3 Ways to Improve your Weight Training Workouts!

Are you getting the best possible results from your muscle building workouts? To Improve your workouts there are some simple tips that can greatly improve your results. Many people spend long hours in the gym, exercising, lifting and pumping iron like crazy, yet they show little improvement from their effort. Other people unfortunately totally skip weight training either because they do not understand the excellent benefit they will receive or they think it involve a large time commitment. By following these three tips you can greatly improve the results from your workouts and will most likely reduce your training time.

Please be aware that the three training tips mentioned here apply to just about all forms of muscle building exercise. Weight training with free weights such as barbells and dumbells, weight training machines and body weight exercises (such as chin-ups, dips, crunches) all require similar training principles to effectively strengthen your muscles.

Proper form - Understanding a bit about momentum and applying force to a heavy object will help you understand the best ways to train. You want to apply the laws of physics to your muscle building workouts. The weight you are using should not be lifted quickly or allowed to drop. A strength training exercise should be performed with a slow and controlled movement. This eliminates the use of momentum and forces your muscles to contract with more force and this results in a much better workout. How slow should your movements be? A common method is to use two full seconds to do the lifting phase, a one second pause and then four seconds to lower the weight, taking a full six seconds to perform one repetition. Some advanced training protocols require even slower speeds. The main point of this muscle building tip is that by using a slow and controlled speed while moving through the full range of motion you will increase both the safety and the benefit of your exercises.

High Intensity effort - High Intensity muscle building exercise is nothing new but it received a huge boost in popularity in the 1970's by Arthur Jones, the inventor of Nautilus machines. It's effectiveness has been demonstrated by many top professional athletes, including Mike Menzter, a five time Mr. Olympia winner. What does "high intensity" really mean? Essentially it means that the effective strength training exercises should be continued to the point of momentary muscle failure. That means to perform the exercise until no further reps can be performed and the last one that you attempt is a failed effort. Simply put - do as many reps as possible, always in good form. By following this tip and using a high intensity effort your muscles will receive an excellent stimulus to grow stronger. Remember a weight training program is a combination of stimulating the muscles to get stronger then allowing them to develop during the following rest and recovery phase. High intensity training puts a lot of stress on the muscles and it should not be overdone. The American College of Sports Medicine, probably the most prestigious authorative organization involved with exercise, recommends that healthy adults perform ten exercise twice per week, the the range of repetitions being 8 to 12.

Recovery Period - The third tip to improve your muscle building workouts is to obtain good recovery and rest between your workouts. This recovery period is the time between workouts. If a person is doing a full body workout program or using a split routine workout program, the need for recovery remains the same. The time period should always be at least 48 hours but a longer period such as 72 to 96 hours often work better. Remember that your muscles actually grow and develop during this time period so you want the amount of time to be sufficient. Training too often can result in over training and decreased benefits. Your muscles need their initial recovery from the exercise session, then additional time to adapt and over compensate so that they may be a bit stronger when the next workout comes around. To facilitate this recovery period the areas of proper sleep, good nutrition and avoiding over training should all be addressed.

So by following these three muscle building tips - Using good exercise form, training with a high intensity effort and then allowing for full recovery the benefits of your strength training workouts should increase significantly.

Additional information on weight training is available at SuperMuscular.com