Bodybuilding Workout Tips for a 6-day period.

Having said that, you got to be flexible. If you need an extra day for recovery, then take an extra day so that'll become 4 days over 7. Some people may need, even more, you got to listen to your body. If you need more days to recover then, you know, just extend that cycle into 7 days or 8days or whatever you need. Extra negatives are a tool that you can use to increase the intensity.

Basically, you got 3 phases of strength.

Phase 1:

The weakest phase is the positive or the lifting of the weight. That's the weakest phase.

Phase 2:

Strength is static. You're stronger on the static.

Phase 3:

Is the negative.

A lot of people think in terms of just lifting weight with a personal trainer in Telangana so for instance, a bench press, they lifted the weight to the top. All right, job done and just drop it back down and do another one. They're missing half of the rep and possibly the most important half of the rep because more muscle damage occurs on the negative than on the positive and it's the damage to the muscle that the body repairs that then becomes muscle growth. So you're missing the most important part of the rep if you don't emphasize that negative part and even when you've gone to failure on the positive part of the exercise, your muscle hasn't gone to true failure because there's still strength left in the negative. So that's why I advise some times doing additional negatives at the end of the set.

Your every failure, you do a couple of forced reps, your positive strength is depleted. You failed but you still got something left in the negative so you can get somebody to raise the weight to the top and lower. It slows down for a couple of reps until they can't control it, that way, you've depleted every, you know, every area of the rep.

In offseason, a moderate amount of cardio is good for your cardiovascular conditioning. You need some decent amount of cardio to recover between your sets. So 25, 30 minutes three times a week, moderate cardio is good for some conditioning. It's also good for recovery from the workouts because it helps--you're pushing blood around the system, get rid of the waste products from the weight workouts. I've known for years for my own feedback that if you do cardio after weight training, it kind of interferes with the recovery. The priority is recovering from that workout and rebuilding the resources, so it's much better to do your cardio separately. And funnily enough, scientific studies are coming out now and proving this if you do cardio after weights, your strength gains are less than if you did weights on their own.

I do a small amount of ab work but there's no additional weight. It's just bodyweight, short movements, crunches, reverse crunches, leg raises. Of course, if you wanted to get thicker abdominals, you could use extra resistance but most people don't because aesthetically, you don't want to build too much muscle in the midsection 'cause it spoils your shape. So just very controlled, short movements, basically abdominals is just to bring these two points together. So sit-ups and so on, not in the most effective. I found just simple forward crunches and reverse crunch where you bring your hips up toward your chest and reversing that movement, that's pretty much all I needed. You can do once a week when you're in a mass cycle, but I wouldn't recommend using extra weights 'cause it's gonna build thickness in the obliques.

There's a debate, what's better, machines or free weights?

 Neither, you know. They're both tools that you can use. As long as you're working the muscle, you're working it to failure, it doesn't particularly matter if it's a machine or a free weight. There are advantages and disadvantages.

The advantages with the free weight, if you lift the free weight and I lift the free weight, it will take a slightly different pathway because our bodies are built differently, so that's the advantage of free weight.

The advantage of a machine is that you can isolate the muscle without too much outside involvement, especially if you got injuries, they're very useful and there's more control involved. So if you want to go extra negatives and so on, of course, if you're doing a free weight, the bench press is very awkward to do extra negatives at the end. You'd have to lift the weight to the top and lower it down and it's just not practical and it's not really safe. Whereas a machine, you're doing a machine bench press, you can get your training partner to lift at the top and you can control it and it's safe.

So there's advantages and disadvantages. I use both in my training.

I've always worked with a training partner just because of working to failure, it's not practical. If you haven't got a training partner, you at least need a good spotter, somebody that knows what they're doing. If you're, you know, if you're going to failure with a--on an incline press with a free weight, for instance, if you go to failure and there's nobody there spotting you, it's very dangerous so you can get stuck with that weight on your chest. So you need a good training partner or at least a spotter, you know, to assist you in those exercises where it's not safe and practical to do it without a training partner.

I can give you guidelines, but it varies from one person to another depending on their metabolism. I usually start with a protein recommendation. If somebody's training hard and they're trying to build muscle and put on body weight, I would recommend a ballpark like 1-1/2 grams of protein fo reach pound of body weight. So if you weigh 200 pounds, for instance, 300 grams of protein a day, that's what you should be aiming for. And your body can only utilize so much protein at one time and it doesn't stay in your system for very long so that's why I recommend eating--breaking that protein requirement down into five or six small meals throughout the day and that's where a protein supplement becomes very important.

That's something I've always used since I've started training with my personal fitness trainer at home in Hyderabad because to get, 300, 400 grams of protein a day from solid food is very, very difficult and, you know, if you're working and so on, it's not practical to eat chicken breast every couple of hours. So a protein supplement is very useful to get that requirement. As far as an energy requirement, carbohydrates, it's gonna vary quite a bit from one individual to another. So I can give you a, you know, a guideline and basically if you're putting on body fat with that level, then you have to bring it down a little bit. If you're not gaining weight, then you have to go up a little bit. Whatever protein level you're taking, times that by 1-1/2 to 2. Three hundred grams of protein a day becomes 450 to 600 grams of carbohydrate a day. That would be a good guideline. And again, break it up throughout the day and keep the good source of carbohydrates, you know, fairly complex carbohydrates that are broken down slowly, released into your bloodstream slowly so you don't get spikes of blood sugar and big drops.

So we're talking about oatmeal, brown rice, sweet potatoes, vegetables, things like that. You need fats in your diet. There was one time back when I started training where it was just high protein, carbohydrates and super low fat. I found with a little bit more fat in my diet, definitely, my strength went up and I got better gains. I wouldn't just be eating egg whites, I would throw a few egg yellows in there. If you take all the yellows out, you're taking some of the amino away. So let's say you're having ten egg whites, I would say have at least three yolks in there as well. You know, steak has natural fats in there and a couple of tablespoons a day with omega fats mixed omega fats to make sure you're getting all the essential fats.

. If you got no clear goal, you're very unlikely to get anywhere.