Get fit with Maik
8 THINGS I WISHED I HAD KNOWN 10 YEARS EARLIER.
Having been involved with weights for a quarter century (for those of you that are historically inclined, I started lifting when Yugoslavia was still a country) I do have to audacity of having an opinion as to what were the 10 biggest mistakes I made during my lifting career. I listed them below in the hope that you will not repeat them but instead learn from my mistakes, thereby accelerating your progress.Training a muscle once a week is not enough. I used to follow the classic “train each muscle once a week” split. So I blitzed bombed, destroyed, and annihilated. Did they grow? Not so much to be honest. The reason is that muscle protein synthesis settles back to base line within 36 hours, therefore the gains stop after that. If you have a stubborn muscle group you can train it three times a week with moderate volume. Do this for 4-6 weeks, and then switch the focus toward another body part. Ugly reps are stupid. Yes partial reps grunted out with the help of two or three lifting partners look really cool and manly but they do more harm than good. For once, they wreck havoc on your central nervous system in terms of recovery and secondly, they are the cause of a lot of injuries. If you have the joints of Ronnie Coleman, by all means beat yourself up. For most of us, stick with one rep below failure. Your gains and joints will thank you.Volume matters. Overall volume that is. As we get better at anything the law of diminishing returns kicks in. If you ever learned a new language you will remember that the first weeks feel magical. Every day you learn a new word, ways to conjugate and soon you form little sentences. In other words, the path from being a mite to being able to order bread in French is rather easy. To read Voltaire is rather difficult and requires disproportionate effort. Ditto in training, once we reached a decent level of performance we need to do more and/or add more intensity techniques to push the physique to new limits. Once I understood that and increased the volume from the traditional 3 sets of 10 for 3 to 4 exercises, my progress increased dramatically. What is the upper limit in terms of volume? We are not quite sure but anything over 30 sets per muscle per week does not seem to yield better results.You must avoid program hopping. It is so easy to get distracted these days. So many websites, magazines, and people selling programs...you name it. This leads to analysis paralysis. I was often chasing the next shiny thing, changing my workout goals every few days. Looking back I made the most gains when I stuck to a routine for at least 4-6 weeks. By that I mean define a goal such as add 20 lbs. to your squats or train chest three times a week for a month. Doing so would allow me to ramp up the intensity, do proper reload and assess my progress. Most supplements are useless. Yes. There, I said it.Taking it from the top, training, diet, and recovery will be responsible for 95% of your physique. Supplements are somewhere in the 3-5% range. Protein powders fall somewhat into the diet part and can be very helpful, especially for larger athletes or when traveling. What about the rest? Glad you asked.1. Zinc and magnesium deficiencies are very common among athletes, so a ZMA supplement at night will be helpful to restore balance and also help with sleeping.2. Vitamin D3 levels are chronically low, especially during the winter months. Think 2,000 to 6,000 IUs a day.3. Creatine is one of best-researched supplements and has proven time and time again to work very well in terms of enhancing recovery and building up strength.4. Adding Omega 3’s by consuming fatty fish, such as salmon, or a fish oil supplement, has been shown to enhance muscle growth and increase testosterone levels. Up to 3 grams per day of fish oil supplementation is beneficial in order to balance our ratio between dietary Omega 3 and Omega 6.5. And to answer what everyone really wants to know:Fat burners = overpriced caffeine pills.Steroid replacements= why would NFL players risk their career using the ” real thing” if they could just take the latest “as seen on CNN” herb?And just to hammer in what really matters: nothing, not even steroids will work without proper training and diet.6. Don’t take everything literallyIn the world of instagram and Facebook it is very easy to develop body image issues or get caught up in negativity.Here is a fun fact: A lot of trainees are in shape despite their workouts and diets. Let me elaborate: bodybuilding and fitness is one the most non-scientifically run sports you’ll ever come across. I can not wrap my head around why that is but if lets say swimming and track and field coaching is at the level of an iPhone, bodybuilding would be a Vietnam war mobile phone where one guy carries the phone and the other one drags the battery. Of course, here I am referring to “broscience”Example: So the next time some IG or FB “celebrity” talks about his 50 + Sets workout, remember the following things; It’s a story, not a study. It may be his workout.You do not know his background. Has he been an athlete before and can tolerate such high volume? You do not live with him and have no idea what he eats, does for recovery, drugs used etc.In the end, always refer back to science such as the progressive overload principle and figuring your caloric needs / macro breakdowns.7. You do not need to eat every 3 hours.I stressed myself out so much (and my environment) by trying to eat every three hours as to avoid going into the dreaded catabolic state. I would bring containers to church, weddings, flights ...you name it. The truth is: your body does not have a stopwatch and even if you do not eat every three hours you will not fall apart immediately. Here is what really matters.Hit your overall macros on a daily and weekly basis. Consistency is key, meal timing a very distant second or third. Do not take longer eating breaks than 6 hours (yes, I do not recommend intermittent fasting).What about the thermic effect of food? Here is the thing: a few smaller meals will give smaller rises of the basic metabolic rate due to the digestive action, whereas a few big meals will give. You guessed it: bigger bumps. The net sum is the same. If you are a smaller individual and you are only consuming 1500 calories, a 5-6- meal approach is not all that satisfying. Someone bigger taking in 5000 calories plus will obviously needs multiple meals to achieve that goal which will then cause a higher frequency. In fitness and in life, always question dogmas and absolutes!8. Not to be afraid to overstrain.If you open any fitness magazine or website these days, you would thing that all of America is greatly overtrained. However, Overtraining happens much less than one would think. Basically, overtraining occurs whenever the volume and intensity of someone training exceeds their ability to recover. This means progress is coming to a screeching halt, due to delayed recovery and elevated cortisol levels. You are likely to lose mass and strength while being in an over-trained state. Other symptoms can include irritability, lack of appetite, sleeplessness, loss of enthusiasm and motivation. Even depression is in the cards for you. You are more likely to get sick and/or injured, and your little injuries will take longer to heal.So, do you see yourself as having these symptoms? Yes, I am over-trained! Not so fast, I am afraid. I believe that true overtraining is extremely rare in today’s gym world. Muscles recover within 48 hours, which is when protein synthesis rates levels off. So in reality, actual muscular overtraining is rare if everything else is in place. By everything else I mean recovery and nutrition. In reality, I would venture out and say that most people are undertrained, under nourished and over stimulated. In most cases, combination of bad sleeping and eating habits is the cause of their lack of progress not the volume of their sessions.
ABOUT MAIK WIENDENBACH
Author and world renowned fitness expert, Maik Wiedenbach is changing bodies with over 10 years of award winning experience. He is breaking barriers and showing people the secret to getting in shape the correct way.
His recent book 101 Fitness Myths tackles some of the common fitness myths that hold people back from getting the body they want and deserve. In the book, Maik gives you everything you need to know to turbocharge your workouts to get leaner and stronger-faster!