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How to Approach Workout - 2

In my previous blog i explained the first three principles to keep in mind before starting your workout journey. In this blog i will elucidate remaining 3 principles. If you haven’t read my previous blog, i would recommend you to check it out because all the six principles are interrelated.

Basic concepts of workout
Today, I am going to talk about intensity, frequency and rest periods.

 

 

FREQUENCY

Frequency simply means how frequently you train your muscles.

the most notoriously famous training split in fitness is bro split which means training each body part once a week. The premise behind this split is to smash a muscle completely in one day and then give it 5-6 days to recover from the fatigue/workload.

when i was new to fitness, i was also one of the fan of bro split but when i started reading researches and all other stuff, i came to knew that researchers have refuted the premise of bro split.

numerous researches have validated that if your diet is on point, a muscle takes only 48-72 hours to recover completely from the erstwhile workout. So, 48-72 hours roughly means 2-3 days.

It takes only 2-3 days for a muscle to recover completely. So, in bro split by giving that muscle extra 2-3 days, you’re just putting that muscle in an idle state.

Also if you’ll try to hit chest on just one day, you won’t be able to perform every movement with you 100% because as the session drags on, you will get more fatigued both mentally and physically.

A research was conducted in which scientist Schoenfeld compared two 3 days per week training programs in well trained men with different frequencies per muscle group. One was split where the lifter train chest and back on day one, legs on day two and shoulder and arms on day three, while the second group trained full body on everyday. The exercises, sets, reps and loads were the same across the week in both groups, and interestingly significantly greater increase in hypertrophy(increase in muscle size and improvement in muscle composition) were observed in the group training full body three days per week.

FREQUENCY RECOMMENDATIONS:

Try to spread the total volume in a way which allows you to train your muscles 2-3 times a week.

The two most famous splits which allows you to train your muscle 2-3 times are push pull leg split and upper lower body split.

RPE and RIR

RPE and RIR

                                               

 INTENSITY

Intensity refers to how much you exert yourself in the gym or how heavy or intense you’re lifting.

Method to measure your intensity:

1.    RPE scale

RPE scale

 

A popular way of measuring your intensity is RPE(rate of perceived exertion) scale based on reps in reserve (RIR) scale.

RPE scale is based on how close to failure you get at the conclusion of the set.

For instance, suppose you’re squatting 100kg and after hitting 10 reps with 100kg, you’ve no energy left to hit an extra rep, that means at 10th rep your RPE was 10(maximal) and your reps in reserve were zero.

Now considering 10th rep as your failure point, you decided to hit only 6 reps with 100kg. So, now your RPE will be 6 and RIR is 4.

INTENSITY RECOMMENDATIONS:

Don’t train to RPE 10 in compound exercises (bench press, squat, deadlift etc. In compound exercises you must train close to RPE 7-8 and should always have 2-3 reps in reserve because in compound exercises, various muscles are being targeted not only one muscle group. So, training to absolute failure will mount up the chances of injuries.

Yes you can train to failure (RPE 9-10) in isolation exercises because in these exercises, only one muscle is being targeted and training to failure with proper technique won’t exhaust you completely as in compound exercises.

You can check out the list of compound and isolation exercise anywhere on internet, just google it.

REST PERIODS

I had already covered this topic in one of my IG posts. I elucidated how much rest you need in compound and isolation exercises. I also busted some myths related to rest periods. Go check it out.

So, that’s all about today’s blog. Hope you’ll like it, if you got any query, feel free to ask me on my Instagram DM or just mail me your query.

See you all in next blog. Till then, stay fit, keep exercising and be benevolent towards others.

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