Weight Training Avoid Overtraining

How many times have you heard people saying not to overtrain? Too many times. But do you really listen?

One of the easiest way to jeopardize your weight training program is to break this number one rule. The problem is that so many people talk about overtraining that it is very easy not to pay attention to the message. The truth is, at some stage of your training, you will overtrain if you don’t pay attention to this rule.

So how do you know when you are over-training? One of the symptoms is – you will feel tired in your next workout, feel burned out and doesn’t seem to be lifting a little more or the same weights you were lifting in your last workout.

Pay attention to your body. There is a fine line between pushing hard, lifting heavy, and going a little too far. If you find that you are not able to increase your weights by a few pounds then you are over training. If you are not maintaining the same intensity as the last workout, you are overtraining. If you find you are taking more time to rest between exercises then you are definitely overtraining.

Failing to listen to your body and keep on lifting when you need to rest will eventually result in you injuring yourself. A muscle injury will put you back by weeks if not months. Try and avoid injuries at any cost. It is also so much harder to recover from injury caused by overtraining.

If you suspect you are pushing too hard, cut back on the  pounds, number of sets, or reps you are doing. If that doesn’t work, cut back on the number of workouts per week. When you reach a certain fitness level, it is so much easier to maintain your muscle mass and strength compared to when you are only just starting out. This means that even if you cut back on the number of workouts you perform, your overall muscle mass and strength will only decrease by a little. After several months or years of weight training, you should be able to get a better feel of how your body is feeling after each workout.

By all means, train hard but also learn to train smarter. After all, muscle mass building takes time.

Making smaller improvements consistently is so much better than making big gains in one week only to be put back by an injury the following week.

by on April 20, 2010  •  Permalink
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Posted by Dean Louis on April 20, 2010

http://FitnessWorkoutSchedule.com/weight-training-avoid-overtraining/

Does Ganga Zumba Work ?

Not sure about you but I am extremely sick of seeing Zumba adverts on TV every morning!

If you haven’t heard of Zumba or ganga Zumba, it is another form of exercises using dance movements from all kinds genres – salsa, hip-hop, rock and roll and so forth. It is very similar to aerobics, jazzercise, tae bo, and those kinds of routines. You can buy the DVD of some Zumba ganga routines and do it in the comfort of your own home.

Before you go off and buy another Zumba workout DVD, you need to decide what you need to do to make Zumba work. Right? I think you are going to be sick of me saying this but, it is not the exercise DVD and equipment that will make the difference in your training. It is your attitude and approach ! Nothing more nothing less.

Unfortunately not all of us have the right attitude for one reason or another,  so I also do encourage you to try new methods like Zumba ganga, if you haven’t found one that suits you yet. Just don’t buy blindly without making a decision and knowing exactly why you are buying.

Some of you might disagree with me and say - it’s only $30 dollars so why the difficulty? Just buy it because it’s cheap. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and it’s only $30 anyway.

I understand exactly what you are saying and you could be right, I don’t know but I totally disagree with those kinds of thinking. The problem is that you are approaching your fitness goals with the wrong attitude. So now, it’s a $30 product, the next time it’s a $100 product or even $1000 product, and none of them will work for you, because of your attitude.

Do you know why fitness equipment suppliers target people very late at night with their fitness products informecials? It’s because the only people who are awake at that time of the night will tend to be couch-potatoes who will not have the will-power nor the inclination or attitude to get off the couch and use their fitness training DVD/products. Not all couch potatoes are like that though.

Heck I have even seen people with rooms full of bench machines, treadmills, exercycles and all kinds of abdominal training aids and so forth. Do they use them at all? Even if it’s only for a few days a year? Nada. No no no.

It’s almost like they buy their training DVDs/products so they can boast about it to their friends, show it off in their home to visitors or simply because it makes them feel good.

In fact, they probably buy it for all the wrong reasons except for health & fitness.

Madness isn’t it?

by on April 9, 2010  •  Permalink
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Posted by Dean Louis on April 9, 2010

http://FitnessWorkoutSchedule.com/does-ganga-zumba-work/

Fitness Weight Training 2

Hope your fitness training workout is starting to give you the results you deserve. If not, then stay with the program for a few more weeks and don’t ever give up.  

It is very easy to lose heart and become discouraged but always remember, if it takes you several years to pile on the fat, then why would you be unreasonable about how long it will take you to achieve your weight training or fitness goals?

Having unrealistic goals or unreasonable expectations is not a healthy attitude to adopt. Don’t do that. Learn to manage your expectations and try and enjoy your training.

Give yourself every chance to succeed and sooner or later you will find that it’s no longer a chore trying to get up in the morning to work out or go for a run. Hang in there.

There are certain areas like the waist, stomach and upper legs that needs more weight training to build muscle and lose fat. However, do not focus on those areas in the first few weeks. Leave them until you have build a solid foundation first. Once you have achieved a good level of fitness you will find it very easy to increase your weight or the number of sets and reps you do.

As discussed in the earlier post, focus on compound exercises using free weights if possible. If you don’t have free weights, an exercise machine will work too but it will take a bit longer depending on the exercises you do.

For the first few months, do only the compound exercises and remember to keep increasing the weight, reps or sets. This will increase the intensity and forces your muscles to grow and become stronger to handle the heavier weights or higher intensity. Other ways of improving intensity is to rest for shorter periods between exercises or to try supersets.

The secret to health and fitness is in living the lifestyle that achieves those goals and staying away from bad habits like eating too much, eating the wrong foods, not drinking enough water, not sleeping enough, drinking too much alcohol and so forth.

by on March 30, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Fitness Weight Training, General
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Posted by Dean Louis on March 30, 2010

http://FitnessWorkoutSchedule.com/fitness-weight-training-2/

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