Goosey
.
THE TRAINING INTENSITY TEST
by Stuart McRobert
*
Most bodybuilders think that they train hard. Many may think that they are at the limit of their ability to train intensively. But, in reality, hardly any of them really train hard.
Please don’t take any offense from the suggestion that YOU are probably slacking in the gym. And know that most bodybuilders can improve their progress simply by boosting their training intensity.
THE INTENSITY TEST
A quick test will examine your tolerance of exercise-induced discomfort. Put on shoes with non-slip soles, and go to the foot of some stairs, or to a doorstep, curb or any rigid surface that’s elevated. Put the ball of your right foot on the elevation. Hold something for balance with one or both hands. Keep your right knee straight or almost straight. Bend your left knee and rest your left foot behind your right ankle. Then perform full-range, smooth, one-legged calf raises with your right leg.
Use controlled form at all times. Make no rapid movements. Go all the way up and hold the fully-contracted position for a second. Then take a couple of seconds to lower your right heel to the bottom. Never drop, and never bounce at the bottom. As you reach the bottom position, keep your right knee straight or almost straight, and then immediately push to the top of the next rep, hold the top position for a second, and so on. As the reps get harder to perform, resist the temptation to speed up. And resist the temptation not to pause momentarily at the top position.
If you train your calves hard you’ll generate tremendous discomfort. Generate that discomfort, and relish it! Close your eyes and imagine your calves to be balloons. Imagine each rep to be an additional breath blown inside. With each rep, imagine that the calf you’re working grows a smidgen. The more pain you withstand, the bigger your calf will become. Fire yourself up to do more reps, but keep each one perfect. No matter how hard it becomes, and no matter how intense the discomfort, keep your form correct and keep grinding out the reps.
Come up with an imaginary life-or-death struggle. Once you’re at the absolute hilt of your tolerance of discomfort, set a target of just three more reps in order to survive that imaginary life-or-death struggle. Grind the reps out — one by one, you can get them. Focus your whole being into doing the next rep, and then the next, and then the next. Don’t give up!
Push yourself hard enough and you may find that, for calf work, the severe discomfort diminishes, and a numbed exhaustion sets in. Keep going until you reach that point. But when you can no longer complete a rep, go up as far as you can, hold the top position for a second, and then lower yourself at the speed of half an inch a second. Resist the descent. Then do partial reps of just a couple of inches each, just above the bottom position. Continue until you can’t even budge out of the bottom position.
Then you should almost fall off the elevated surface, and crumple on the floor. You’ll be temporarily unable to flex your right foot. Your right calf will be hard. (But if the set didn’t devastate you like this, you didn’t take it far enough.) After a few minutes, repeat the test, but this time for your left leg.
The next few days you’ll probably experience more calf soreness than you’ve had for years, and all from just a single work set for each leg. That’s proof you’ve been slacking in your regular training.
Having done this test, compare the intensity with how you normally train your calves? I bet you went at least several reps farther than you normally do.
CAUTION: BUT, HOWEVER, IF YOU’VE NOT BEEN DOING CALF RAISES REGULARLY RECENTLY, YOU’D BETTER NOT DO THIS TEST, OR OTHERWISE YOU’RE GOING TO BE CRIPPLED FOR SEVERAL DAYS DUE TO EXTREME SORENESS.
HOW TO APPLY INCREASED INTENSITY IN YOUR WORKOUTS
You may say that you worked your calves harder than usual because you only had to perform two sets — one for each leg. One of the fundamental requirements for delivering true full-bore training is that you keep the amount of training to the minimum. You can’t truly train hard if you’re using volume training. Reduce your work sets to just two for each exercise.
You’ll probably find it easier to push yourself extra hard on high-rep calf work than on most other exercises, but you’ll still be able to push yourself harder on your other exercises if you apply yourself with the passion you had for the calf work test.
It’s easier to deliver 100% effort in a small exercise than a big one. But if you can’t deliver it in a small exercise you’ll never be able to deliver it in a big exercise. Although it’s hard work to really push yourself to the limit in a small exercise such as the calf raise or the barbell curl, it’s far harder to push yourself to the limit in the squat, leg press or bench press, for example.
Learning how to train hard takes time and practice. What may seem to be your highest degree of effort today may be modest relative to what you may become capable of later on. You’ll develop increased mental and physical toughness. Then you’ll find that you can take each set a rep or two or three farther than you could before, when comparing the same perceived degree of physical discomfort.
To begin with, because high-intensity training is so demanding, focus your attention on making sure you deliver it for the single-joint exercises in your program, e.g., calf work, and curls. Just getting it right in those exercises is a big task. When you can deliver high intensity in those exercises, THEN apply that degree of intensity to the multiple-joint exercises in your program, such as leg presses or squats, bench presses or dips, and chin-ups or pulldowns. But don’t train quite this hard on deadlifts.
HIGH-INTENSITY ALERT
If your exercise technique breaks down when you push yourself to your limit, you risk serious injury. Maintaining correct exercise form is imperative. With self-discipline you CAN maintain perfect technique even at the end of a set.
Don’t do the partial reps on more than just one set per exercise — the final work set. And don’t train with super intensity in every work set at every workout month after month — that would be too much. You must cycle training intensity to some degree, or otherwise you’ll burn out.
STAND APART FROM THE CROWD
Now you have an idea of what high-intensity training is. Lots of bodybuilders make a lot of fuss and noise when they train, and give the appearance of going to their limit, but hardly anyone really goes all the way.
There are many things that most bodybuilders do wrong in their training. The insufficiency of intensity is one of the biggest errors. Carry out the test I advocated and you’ll see that you’ve probably been slacking in your training. Then crank up the intensity, keep your exercise technique correct, follow abbreviated routines, fully attend to the components of recuperation, and get ready for some growth.
by Stuart McRobert
*
Most bodybuilders think that they train hard. Many may think that they are at the limit of their ability to train intensively. But, in reality, hardly any of them really train hard.
Please don’t take any offense from the suggestion that YOU are probably slacking in the gym. And know that most bodybuilders can improve their progress simply by boosting their training intensity.
THE INTENSITY TEST
A quick test will examine your tolerance of exercise-induced discomfort. Put on shoes with non-slip soles, and go to the foot of some stairs, or to a doorstep, curb or any rigid surface that’s elevated. Put the ball of your right foot on the elevation. Hold something for balance with one or both hands. Keep your right knee straight or almost straight. Bend your left knee and rest your left foot behind your right ankle. Then perform full-range, smooth, one-legged calf raises with your right leg.
Use controlled form at all times. Make no rapid movements. Go all the way up and hold the fully-contracted position for a second. Then take a couple of seconds to lower your right heel to the bottom. Never drop, and never bounce at the bottom. As you reach the bottom position, keep your right knee straight or almost straight, and then immediately push to the top of the next rep, hold the top position for a second, and so on. As the reps get harder to perform, resist the temptation to speed up. And resist the temptation not to pause momentarily at the top position.
If you train your calves hard you’ll generate tremendous discomfort. Generate that discomfort, and relish it! Close your eyes and imagine your calves to be balloons. Imagine each rep to be an additional breath blown inside. With each rep, imagine that the calf you’re working grows a smidgen. The more pain you withstand, the bigger your calf will become. Fire yourself up to do more reps, but keep each one perfect. No matter how hard it becomes, and no matter how intense the discomfort, keep your form correct and keep grinding out the reps.
Come up with an imaginary life-or-death struggle. Once you’re at the absolute hilt of your tolerance of discomfort, set a target of just three more reps in order to survive that imaginary life-or-death struggle. Grind the reps out — one by one, you can get them. Focus your whole being into doing the next rep, and then the next, and then the next. Don’t give up!
Push yourself hard enough and you may find that, for calf work, the severe discomfort diminishes, and a numbed exhaustion sets in. Keep going until you reach that point. But when you can no longer complete a rep, go up as far as you can, hold the top position for a second, and then lower yourself at the speed of half an inch a second. Resist the descent. Then do partial reps of just a couple of inches each, just above the bottom position. Continue until you can’t even budge out of the bottom position.
Then you should almost fall off the elevated surface, and crumple on the floor. You’ll be temporarily unable to flex your right foot. Your right calf will be hard. (But if the set didn’t devastate you like this, you didn’t take it far enough.) After a few minutes, repeat the test, but this time for your left leg.
The next few days you’ll probably experience more calf soreness than you’ve had for years, and all from just a single work set for each leg. That’s proof you’ve been slacking in your regular training.
Having done this test, compare the intensity with how you normally train your calves? I bet you went at least several reps farther than you normally do.
CAUTION: BUT, HOWEVER, IF YOU’VE NOT BEEN DOING CALF RAISES REGULARLY RECENTLY, YOU’D BETTER NOT DO THIS TEST, OR OTHERWISE YOU’RE GOING TO BE CRIPPLED FOR SEVERAL DAYS DUE TO EXTREME SORENESS.
HOW TO APPLY INCREASED INTENSITY IN YOUR WORKOUTS
You may say that you worked your calves harder than usual because you only had to perform two sets — one for each leg. One of the fundamental requirements for delivering true full-bore training is that you keep the amount of training to the minimum. You can’t truly train hard if you’re using volume training. Reduce your work sets to just two for each exercise.
You’ll probably find it easier to push yourself extra hard on high-rep calf work than on most other exercises, but you’ll still be able to push yourself harder on your other exercises if you apply yourself with the passion you had for the calf work test.
It’s easier to deliver 100% effort in a small exercise than a big one. But if you can’t deliver it in a small exercise you’ll never be able to deliver it in a big exercise. Although it’s hard work to really push yourself to the limit in a small exercise such as the calf raise or the barbell curl, it’s far harder to push yourself to the limit in the squat, leg press or bench press, for example.
Learning how to train hard takes time and practice. What may seem to be your highest degree of effort today may be modest relative to what you may become capable of later on. You’ll develop increased mental and physical toughness. Then you’ll find that you can take each set a rep or two or three farther than you could before, when comparing the same perceived degree of physical discomfort.
To begin with, because high-intensity training is so demanding, focus your attention on making sure you deliver it for the single-joint exercises in your program, e.g., calf work, and curls. Just getting it right in those exercises is a big task. When you can deliver high intensity in those exercises, THEN apply that degree of intensity to the multiple-joint exercises in your program, such as leg presses or squats, bench presses or dips, and chin-ups or pulldowns. But don’t train quite this hard on deadlifts.
HIGH-INTENSITY ALERT
If your exercise technique breaks down when you push yourself to your limit, you risk serious injury. Maintaining correct exercise form is imperative. With self-discipline you CAN maintain perfect technique even at the end of a set.
Don’t do the partial reps on more than just one set per exercise — the final work set. And don’t train with super intensity in every work set at every workout month after month — that would be too much. You must cycle training intensity to some degree, or otherwise you’ll burn out.
STAND APART FROM THE CROWD
Now you have an idea of what high-intensity training is. Lots of bodybuilders make a lot of fuss and noise when they train, and give the appearance of going to their limit, but hardly anyone really goes all the way.
There are many things that most bodybuilders do wrong in their training. The insufficiency of intensity is one of the biggest errors. Carry out the test I advocated and you’ll see that you’ve probably been slacking in your training. Then crank up the intensity, keep your exercise technique correct, follow abbreviated routines, fully attend to the components of recuperation, and get ready for some growth.
