18 Jan Writing The Ideal Training Program

Today’s blog post from one of our “Featured Coaches” James Ward, looks at setting up your training plan to suit you and your goals……

It’s seems to be the cool thing now to go to the gym and just do what you feel like, with no real structure, no training plan or progression tool in place. Just letting genetics and fate dictate how successful the training is. I mean, if Arnold did it then it will work for everybody and of course, after 1-2 years training, you know your body.

When we exercise, our muscles are adapting to the stimulus placed on them. The repeated action of the stimulus over time makes us more efficient at handling that action. Having a training program that enables us to progressively overload our muscles over time will allow our muscles to adapt continually. A training program should have specificity towards the goals we are trying to achieve. From a bodybuilding point of view, we are trying to build more lean muscle mass. For this, there are multiple training stimuli which we can incorporate; Mechanical tension, Metabolic stress and Muscle damage. So let’s look at these in turn….

Mechanical Tension

Mechanical Tension refers to the load which is placed upon the muscle. We know there is a direct correlation between muscle strength and muscle size. Generally speaking, a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle. These sets will be referred to as “Loading Sets” and are typically a compound exercise, performed with a weight from 80%-90% 1RM for reps of 5-12. Maintaining form throughout and leaving a rep in the tank so as not to hit complete failure.

Metabolic Stress

Metabolic stress refers to endurance or pump sets. Taking the muscle to metabolic failure through isolated, focused contractions. These can be much higher reps and utilize intensifying techniques such as supersets, dropsets, isometric holds, etc. The goal is to reach total muscular failure.

Muscle Damage

Muscle Damage refers to the pain you feel after training, DOM’s. While you don’t need to be sore after a workout to gauge the success of the workout, muscle damage needs to be present. This can be achieved through focusing on engaging the working muscle properly, moving slow and controlled on the eccentric portion of the exercise and deliberate on the concentric.

To put it together, I suggest selecting 2-3 loading exercises using compound exercises where you can focus on progressively increasing the weight you use over time. Even 1.25kg per week is still an increase. It’s important to ensure your form is immaculate throughout and you are using the muscle you are working. Yes, use a heavier load, but ensure you are using the target muscle to move the weight. Following this, use 2-3 pump sets which can be progressed in weight but use a more intuitive approach. If your form is flawed or you can’t feel the target muscle anymore, lower the weight and focus on reaching failure.

Look out for my next post on the importance of exercise selection.

You can check you James’s services offered via the “Coach” screen in the app or you can visit his website at

www.bodydevelopmenttraining.co.uk

Or his Facebook page at

www.facebook.com/bodydevelopmenttraining