Three Weightlifting Workouts to Shakeup your Routine If you have spent years or even months weight lifting you can reach a point where you plateau and no longer see such great gains. A great deal of this has to do with your dieting and consistency of workouts. Dieting especially takes a great deal of dedication. Another part of gains that is very easy to change and can provide better results is switching between different workouts. I personally prefer flys and squeezing exercises when it comes to chest (less stress on my shoulder joints and I feel a better burn) but after a few weeks of light-weight flys I will go back to heavy bench-press and I find them much harder than I had anticipates. What used to be easy is now difficult. This is because of the muscle memory and specific muscles I had developed with my repetitive squeezing exercises. Note: Before going into the workouts it is good that you understand that a normal weight gain for someone who workouts all year round consistently and has a great diet is 10 lbs of muscle per year. If you want to progress faster you need to shift the routine so without further ado here are three exercise workouts to shake up your routine:
Heavy Targeting -This workout is about completely destroying individual muscle groups and alternating muscle groups in a specific order to make sure that each one is fresh for the workout. The individual exercises are up to you but you want four exercises per group, 3 sets each, 4-8 reps each set. Maintain the same weight throughout each exercise making sure that you can do no more than 8 reps on your first set and at least four sets on your last rep. Every set should be to exhaustion. Hardcore: On your last set of each exercise go to exhaustion. Then lower the weight and immediately go to exhaustion again. Take a ten-second break and then lift till exhaustion once more. Afterwards stop whimpering and check how pumped your muscle is. Possible exercises could include: Monday: Chest Make sure to alternate exercises that work your bicep and tricep to avoid exhausting your arms before your Chest. Flys Decline Dumbell Press Inclined Flys Hip Pushups
Tuesday: Legs Squats Barbell Hack Squat Front leg Raises Calf Press Wednesday: Back Bent Over Row Deadlifts Lat Pulldowns Face up Plate Resistance Thursday: Triceps Barbell skull crusher Bench dips Standing Tricep Extension Close Grip Bench Press Friday: Biceps Alternating Incline dumbbell curl Barbell preacher curl Hammer Curls (rope on cable) Reverse grip barbell curls Saturday: Shoulders Cable shoulder raises (side) Cable shoulder raises (front) Dumbbell shoulder press Back Flys (bands or use cords while leaning back) Sunday: rest
Stacking Weight and Reps A classic lifting routine. Start with a light weight and work your way to a heavier weight. There are three sets per exercise. The first set is 12 reps, second set is 8-10 reps, and third exercise is 4-6 reps. Two-three exercises per muscle group. You can decide what exercises to do for each group. Monday: Chest and Triceps Tuesday: Quads, Hamstrings and Abs (all four areas) Wednesday: Upper Back and Biceps Thursday: Shoulders and forearms Friday: Traps, Neck, Lower Back
Saturday: Glutes, Calves, Sunday: rest
High Rep/Low Weight This routine is the opposite of the first with an emphasis on higher numbers of reps rather than weight. You will choose 1 exercise per muscle group depending on number of groups that day, 5 sets per exercise, with 12-15 reps per set. Make sure that you use proper form toward the end of the set. If you find yourself cheating select a lighter weight. I will leave it up to you to choose different exercises for each group. Monday: Chest, Upper Back, Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps Tuesday: All Legs, Abs, Traps, Lower Back Wednesday: Chest, Upper Back, Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps Thursday: All Legs, Abs, Traps, Lower Back Friday: Chest, Upper Back, Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps Saturday: All Legs, Abs, Traps, Lower Back Sunday: rest Hopefully this gave you some new ideas to work into your routine to help shake things up a bit. The great thing about having a good workout is not only your health but your finances as well. A lot of insurance companies will have health plans where if you report regular exercise and take a health test annually you can get much lower premiums. So not only do you put on muscle but you get personal health insurance for a cheap price. Good luck with your workout.
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