Warming Up

Hello everyone! I'm back again with another Jtrain Fitness blog post! This week I decided to talk about the concept of warming up before workouts. So let's go!

Let me first say that I'm probably not the guy you want to get your information from on this topic. From day one of my bodybuilding career I have ALWAYS dived right into every single one of my workouts head first, cold, and with the most weight I could do. In other words, I don't warm up...ever...at all. I take advantage of being at the peak of my glycogen, ATP, and therefore strength and energy, and do the most compound exercises with the most weight I can do first. I shock my body by going full throttle into my workouts and get that blood pumping fast.

Countless people have warmed me against this, but it's just something that's worked for me. Perhaps it works for me because, while I go straight into my most intense sets, I still make sure to keep in mind the correct form and listen to my body along the way.

 

Source: Thinkstock

I do however warm up one part of my body, and that's my knee on leg days. I've always had a kind of tendonitis in one of my knees, and if that part of my body is not thoroughly warmed up there will be too much pain for me to effectively lift. Therefore, I have to make sure I get the proper amount of blood pumping to my knee to get it ready to lift. If you experience this kind of phenomenon on a particular part of your body, consider warming up with VERY low weight for a very HIGH amount of reps until blood is stimulated to flow into that part of your body.

While I don't really warm up, I do find merit in doing so, and think that it can be very beneficial and even necessary to many people when they workout. Gradually introducing your body to different levels of intensity throughout a particular exercise is a good way to safely prime your body and allow it time to get ready for the next level of intensity on the next set of a given exercise. As I stated above, warming up also allows proper blood flow to be circulated to various parts of your body that can serve as a kind of "liquid cushion" that allows your body to swell to the point that it supports movements in weightlifting exercises (anecdotal claim). This is an important concept for preventing injury and getting the most out of your workouts.

So how can one warmup for a particular workout? Well, it obviously depends on the kind of workouts you're performing and the fitness goals / fitness focus you are aiming for. If you're bodybuilding and lifting weight, I'd recommend using a weight that is light but not non-existent. A weight that you can lift easily but still feel a good amount of resistance to do 15-25 repetitions with. Each of these repetitions should be full and controlled repetitions performed until failure. Aim to feel the blood flowing into your target muscle and making you "full". You could accomplish this over one set, or may need to take multiple sets to warm up with before you feel like your body is adequately primed for full-intensity lifts. If you have tendonitis in a particular joint, do NOT stop warming up until you can lift a given weight with just that particular part of your body (without using the other side) without pain and a full range of motion. I highly recommend not stretching BEFORE a weightlifting workout, as most of my sources  and experiences (both credible and anecdotal) indicate to me that having lax bodily structures is a detriment to carrying and handling the weights and movements during a weightlifting session. I've personally always stretched after a workout.

I'm not a cardio or flexibility expert, but with cardio I would imagine that bringing down the intensity of the cardio exercise you choose (running, swimming, biking, jump-roping, etc) for the first couple of minutes / trials would be of some benefit to get the blood going and wake up your cardiovascular system so that it's ready for the full-on motions of the cardiovascular activity you're performing. In other words, do a light / less intense version of a cardiovascular exercise before you start fully getting into it with full intensity.
 

This should be a jog when warming up. Source: Thinkstock

With stretching and flexibility exercises (like in yoga), I would imagine that gradually performing the stretch, going only slightly further on each stretch would be beneficial and decrease the possibility of getting injured by trying to go too far too soon without working out the tendons and various other pertinent parts of your body before hand. Work out the parts of your body relevant to flexibility as if it were dough, stretching only a little further each time until properly primed for full-on stretches.

All warmups should feel like watered-down versions of the movement you are ABOUT to do. They are kind of like "trial runs" of an exercise before they actually count. The focus shouldn't be on making any kind of gains but rather priming your body for particular movements / fitness objectives.

So keep that all in mind! Warm up if you feel you need to to prevent injury and / or optimize your workouts!

-Jtrain

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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Video Blog: Leg Training Tips!

Hey guys! Sorry for not posting last week. I decided to take a week off. But I'm back and ready to continue my current pattern of posting video blogs for you! I'm going to try and make a video for each muscle group, and this week I'll be focusing on legs! A link to the video is provided below:



CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO




Legs. There are two kinds of people in this world: the people who say they hate doing legs, and the people who lie when they say they like doing legs. Our legs are so valuable for so many reasons, but working them out is one of the biggest chores in the world.


The legs comprise some of the largest muscles in your body, and when working them out you want to focus on working out the quads, the hamstrings, and the calves. Since they are so big, they also use up a lot of energy, and thus when working them out heavily it's easy to lose your breath and feel your energy getting sapped very quickly.

It's this aspect of legs, coupled with the fact that most people aren't going to heavily invest or place high importance on the look of someone's leg aesthetic that add to overwhelming grinding sensation that is felt throughout your leg workouts.

But you need to workout legs. Legs not only complete your aesthetic by preventing you from looking overwhelmingly top heavy, but also, being such a huge muscle group, they stimulate the release of hormones beneficial to bodybuilding throughout your body in large amounts when they are stressed and /or need repair (that's completely anecdotal and may not necessarily be totally true). Furthermore, strong legs can help prevent injury in that area of your body.

I like to make my leg days efficient. I DO NOT SQUAT. Sorry if that upsets you hardcore squat-for-days gym bros. I just don't like any exercise where I need to worry about the form so much more than the actual lift, or doing exercises where one tiny mistake or misstep in form can severely injure you and keep you out of the gym for an eternity. You can hit just as many muscle groups with the same level of stress and intensity over multiple machines as you can with squatting. I do find merit in the squat exercise though, and if that's your thing then by all means keep at it! But make sure you know what you're doing.

My main exercises for leg day include lunges, leg press, leg extensions, hamstring curls, and calf raises. On the quad exercises (lunges, leg press, and leg extensions), I'll start off with one leg on each side and then finish doing the same exercise with two legs. For hamstring curls and calf raises I'll do both legs simultaneously and then drop set....though I've been experimenting with one leg to two leg calf raises.

A lot of people have a hard time growing legs. There are two main reasons I can think of for this. 1) most people hate doing legs and are therefore not consistent with it, and/or 2) they don't put enough stress on the legs. The 2nd point is super important here. Your legs can take a LOT of punishment. A LOT. They are built to withstand a lot of weight and stress constantly. Therefore, you need a lot of weight and stress to get them activated and stimulated to grow / repair them. A lot of people underestimate this weight and are stuck with the same sized legs forever. So go pretty heavy on legs, and get a large amount of repetitions with each set. This has been working for me lately, but of course that's my opinion. You might find that something else works for you.

When doing quad exercises, drive through the heel. Like really drive through the heel. Almost to where you feel that all of your pushing is going through your heel. I've found that this fully pumps, stimulates, and activates the quads. When doing exercises like calf raises, drive through the ball of your foot in the same way. When doing hamstring curls, flex the back of your quads at the end range of motion like you would with bicep curls and let your legs back down slowly. Further stimulation can happen by pointing your foot forward during these exercises to stimulate leg muscles in a compound manner (i.e. turning a hamstring curl and leg extension exercise into a calf exercise as well). On all of these exercises, FULLY flex your target muscle and hold for 1-2 seconds and bring them back down slowly.

To prevent injury, take note on how your knees and legs bend. I've found that where you position your foot, how you twist your shins, and how far out your leg is from the direction the force is being exerted, is important when it comes to stressing the knees. Like shoulders, the knees have a lot of mobility. So they are also very susceptible to injury. one wrong twist of anything below the knees, or leaning your weight the wrong way can stress your knees or, even worse, severely and /or permanently damage structures in your knees. Before you do any exercise involving legs and free-ranging leg movements, take a look and be cognizant of how your knee bends. Many of us have uniquely shaped leg bones and how they flex can be different for everyone. Execute a lift in a way that allows you to get a nice pump and successful repetition, while also taking advantage of how your body naturally moves.

And those are my leg training tips! Let me know if you have any other tips / questions / concerns! I'd love to hear them!

-Jtrain

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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