Which is the best timing method in excercise to increase mus

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hey all

 

after 12months of training, consisting of different press ups, crunches, bag work, stretching,

 

i have always tried to find the best method to time myself in each excercise to make it so intense that i would reach my peak performance in acheiving muscle, endurance, and maximum heart rate, these excercises that i am talking about in particular are press ups, crunches, bag work and weights once i turn sixteen.

 

In the early days of last year when i had just started training, i did lets say 20 press ups, consisiting of shoulder, kuncle, stomach and ordinary each, with lets say 30 seconds break within each of them, i have found this too intense and it therefore came to a point where i cut them down to 10 and some of them to five, which in my view is very poor in gaining any form of benefits. For crunches, i used the ab machine, nothing too high tech but it does the job, i would let say do as many until i passed out, i found some visible beneficial results after doing these crunches for about 12 weeks. After press ups and crunches, i went onto bag work, doing about 100 hundred punches, practicing shoulders, hooks, uppercuts etc.. , doing 25 of each on each hand. Then i would do about 5 kicks of each leg of front kick, side kick, round kick, back kick.

 

There was a great deal of stretching involved, and this schedule was performed every day, xcept for mondays, hehe, i said that to myslef but i eventually cut down to about 5 days a week and today i cant remeber the last day i trained properly.

 

Over the twelve months, i was interested in finding new ways of timing to help me progess in press ups and crunches and bagwork, such methods were using one minute timing methods and to achieve my maximum anaerobic threshold. I found a straight minute too intense, then i went onto the twenty second tabata timing of six session with ten second interval breaks, courtesy of Jack . This method i felt i could cope with but still the muscle build up really wasnt there. The search still goes on, and the method that was suggested by Ti-Kwon leap was very tempting. I therefore make my plee to the many professionals in this internet site and all excercise enthusiast to ask what is the best timing method in excercise to increase muscle

 

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

 

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_________________

 

Green Belt Ho gar kuien Kung Fu

 

Green Belt Kickboxing

 

15 yr old

 

10 and half stone 5,9 height

 

eyyyyyyy, fair enough lads

 

[ This Message was edited by: ad on 2002-06-09 16:51 ]

[Ti-Kwon-Leap]

I was a competitive bodybuilder for ten years so I can speak with some authority on this subject.

 

The best gains are achieved through working the muscle group about twice a week. an extremely brutal workout should be alternated with one of lesser intensity.

 

A four day split workout works quite well. you could do a push-pull routine where you do back, biceps,lats,hamstrings on monday-thursday and chest, shoulders, triceps, quads, and calves on tuesday-friday for example, or you could do upper body two days a week and lower the other two days. You can train abs on all four days because they are hard to overtrain.

 

Be sure you are drinking plenty of water and eating several small meals a day to ensure a constant supply of nutrients. eat at least a gram of protien per pound of bodyweight per day and get plenty of rest. Part of strength training is being able to tell when you have recuperated and are ready for the next workout. If you are not making gains, you may be over or under training. You must also be patient and willing to accept your genetic/biochemical limitations. In my case, I had to fight for every ounce of muscle because I was built like Frank Zane, as opposed to Lou Ferrigno.

 

Just make sure to always lift in a controlled manner so that you can avoid an injury that could possibly undo any gains that you have made thusfar. All this is assuming that you are trying to pack on a bit of muscle.

 

If you are going strictly for strength keep the reps low (1-5) be sure to warm up!

 

Again, at your age muscle mass is harder to attain so be patient! five pounds of muscle in a year is considered a big gain.

 

_________________

 

"It is not enough to aim, you must hit."

 

-Italian Proverb

 

 

 

[ This Message was edited by: Ti-Kwon-Leap on 2002-06-10 02:45 ]

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you mention that i should work my triceps, quads and claves, how can these muscles be worked?

 

 

[SaiFightsMS]

Triceps are the secondary muscle group worked in push(or press) ups. Quads are worked in leg extensions and squat type activities. Work the calves by doing calf raises - place the ball of the foot on a step or a raised platform and let the heel stretch down below the surface then raise up on your toes.

 

 

[Ti-Kwon-Leap]

Triceps can be worked several different ways using no weights.

 

First, take three chairs place them in a triangle so that your feet rest on one chair and each hand is on the chairs at your sides.

 

Your body should be in an "L" shape.

 

Now simply lower and raise your body using your arms, flexing the triceps at the top of the movement.

 

This next one is a killer: do pushups with your fingers and thumbs touching each other. Make sure you touch your nose to the floor each time, inside the little triangle that your hands form.

 

After this, try doing some handstand pushups, by this time your triceps should be pre-fatigued enough for this compound movement to finish off the triceps.

 

For your quads, try some one-legged squats, followed by lunges, followed by a seven or nine step horse stance.

 

I believe that a martial artist doesn't need big calves, just functional ones. Try jumping up stairs using one leg at a time, or extend (or chamber) your leg and hop on one leg for one to two minutes.

 

Just be sure and warm up first. I don't want to hear about how you pulled all your muscles trying these brutal exercises.

 

_________________

 

"It is not enough to aim, you must hit."

 

-Italian Proverb

 

[ This Message was edited by: Ti-Kwon-Leap on 2002-06-11 03:11 ]

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you mention Ti-Kwon-Leap, that i should do an excercise intensely, and the next few days do an amount in which i will not feel very fatigued at the end of it

 

and continue this cycle for sometime, why not just do the excercise do the extent of being fatigued everytime??

 

 

[Knuth]

Being a powerlifter I usually disagree with what body-boys:D say most of the time but I must almost completly agree with Ti-Kwon-Leap.

 

The two points I think he his wrong at are the rep scheme and big calves. Even as a power lifter I go as high as 25 reps for several weeks and then slowly work down to the 1 rep max. If calves a functional then they are big. Very seldom are small calves as strong as they can be. They are one muscle that is often forgotten and complained about. Work them.

 

One more thing. If you are only doing exercices like pushups, pullups, and dips, etc then you should do them everyday. I don't believe you can overtain with bodyweight exercices ony with weighttraining and I would recomend starting.