Muscle Mass, A New Vital Sign? Your vital signs are all of the typical stats that they typically take on you when you go to the doctor’s office or the emergency room–typically your blood pressure, weight, and pulse. But some doctors are arguing that another important piece of information is missing from this picture–your muscle mass. Studies have found that muscle mass can be an important indicator of health, because having a higher muscle mass appears to correlate with several improved health outcomes. We’re going to look at how your muscle mass impacts your overall health, and why increasing ..read more

Enjoy Spring More with Strength Training Winter is slowly exiting and spring is moving in. As the weather warms, the days lengthen, and buy carisoprodol the clouds thin in the sky, you are free to dream of a long, active spring and summer. Swimming with friends and family, throwing around the frisbee, and taking scenic hikes in your favorite parks all become tempting. On the nicest days, even the queen of the couch considers being more active. It’s time to start thinking about your summer body as well. Not how it looks–it’s much more important how you feel. Summer is a more active time of year ..read more

Breakdowns – An Advanced Training Technique There are several advanced training techniques that you can use to make your workouts just that bit more effective. These techniques aren’t tricks or gimmicks or “body hacks”–there are no silver bullets available to you in the gym. These advanced techniques are just tools that you can use to get over a strength plateau, or make more progress with each workout. They all focus on reaching a deeper muscular fatigue in some way than you would normally be capable of. Practicing breakdown sets are one way to squeeze the last drops of gasoline out ..read more

Studies Show, You Don’t Grow In Your Comfort Zone Yale just performed a study that may indicate something about our brains that we’ve known about our muscles all along; that we need change, and sometimes discomfort, in order to grow. No progress can be made in your comfort zone. A new study by Yale that was published in the journal Neuron watched the activity of monkey’s brains while navigating a simple task. The experiment worked like this: “In the initial experiment, monkeys were given a choice between hitting a red target which provided rewards 80% of the time and a green target that p ..read more

Sliding Filament Theory – Why You’re Stronger Lowering a Weight Than Lifting It It’s easy to instinctually understand that lowering a weight is easier than lifting it–but why? You might assume that it’s because “gravity is helping you”, but that’s not accurate–gravity is actually the force pulling against your contraction when you lift or lower the weight. The only way for gravity to “help” would be to drop the weight completely and let it fall to the floor. Gravity exerts the same force on your weight when you lift and when you lower, so why does it feel easier when you lower it? The ans ..read more

Negative Only Reps – An Advanced Training Technique As we talked about in our post on advanced training techniques, you might find yourself wanting to increase the intensity of your workouts to get over a growth plateau. However, you can’t increase your weight stack forever as you approach your biological maximum potential, and you shouldn’t necessarily keep spending more and more time in the gym. You may be doing more total work, but that doesn’t always mean you’re getting more benefit, just like at your job. Instead of just increasing your hours or days at the gym, you may be ready for ..read more

Negative Accentuated Reps – An Advanced Training Technique As we discussed in our post on advanced training techniques, some people feel it is necessary, as you advance in your training, to find ways to provide more stimulus to your muscles in order to continue to grow and change. Some people try to do this with “muscle confusion” by switching around their sets or trying new types of exercise every once in a while. All this actually accomplishes and throwing you back to the bottom of a learning curve, and it actually makes your workouts less effective. You don’t need different exerci ..read more

Super Slow Training Protocol – An Advanced Training Technique As long as you continue to challenge yourself in your workout, you’re growing and improving. Sometimes, the best way to get that extra challenge is to use an advanced training technique with the HIT strength training method to bring focus and discipline to your workout. The super slow training protocol can be a good way to overcome strength plateaus for advanced trainers who otherwise struggle to provide their muscles with the necessary overload. Check out our master list to see all of the advanced techniques we recommend. This week ..read more

Forced Reps – An Advanced Training Technique Are you ready to add some focus and advanced technique to your workout? Over the next several months, we’ll be diving in to several advanced techniques available for the HIT method of strength training. Check out our master list to see them all. This week, we’re going to take a look at Forced Reps. What Are Forced Reps?  Forced reps are a technique that allows you to get a few more repetitions out of an exercise to increase muscular fatigue, and it requires the assistance of a trainer. As outlined in the book “Maximize Your Training; Insights f ..read more

Training Techniques – How Can I Step Up My Routine? The High Intensity Training (HIT) method of strength training is science and research based, so it’s no wonder that we have developed several training techniques with the HIT method in order to maximize the effectiveness of their workouts. As we discussed last week in our post about resistance training methods, there is no magic bullet here–what’s effective for one person may not get the same results for another, and the research shows that you likely get similar health benefits for using different resistance training techniques. However, it ..read more