pproach To Training
Time Dieting: 14 Days
Current Weight (fasted): 94.8kg
Total Weight Loss So Far: 7.8kg
I LOVE Training. Out of everything that encompasses living a healthy lifestyle, training is my true passion, I love trying to push my strength as much as possible alongside just getting a good sweat on. In this article, I’ll be sharing my training structure that I will be utilising and have been utilising throughout the majority of my training “career”.
As you can probably tell from my opening paragraph, I love weight training and in particular as of probably the last 5 years, I’ve favoured the big 3! Bench press, back squat and deadlift, you could also probably throw in a standing overhead press in there too. This wasn’t always the case though, I went through probably 5 years of concentrating on bicep curls and leg extensions to achieve a decent amount of results but ultimately would lack that “density” to my physique that I craved. The look of a real powerful physique that I soon learnt could only be built from getting under a heavy barbell…For me anyway.
There are some exceptions for that rule but for the majority of us out there, if you’re looking to put on a lot of quality muscle naturally, you have to utilise progressive overload through weight training! In that, I don’t just mean lifting heavy weight all the time, you have to be smart with it. So, before I get too carried away, lets focus on the scenario at hand….Keeping hold of muscle throughout a calorie deficit. As I have said in previous blogs, unless you are using PEDs you can’t build muscle in a calorie deficit but you CAN hold onto the muscle you have and reduce the fat around it, giving it the appearance that it is bigger than before. This is what I’m going to be aiming to achieve!
So typically I will follow a PUSH, PULL, LEGS split but I’ll also throw in an ARM day on the weekends. This is just personal preference really as I feel like my arms needs a lot of work compared to my chest/ back, therefore I added in the extra work for them! Most sessions will consist of 1-2 compound lifts where I’ll warm up to a relatively heavy weight and then proceed to do working sets of 1x 5 reps and then 2x 15 reps. This may change depending on the mesocycle I am in, however this has worked really well for me to test my strength from session to session but also to get a decent amount of volume.
Rest periods are ultimately very short to maximise calorie expenditure except for when I’m approaching my heavy set of 5 for my compounds, these sets I really need to focus on my form and maximise the amount of load I’m able to utilise through the working muscle. In my opinion these sets will be crucial for me to not only retain my muscle mass but also to give my physique the dense look I desire. You may be thinking….But why? Why do you need to lift heavy weight to keep your muscle? Your muscle is essentially a LUXURY to your body, if it doesn’t NEED it, it will just get rid of it. It’s done through a process of catabolism, this is when the muscle is neither fed enough amino acids to protein synthesise or stimulated effectively enough to signal to your body that it NEEDS to be retained in order to adapt to said stimuli. Leading on from this, if you maintain the weights you lift or perhaps lift a little more if possible whilst in a calorie deficit, your body will hold onto your muscle tissue assuming your nutrition & sleep are on point.
Following on from my main compounds, I then focus on accessory work that aims to either put my muscle in a fully shortened or fully lengthened position to ensure I’m taking it through it’s full range of motion and spending enough time in each throughout my workout. The rep ranges for these exercises will typically change to 12-15 reps & consisting of around 3 working sets, in these sets I’ll also try and use intensifier techniques (drop sets, muscle rounds etc) to force my muscles to take on metabolic stress, this will mean that my calorie expenditure will increase alongside forcing blood into my working muscles. The blood volume is also important due to me taking a quality intra workout supplement which will possess key nutrients for recovery from session to session.
That’s about it! Obviously there are a lot more specifics that go into my training and I change it entirely every 12 weeks but if you are wanting a rough guide, this should be a good place to start. I hope you have found this useful and stay tuned because in next week’s blog I breakdown all my supplements that I’m currently using.
