Month: April 2016

 

How to get strong by taking it easier than you might think.

I was having a discussion with 2 separate people on 2 separate days on my approach to training.  Both of them had been subjected to things like;

“You need to train to failure in order to get stronger.”

and

“You need to keep moving, rest less in between exercises”

I disagree.  Who am I to disagree?  Well I come at it from 2 different perspectives.  I’m a professional performing strongman and I’m a personal trainer (and a good one too).

As a personal trainer I have to dispel some of the things that other well meaning but misinformed personal trainers say.  And my approach often causes argument because it goes against the things they believed.

First off about that whole training to failure thing.  I used to believe that too.  It was brainwashing by bodybuilding magazines, and it was the writings of Pavel Tsatsouline that had changed my course of thinking.

Here’s the thing.  With strength training I like to explain it as a process.

The brain sends a command through the central nervous system to tell your muscle fibers to contract.  Muscle pulls on tendon which pulls on bone and that’s how movement occurs.

The central nervous system in the average person only normally contracts 20-30% of their muscle fibers.  The strength is there in you already, you just don’t have access to it yet.  Paul McIlroy has a quote that I love “Strength isn’t built, it’s granted by the nervous system.”

By teaching your body to use more of what you already have, you can get stronger, without having to train like a maniac, without getting bulky and you do it much faster.  This is why I recommend people take my no cost trial.

Because during the no cost trial you’ll discover noticeable differences in your strength…within the week…oftentimes within the first session.

So how is this accomplished?  By training to success not failure.  By being generous with rest periods so that you can recover between sets.  And by taking advantage of various neurological “tricks” that teach your body to activate more of what it’s already got more effectively.

Do yourself a favor and train effectively the first time by taking advantage of my no cost trial.

You can join my many success stories and get in the best shape of your life, even if you’ve failed before.