Busy Gym?!

BUSY GYM?

Too many people enter a gym with no aim, or purpose. This is only fuelled by a certain degree of fear or shyness, no one wants to be seen standing around. So sometimes one is forced to revert to somewhere they feel comfortable in the gym or forego certain exercises or machines altogether because there is someone using that machine or because they just don’t feel confident enough yet. These are the mental hurdles of the gym. They are just as important as the physical “hurdles” that we have to overcome in our training.

Always have a plan, not necessarily a plan that was put in place week before or days before but before your feet hit the floor in that gym you should have a plan. You also need a back up plan.

So for instance if I go into the gym and there is no squat racks free I would revert to the often unused leg press machine and keep an eye on the racks till they free up hopefully coinciding perfectly with the end of my leg pressing. Squatting after leg press is brutally tough but the unexpected swap around of your routine may just trigger some gains. So instead of getting annoyed when things you usually use are occupied. Embrace it and keep the gym environment positive!! Chances are you were reverting to the most familiar exercise or order of excersizes before this challenge made you alter your ways and therefore quite possibly your results.

Lift Heavy, Destroy Plateaus!!

The weights that you lift are tools to your advancement in size and strength, To wield a new tool you need to first get used to the feel of it. The first time you pick it up it will feel unfamiliar. Even though the task for which you use this new tool may be the most familiar task, one that you have performed many times, Your new choice of tool or weight will make the task more difficult. You may have to initially perform partial repetitions with this new weight or assisted or negative repetitions,  Just until this becomes more familiar, until you have conquered that weight.

DO NOT be put off by not being able to perform full reps with a new heavier weight. Power lifters use various methods to advance in weight including boards for bench press to improve lockouts. Bands to aid with lifting, spotters for forced reps, differing heights for squats and deadlifts.

There is only one thing you need to make sure of when training like this, you need to make sure in any lift there is some sort of safety net in place. For instance if you are squatting you would squat in a squat rack or cage, you would set the bars at a height so you didn’t injure yourself if you fail in the lift. A bicep curl on a preacher bench is no different. Have a spotter in place to catch the weight, of course many preacher benches have a stand for the barbell but this is too low to use as a spotter because if you fail with a heavy weight and your arms straighten to that extent you will almost certainly get an injury.

Of course you shouldn’t train like this all the time, unless you want to start experiencing some joint pain. You should use this as a plateau destroyer!! Trust me this will abolish plateaus.