Made in Montana 
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This is for Phillip...my boot camp instructor. I broke my foot a few months ago. My training time was largely replaced by time spent doing a craniosacral type of treatment attempt on my foot to realign the bones so as to avoid foot surgery and since then has consisted mostly of just chest exercises with pushups, stretching, sitting in the splits while reading a book and various chores taking care of animals. My physique kind of reflects this right now. In other words, it is more like a ballet dancer than a serious body builder, which is o.k. for what I have going on right now. It's a little top heavy and not real muscular on the bottom, but, at least it is pretty lean and tight everywhere. I am stepping it up a bit with the training because I feel it's time to do so and feel inspired by everyone around me. I have been personally training my mom in her home gym and when I do that, I do it in my mind too. It afftects my physique. It's like a basketball player that visualizes that free throw shot going in the basket or that 3 pointer while he's in line at the grocery store or stuck in traffic. If you have an injury, train with your mind because it will help you look the way you do when you train...until your body can do it too.
A couple of words about training with weights...there are many ways to do it that will work; this is just the way I do it because it works for me. It will work for guys too. When I am in training, I do it 3 times/week: Mon. morning, Wed. night and Sat. morning or afternoon. This way, I have a little over a day of rest in between training days to recover and build and won't get burnt out because I will feel ready, anticipate and look forward to hitting the gym again the next time, every time. The main thing is that you have to enjoy the way you do it or you won't continue to do it, use total concentration while you do it, put your mind on the muscle you are training, train safe and smart, start with less and gradually build, feel the pressure of a challenge but not the pain of a tear that injures. Remember this is ultimately for you--no one else, so go at your own pace. And pace yourself. Don't be in a hurry to do it wrong. Take the time to do it right. Remember to breathe and have water and/or some type of sports drink with you during training so you don't get dehydrated. Some people hit a plateau and can see results when they either mix up their routine a bit and/or make sure to get enough rest. Remember, it's during the rest that the muscle grows. Whatever you train, it's gonna grow. You tear it down in the gym and then it repairs and gets bigger in your sleep so that it's ready to take on another hit the next time you pick up the weights. So, if you train, you need more sleep. O.K....here's what I do...I start with a warm up with just moving through a kind of posing routine very slowly. You can do a number of different kinds of things for a warm up....then I do it in this order, waiting between 1-2 min. between each body part before moving to the next body part:
1.) Deltoids
2.) Chest (Pectorals)
3.) Back (Mid and Upper Latisimus Dorsi)
4.) Biceps
5.) Triceps
6.) Quadriceps (front thigh)
7.) Hamstrings (back of legs)
8.) Calves
9.) Lower Back
10.) Abdominals (stomach)
11.) Neck
The logic behind starting with the smaller muscles first, then moving to the larger muscles is that about 80% of your blood is located in your glutes and legs (legs are the strongest muscle in the body), so if you work them first, then even more blood goes to those areas and it makes it harder to get the blood back into the smaller muscles of your upper body later because it forces it to work against gravity. And you want as much blood in the body part that you work when you are working it, so when I do the upper body first, then it makes me able to put in a better maximum effort in my chest, delts, biceps...then move to the larger muscles of legs and glutes. It just feels better for me when I do it like this in this sequence. And the good thing about doing it this way is that when you are working one body part, it is warming up the body part next to it so that it is ready to go next. I use machines when I work out, but prefer dumbells when possible. I usually do 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps. I work the entire body in each workout in one hour.
The things to keep in mind that need to be monitored and adjusted accordingly as you progress are the amount of weight you use, the number of repetitions, the speed of your movement, the pause between reps and sets, the number of sets, the concentration on good form and the amount of time you work out.
I learned this way to train based on the training philosophy of Steve Reeves, who in my mind is one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time. I think he looked great and had a well balanced, healthy physique. I think this basic training outline could work well for anyone. If someone is training for a bodybuilding contest or modeling, they would need to modify their approach according to their goals. I haven't elaborated on exactly how to do a specific exercise for a specific body part, and I might do that at some point, but there are many different kinds of exercises that incorporate various weights and machines and the beauty of it is you get to decide what works for you. You can change and will change things as you learn and grow. Good luck.
*This is a note for some women who might be like my sisters and I. It's good to know what you are doing when you are doing it so that you get the kind of results you want. Not everyone who is a woman wants to get as big as possible. Genetically, in my family, it is easy for the girls to get big fast and this can a double edge sword because it's great for my brother (guys), but us gals don't have the goal to get big fast, we want to be lean and toned with curves in the right places. When I started lifting weights, I was excited because it was new and I just grabbed as heavy as I could and did as much as possible because it felt good to really push to the limit and it was fun. After 3-4 weeks, the buttons popped off my blouses and after a while, I ripped the shoulders out of one of my shirts. We all thought it was kind of funny at the time and I kept lifting. At the end of about 5-6 weeks, my guy friend told me that I just needed to cut off my boobs and put a sock in my shorts and I would be ready to compete with the guys. At that point, I stopped and said, "Whoa....maybe not so good." If I stand next to man, I don't want to be a whole lot thicker and more muscular than him. Anyway, it took me about 4, maybe 5 months of not working out much at all to canabolize some of the muscle. Sometimes I will build it up for the hell of it, just for fun, but for the most part I control how much I put on there, because I don't want it that big. What I'm trying to say is that is that if you are a woman and want to tone up and keep good shape, go lighter weight, more reps. If you want to gain mass and size, go heavier weight/fewer reps. Both are fine, but everyone has different goals and there is no right or wrong really, as long as it's healthy because at a certain point, it's art. An art and a science. |
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