Tip of the week Tip: Women, train like men (at least most of the time)

Fortunately, most athletic women today are no longer afraid of moving heavy weights. But how should they train with these weights? Almost exactly the same as men, with a few minimal differences. Here they are:

1. Slightly more repetitions per set: Women do not have the capacity to recruit as many motor units as men. Therefore, they need 1 to 2 more repetitions to fully stimulate their muscles. If a man is training for strength, then he should perform 1 to 5 repetitions per set, while women will benefit more from 3 to 6 repetitions. If men are training to build muscle, they will benefit from 5 to 10 repetitions per set, while women should stick to 7 to 12 repetitions.
2. Slightly more sets per exercise: Most women will need to perform 1 to 2 more sets per exercise to achieve the same level of stimulation as men, which is also related to their lower activation of motor units.
3. Slightly lower intensity: This is not to say that women should not train with heavy weights, but since they need a few more reps and sets, the relative intensity needs to be reduced a little to allow for adequate progression.

Tip: Try this healthy weight gainer shake:

The sport is called body building, not belly (ab) building. Here's an easy-to-prepare shake that will grow your muscles without ruining your health.

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/tip-make-this-healthy-gainer-shake

By Chris Shugart

Experienced exercisers need to be in a state of caloric surplus to build muscle at an optimal rate, but this doesn't require thousands of calories beyond maintenance calories. After all, you want to build your muscles, not your belly. A few hundred calories over and above maintenance calories is all you need to provide your muscles with everything they need to grow.

Although it may not seem too difficult, many people claim that they find it hard to eat a sufficient amount of calories. They say that they simply can't get enough "clean" calories, so they turn to junk food. Of course, that sounds much better than "I'm lazy, not very intelligent and just love to eat junk food." For those who are black belts in the discipline of justifying poor dietary choices, it's not hard to eat 300 to 500 quality calories on top of their regular diet. Here's one way to do it:

The healthy weight-gainer shake

Most people don't just want to gain weight - they want to gain muscle. The problem with most weight gainer shakes on the market, however, is that you'll mainly be building fat with their help. This is because they contain lots of sugar or other cheap fillers. For the weight gainer shake described below, we use healthy foods with a high calorie density instead. Mixed with water, this shake provides 500 functional kcal:

Ingredients:

• 2 scoops of vanilla or chocolate flavored protein powder
• 1 small banana
• 2 tablespoons natural peanut butter (or nut butter of your choice)
• 500 ml cold water or almond milk
• A handful of ice

Mix all the ingredients together and give your body what it needs to make gains. This shake can be easily customized to the exact number of calories you want to add to your diet plan. Simply add more or less banana, peanut butter or protein powder and adjust the amount of liquid if needed.

Tip: Train with Arnold's golden six

The Austrian Oak started bodybuilding with this full-body training program, which is performed three days a week

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-train-with-arnolds-golden-six

BY Bradley Joe Kelly

Even though Arnold was the definitive king of split training at one point, he started his career with a full-body training program and he still recommends it for beginners today. The program is nicknamed "The Golden Six" because it focuses on 6 of the most basic exercises.

	Exercise	Sets
A	Squats	4	10
B	Bench press with wide grip	3	10
C	Pull-ups	3	Muscle failure
D	Neck press	4	10
E	Barbell curls	3	10
F	Sit-ups with bent knee	3-4	Muscle failure

That's all there is to it. Simple, direct and effective. Like most full body workouts, this program should be done three times a week on non-consecutive days and because of the low volume per session, this type of program is ideal for beginners. This is a complete full-body approach that involves every major muscle group.

But what about....

Some common but often short-sighted objections include questions like: Why no deadlifts or rowing? Where is the side lifting and tricep training? Is this why it took Arnold forever to build usable calves?

Well, hard sets of 10 reps of squats three days a week don't leave much room for deadlifts or a sore calf. Building your base with pull-ups is just as effective as rowing, and the bench press and neck press will work your shoulders and triceps sufficiently.

This may not be a program you'll use forever, but it's a good place to start. It's also a great old-school plan to go back to basics if you want to simplify things or only have time to train three days a week.

Tip: 10 ways to challenge and grow your body

Muscle growth is an adaptive response. No challenge, no gains. Are you using at least some of these progressive methods?

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-10-ways-to-challenge-your-body-and-grow

By Christian Thibaudeau

A lot of people don't train hard enough or smart enough to build muscle. They are content to go to the gym and do their usual program. They forget (or don't know) that muscle growth is an adaptive process.

For this to take place, the body needs to be challenged to a certain degree. And in order to achieve continuous progress, it is important to achieve a certain progression in the level of difficulty of the training sessions.

10 ways to increase the level of difficulty

1. Increase the weight: this is a very obvious method - move heavier weights. Sadly, this is the only method of progression that many use and this will affect their long-term progress.
2. Increase the volume by doing more repetitions: Perform more reps while keeping the weight the same. Example: Increase from 10 repetitions with 100 kilos to 12 repetitions with 200 kilos.
3. Increase the volume by doing more sets: This is often the traditional way of progression. And while it is true that adding more sets (if the weight can be maintained) causes more physiological damage, there is a point at which the return becomes negative. An increase from three sets per muscle group to 9 to 12 sets mg perhaps stimulate new growth, but an increase beyond this could lead to stagnation or even regression.
4. Increase the training density: Perform more work per unit of time. The best way to achieve this is to shorten the rest intervals between sets while maintaining the training weights. Many coaches are now aware of this method and train their athletes to gradually shorten their rest intervals.
5. Increase the eccentric load or work: The eccentric or negative portion of an exercise causes the most damage to the muscle fibers and therefore has a greater potential to stimulate muscle growth. Rapidly contracting muscle fibers (which have the greatest potential for growth) are preferentially activated during eccentric work, making it doubly effective. You can increase the eccentric load either by performing the eccentric phase of the movement more slowly or by increasing the weight (by having a training partner push the weight down during the negative repetition).
6. Move the weight up faster: Force = mass x acceleration. You can increase the force release by either moving more weight or moving the same weight with greater acceleration. More force equals more intramuscular tension, which is one of the most important factors involved in stimulating muscle growth.
7. Use more complex exercises: We're not talking about squats on a stability ball here. Progressing from structurally simple exercises to more complex exercises increases the training load. For example, leg extensions are easier than leg presses, which are easier than squats.
8. Use advanced training methods: pre-fatigue, cluster sets, rest/pause, descending sets, isodynamic contrasts, tempo contrasts, etc. All these methods can increase training stress (and should not be abused) and represent a progression in training difficulty.
9. Focus better: Never neglect the mental aspect of training. If you are training for strength and speed, then you need an efficient nervous system. If you are a bodybuilder, the ability to focus on the working muscles will increase the efficiency of your sets. When you progress from simply going through the motions without concentration to 100% focus on each set, then you have improved.
10. Don't ruin yourself: Don't fall into the trap of training excessively with too little rest. But how does this increase the difficulty of the training? That's easy. For dedicated exercisers, it is often more difficult to recover than to do more work. Some exercisers train excessively by either

a. Performing too much volume per training session
b. Training too frequently with high volume
c. Increasing the difficulty of their training program too quickly.

Inadequate recovery or excessive training will lead to stagnation or regression. So if you find it difficult to recover, it probably means that you need more rest. In the history of mankind, no one has ever gotten stronger or more muscular in the gym. You often leave the gym in a worse state than when you entered. Your energy stores are depleted, your muscle fibers have suffered micro-traumas and your nervous system is on its last legs. So when do you grow? At the dinner table and in your bed.

Tip: Use simple blocks of time instead of sets

Here's a new way to plan your workouts that will get you out of your rut and keep you focused.

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-use-time-blocks-instead-of-sets

By Travis Pollen

Workouts are generally structured based on specific numbers of sets. What if instead you set aside a specific span of minutes for each training priority of a session and simply perform as many sets as you can within that time span (with appropriate weight and reps, of course).

The exact blueprint of your training session will depend on your goals, but the average exerciser looking for gains in strength, muscle mass and endurance, the following framework would represent a well-rounded training session:

	Training Priority	Time
A	General warm-up/mobility training	10 minutes
B	Strength/speed	15 minutes
C	Hypertrophy (training focused on muscle mass)	15 minutes
D	Conditioning	10 minutes
E	Warm down	5 minutes

That's 55 minutes from start to finish, as long as you take the time seriously. Even if you allow yourself a super long 5 minutes for the transition from block to block, that's still only 75 minutes. How does this compare to your recent gym visits?

Incorporate some core training into one of the blocks above and you have the blueprint for an adaptable, comprehensive and compact program.

Tip: Master dips for chest and triceps

Everything you need to know about dips.

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-master-dips-for-chest-triceps

By Christian Thibaudeau

Dips are great. The problem is that most people use an incorrect form of execution. This has led to dips getting a bad reputation as shoulder killers. And some exercisers use correct form but use the wrong type of dips. Are you using dips for chest development? Or are you using them to target your triceps?

Guide to performing dips

Guidelines for dips for the chest muscles

• Torso forward
• Legs forward
• Medium to wide hand spacing
• "Gunslinger" elbow position
• Contract the abdominal muscles to maintain correct form
• Do not hyperextend the elbows in the highest position
• Shoulders should drop slightly below the elbows in the lowest position
• Keep the head in a neutral position: do not look up or down
• Perform dips through the full range of motion with an additional 50% of your body weight and 6 to 8 repetitions

Guidelines for dips for the chest muscles

• Keep the torso more upright
• Legs back
• Closer hand spacing
• Tighten the gluteus to maintain form
• Overextend the elbows in the highest position
• Shoulders should drop slightly below the elbows in the lowest position
• Keep your head in a neutral position: do not look up or down

What to do if your shoulders hurt?

Dips cause shoulder problems for some exercisers because they suffer from pre-existing shoulder problems that need to be addressed. But what can you do about shoulder pain during execution if your shoulders are healthy and functional? Usually, technical issues are the cause if you feel something in your shoulders while performing dips. If you are turning dips into a shoulder exercise, then you are doing something wrong.

One of the biggest mistakes is moving your shoulders forward as you lower yourself. This puts enormous strain on the shoulder joint and shoulder muscles.

If you want to make dips safer for your shoulders, then you should make sure that you keep your shoulders in their sockets as you lower yourself. You can achieve this by tensing the muscles of the upper back as you lower yourself (pull the shoulder blades together, as you do when bench pressing).

This may make dips harder at first, as you are using the right muscles for the job rather than levering yourself up. However, once you become more efficient with this technique, you will also become stronger and your strength will transfer more easily to pressing barbell exercises, while stimulating more muscle growth in the chest and triceps.

The first sign of good or bad dips is body sway. Those who perform dips incorrectly tend to move their torso and legs during the exercise. When performed correctly, the torso and legs appear to be fixed in line.

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-women-train-like-men-for-the-most-part

By Christian Thibaudeau