and I wholeheartedly agree. However, a number of coaches are promoting the idea of a more lactate-stimulating, less anaerobic approach to stimulating quadriceps growth.

From a physiology perspective, the quadriceps need to be quite active throughout the day in activities such as walking, standing and basically any activity where you are on your feet. For this reason, these muscles are designed more for endurance and it's fair to say that they therefore contain a higher proportion of slow contracting muscle fibers.

In addition, athletes such as speed skaters, skiers and cyclists - or athletes in other disciplines where the legs are active for long periods of time - often have a huge quadriceps musculature. What is going on here?

Higher repetition numbers for the legs

It's safe to say that increased time under tension, higher reps, higher lactate production and even an aerobic touch to leg training can drive quadriceps growth, which is why you should consider performing sets with higher reps on leg day.

Breathing squats, for example, are grueling sets where you use a weight with which you can perform a maximum of 10 to 12 repetitions in a row, but complete 20 repetitions with it (you can pause between repetitions and take a deep breath, but you must not put the weight down). The energy expenditure is high, but the reward is worth it. Use this technique with squats or leg presses.

If this is too brutal, then try performing more repetitions by using ladder sets. These allow a trainee to perform 20 reps with their 10 RM weight with short rests of 10 to 15 seconds - just enough time to recover some ATP.

As an empirical example, look at the bodybuilder whose leg development has defined the standard by which all others are measured: Tom Platz. His leg development was unique and his training regularly included very high repetition ranges for lower body exercises such as squats with 100 kilos for 10 minutes at a time - and no, that's not a typo.

Take a cue from this and add more sets, higher volume and more time under tension to your leg workout to grow your thighs.

Tip: Be negative to achieve positive results

Sometimes a kick in the butt works better than a pat on the back - especially when it comes to fat loss.

By Chris Shugart

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-go-negative-to-get-positive-results

Get angry

Watch any TV show about weight loss and you'll hear a lot of crying, a lot of hugs and corny one-liners about having a positive attitude and "releasing the rainbow love in your heart..." - whatever that's supposed to mean. In the real world, however, successful people often get angry to drive positive change.

Chris Bartl, who successfully lost a lot of weight and became famous in the media for doing so, describes his experience as follows: "I didn't like how I looked, how I felt or how I was living my life. I was fat and really pissed off about it."

Chris didn't feel sorry for himself and he didn't stand in front of the mirror repeating positive affirmations and he certainly didn't participate in a group where others patted him on the back and told him that fat was a beautiful thing. He got pissed off ... and he accomplished something.

"People who get sore and fed up with being out of shape experience the most amazing and longest-lasting transformations," says Olesya Novik. "They feel like they have nothing left to lose, so they push themselves and keep going."

Why does anger work? Well, humans are predators. They don't hunt and kill their prey because they somehow want to. Reaching a goal is not a marathon - it's a sprint. You have a short, intense window of time to break bad habits and smash obstacles.

"Successful people are willing to leave their comfort zone," says Alwyn Cosgrove. This applies to their training, diet and lifestyle. How does a self-pitying crybaby deal with something unpleasant? Well, that person will blame others. And what does someone who is willing to channel some good aggression do? That person will fight through this situation and win.

Become selfish

Anger isn't the only politically incorrect emotion that comes into play. "Significant change comes about when you become a little selfish," says John Berardi, Ph.D. "It doesn't have to be a bad thing, even though some of our friends and family may think it is."

Even though it may feel a little strange to set aside time for yourself and your own improvement, this is the only way to go through with it. You need to become a little selfish and take some of your time. This will allow you to avoid distractions while you focus intensely on a single goal.

Feel superior

Another thing you will often see in success stories is a certain feeling of superiority. You don't have to despise people with weak willpower around you, but it helps to remind yourself that you are stronger and more determined than people who skip workouts and prefer to answer the call of fast food and sweets instead. If you feel guilty about your newfound arrogance, remind yourself that this is only temporary. Use it, achieve what you want to achieve with it and then drop it like a bad relationship.

The lesson

Positive change often comes from using a negative attitude. Being an angry, self-absorbed creep with a superiority complex helps people who want to transform their bodies achieve their goals. However, you should make sure to stop this when you have reached your goal.

Tip: Use the back bridge

A surprising number of people have been able to alleviate their back pain by incorporating this wrestling exercise into their training program.

By Mike Mahler | 01/24/16

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-do-the-back-bridge

Fed up with your back pain and stiff, weak neck? This is not only the best exercise for your neck, but it will also keep your back pain-free. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VheTGg_T4c&t=29s

1. Lie on your back and place your hands next to your head.
2. Push yourself off the floor with your feet and simultaneously push your chest back. Your upper body should rest on your forehead on the floor.
3. Then roll back and forth, reducing the distance between your legs and your head.
4. Keep your body under tension and tense every muscle from your chest, neck and back to your legs and feet.

Goals and progression

In the beginning, simply work on becoming more confident and flexible in this position. If you can touch the floor with your nose, try to hold this position for 30 seconds. Once you can do this, try to extend this to one minute, then two minutes and finally three minutes. Once you can hold this position for three minutes, take your hands off the floor and fold them in front of your chest.

Try not to relax any part of your body during the bridge and consciously concentrate on keeping your body under tension. The longest I have seen someone hold a bridge for was 15 minutes. A number of people with back problems report that their pain has disappeared since doing this exercise.

Tip: Train your abdominal muscles with anti-extension exercises

A true core workout for athletes involves more than sit-ups and crunches. Try these two killer exercises.

By Mike Robertson

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-hit-the-abs-with-anti-extension-exercises

The "anti-extension" category of core exercises includes any exercise where you actively resist extension of the lumbar spine. These exercises are great for developing core, lumbar spine and pelvic stability. If you perform these exercises correctly, they will really work the external obliques hard and also engage the rectus abdominis to some extent. You can use TRX bands, blast straps or gymnastic rings for these exercises. Here are two exercises from this category:

Fallouts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0llE86ZjRwU

Miyagis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aC0IzgF0-g

Some people will say that these exercises feel easy, but usually these people just don't perform these exercises correctly. To get the most out of these exercises, you should focus on the following:

1. Keep your chest up throughout the entire exercise. Do not allow yourself to lean forward. If you do, you are using the rectus abdominis too much instead of relying on the lateral obliques to stabilize your body.
2. Remember to keep the lateral obliques tight throughout the exercise. Focus on your obliques instead of pulling your navel towards your spine.
3. For exercises where you are fighting a full extension, you should not only focus on tensing the lateral obliques but also contract your gluteus. This will increase the intensity.

Note: If these exercises are really hard for you, don't lose hope. Years of training with crunches and variations of these exercises have made most people rectus abdominis dominant, which means you have to work extra hard to keep your chest up and your neck in a neutral position.

Training mistakes

• Using weights that are too heavy. This will cause you to neglect the form of the exercise and start leaning forward.
• Performing the exercise too quickly: keep the pace slow and controlled. Make sure you maintain tension in the muscles.

Tip: only eat organic potatoes

Even if you're not on the organic trip, you should still only eat organic potatoes. Here's why

From TC Luoma

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/tip-dont-eat-non-organic-potatoes

Most movie fans have seen the movie "The Martian". In this movie, Matt Damons is stranded on Mars and his only hope to survive is to survive the situation with his scientific knowledge. He only has a limited amount of supplies, which includes a pack of potatoes. He avoids starving to death by sowing these potatoes in soil made from Martian dust and his own feces.

But even if this worked in the movie, it is unlikely that growing potatoes on Mars would have been possible if NASA had not stocked its spaceship with organic potatoes. If this had not been the case, he would have starved to death while waiting forever for the potatoes to finally germinate.

The scary thing is this: If a counterpart of his living on Earth had eaten as many non-organic potatoes as he did over the course of a year, it could have caused serious health problems. Here's why.

The Martians don't want eyes

What makes Damon's situation so unrealistic is the fact that the vast majority of potato farmers bombard their potatoes with chemicals while they are still germinating in the soil - and again after they have been harvested. These chemicals are not intended to kill pests. Rather, they are designed to prevent the potatoes from forming "eyes" so that they keep longer. And if these potatoes don't sprout, then they can't be sown on Mars to survive.

Even worse than these semi-sterile potatoes, however, are the chemicals used to achieve this effect. One of these is maleic hydrazide, which is used while the potatoes are still growing. The current guidelines prohibit the use of this chemical during the last 7 days before harvest. However, these seven days give the chemicals enough time to penetrate the inside of the potatoes while some of the chemicals remain on the leaves of the potato plant, from where they enter the bloodstream and fat deposits of any animal that nibbles on these plants.

Once the potatoes have been harvested, they are cleaned and sprayed with another chemical called chlorproham, which is also designed to prevent the potatoes from sprouting.

Here's the problem

The problem is that these two chemicals prevent cellular mitosis or cell division in plants. Interfering with cell division within the plant may still be acceptable, but you certainly don't want to be ingesting chemicals that are harmful to humans.

To be fair, it should be mentioned that it is not certain whether these chemicals affect cell division in humans, but there is at least evidence that they can at least affect mitosis of human lymphocytes, which is not good.

Additionally, even the agricultural authorities seem to have some concerns about these chemicals. Although they insist that chlorproham is not carcinogenic, they admit that it may have unspecified risks and that the tolerated level in potatoes should be lowered from 50 PPM (parts-per-million) to 30 PPM.

You may think that you can simply wash or peel your potatoes to be safe. This may work in the case of chlorproham, which is simply sprayed on the surface of the plants, but this will not work for maleic hydrazide, which is absorbed by the potatoes. There is at least one study that shows that the maleic hydrazide content of cooked potatoes is no different from that of raw potatoes.

How you can protect yourself

Wash your potatoes with tap water and rub them well with your hands. A study conducted by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station found that tap water significantly reduced the levels of 9 out of 12 pesticides and worked as well as soap.

Peel the potatoes. This will remove some of the chemicals, but in return you will also lose almost 50% of the nutrients in the potato.

Spend a little more money and buy organic potatoes.

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-for-big-legs-increase-tut-and-volume

From Lee Boyce