The 3 Golden Rules Of Weight Training To Grow Stronger, Bigger Lose Fat

As it is with everything in life, there are two ways to do things – do it as everyone else is doing it without questioning, or try to get the maximum output for the efforts you put in. When it comes to weight training, sadly most people don’t have a clue about how to train.

Following are three training principles that you should keep in mind, no matter what your goals are:

1) Training frequency

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For the vast majority, more often than not, your muscles will be completely recuperated and ready to be trained again in 48-72 hours. Yes, you read that right, your muscles will be recovered enough to be trained again in two days. This implies that if you hold your muscles up any longer than that without training, you are just wasting time as shown in this study. 

It isn’t so much that “bro splits” don’t work, but do you want your workouts to just work or do you want to achieve maximum output for the efforts you put? If yes, then start hitting every muscle group twice a week. Presently beyond any doubt, on the off chance that you happen to be the second coming of Ronnie Coleman and squat around 300 kgs and bench press 200 kgs, then perhaps your muscles can take up to seven days to recoup. For rest of us mere mortals, we just need a day or two until the point when we’re ready to hit that muscle again. 

You have to understand the point that a bigger muscle sustains more damage during training and takes more time to recuperate greater from the breakdown that training causes. You presumably definitely know naturally that your biceps recuperate quicker than your hamstrings, for instance. So, ideally bigger muscles like your chest/legs and back should be trained around two to three times a week and your smaller muscles can be trained up to three to four times a week.

2) Progressive Overload

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Surprisingly, muscle strength and size is proportional. Which means it takes a specific amount of muscle to lift a specific amount of weight. Although novice lifters can make rapid advances in strength as compared to muscle mass, but once you pass that stage and are not a novice anymore, you will not make progress in muscle size as long as you don’t progress strength wise. 

A large portion of the gym going population still does not understand the importance of progressive overload and a large chunk out of those who do, do not fully appreciate how paramount it is, particularly when those weights get heavier and heavier over time.  We frequently believe we’re progressing when we’re most certainly not. 

Think back and check whether your weights for sets of 8-10 have increased on lifts like squats/deadlifts or presses over the course of a month or two. On the off chance that they haven’t, it is almost certain that you haven’t gained any considerable amount of muscle. You will only increase in size when the amount of weight you are lifting increases.

3) Train The Same Way Whether You Are Cutting Or Bulking.

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There are a number of things that you need to keep in mind. You cannot build muscle effectively if you are not in a surplus and you cannot lose fat effectively if you are not in a deficit, regardless of how “good” your training is. When you are on a diet to lose fat, the reason we lift weights is to preserve our lean muscle mass, which otherwise would have been lost along with fat because of lack of stimulus.  So your lifts should not go down in terms of weights when you are trying to lose fat. The best fat loss training program thus converts to the best mass gaining training program when you start eating in a surplus. 

Training and nutrition are very closely related when it comes to achieving your fitness goals: Training is the stimulus and nutrition is needed for energy and recuperation.

Seek progress, not perfection.

Nav Dhillon is an online coach with GetSetGo Fitness, an online fitness company that helps people with fitness goals right from losing weight to competing in bodybuilding shows. Nav is an avid bodybuilding enthusiast and heads the NABBA (National amateur bodybuilders association) as a General Secretary. This innate passion and position has helped him work with a lot of bodybuilders to help them take their physique at the next level. He also has a lovely pet called Buster whom he enjoys playing with in his free time. You can reach Nav on nav.dhillon@getsetgo.fitness to take your fitness and physique to the next level.

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