Everyone
starting out bodybuilding gets things very wrong in this category, bad advice
from friends, fellow gym members and yes even magazines. A typical example is
doing what’s called the pyramid weight lift scheme. Where you start lifting
light and go one step higher every time until you reach your maximum and then
you go back down to the lowest weight.
Why is doing the pyramid scheme wrong?
Did you know
your muscles have memory? When you finish your workout, go home and rest, the
next time your muscles will expect to lift where you finished off last time.
This is horrible when you did pyramids because the last weight you lifted was
probably 5kg or heaven forbid 1kg.
That why you
should STOP exercising when you reached the maximum weights you can lift. The
other reason why pyramids is bad: doing that last small weight has a burning
sensation correct?
You may
think that you are making your muscle so tired that is has nothing else to do
but grow, but you would be wrong. You are feeling lactic acid build up; this is
not due to muscle stimulation. You are robbing yourself of pure growth.
Should I warm up before I lift?
Before any
weight lifting you must warm up. We will do something similar to the first half
of the pyramid scheme. You should first find out what your one rep max is. One
rep max is the maximum weight you can lift doing one rep.
So take for
example bicep curls , take the heaviest weight you can find and try do one rep,
find that weight you can lift all the way. After finding that weight go find a
weight that is half the weight, we will start lifting using this.
Start off by
lifting half your one rep max weight 12 times, resting 1-2 minutes in between
each set. Then do 10 reps.
Now we will
take a heavier weight about 70% of the one max rep, do 6 reps of this. Then
take a weight of about 80%, do 3 reps, 95% do 1 rep. Now take a weight that is
105% of your one max rep, we will use this weight for training. But how can you
take a weight higher than your one max rep?
This is the
beauty in warming up in this way as you prepare your muscles for heavy lifting,
you give it blood and oxygen in order to strengthen and prevent injuries.
How much should I be lifting then?
Here is where
the magic is, after warming up you should be lifting that 105% weight of your
one rep max 4-6 times until your muscle go into fatigue. If you can do more
than 6 reps then it’s too light for you, if you cannot do at least 4 reps it’s
too heavy. It is very important to get this correct otherwise you won’t
stimulate your muscles correctly.
You should be doing about 3 sets of each muscle
group using this method. If you train like this you will see results every time
and lift more and more each time.
