Weight Training | Effective Training Methods to Build Muscle

Today I was back in Brisbane doing a course for work. I know from previous experience that the location that I was doing the course has a decent gym set up. So as I always do I packed my training gear, just in case I got a chance to train. As it turned out the course finished about an hour earlier than planned so I seized the opportunity to train.

Today’s session is Legs and Abs. After having a look around the gym I decided that to shock my legs a bit, I would incorporate some leg press in my workout. I would never substitute leg press for squats, as squats are the king of leg exercises, if not all exercises. However in order to keep my body guessing I decided to incorporate leg press after my squats. The reason that I chose to do them after was because I wanted to ensure that my body was fresh for squats, which is my primary leg strengthening exercise.

I have outlined on previous posts, I have set myself several strength goals, which I am aiming to achieve by the end of the 12 week program. I am placing these goals in brackets after the exercise that I am performing.

My Growth Hormone Releasing Leg Workout

Pre-Workout Nutrition:
• About an hour before training I downed a Pre-workout shake.

Warm-up:
• 5 minutes of cycling on the stationary bike.
• Dynamic Stretching
• Body Weight Squats x 20
• Single Leg Body Weight Calf Raises x 20 (on each leg)
• Leg Extensions: 2 sets x 10 reps (20kg)

Workout:

• Leg Press (Goal Weight: 300kg)
Set 1: 8 reps x 200kg
Set 2: 6 reps x 240kg
Set 3: 6 reps x 240kg

• Stiff-Leg Deadlifts (Goal Weight: 120kg)
Set 1: 10 reps x 60kg
Set 2: 6 reps x 80kg
Set 3: 6 reps x 115kg
Set 4: 6 reps x 115kg

• Standing Calf Raises (N/A Today due to the fact that the machines was not a pin loading machine)
Set 1: 8 reps x 80kg
Set 2: 8 reps x 120kg
Set 3: 6 reps x 160kg
Set 4: 6 reps x 200kg

• Weighted Machine Crunches (N/A Due to the fact that I am in so many different places and the machines all vary so much)
Set 1: 10 reps x 40kg
Set 2: 15 reps x 45kg
Set 3: 15 reps x 45kg

• Hanging Leg Raises
3 sets till failure.

Finishers – My High Intensity Fat Burning Circuit

I am still incorporating finishers at the end of my weight training session. Today I alternated between Single-Arm Dumbbell Swings and Explosive Push-ups. I started by doing 10 of each back to back, then 9 of each back to back and so on until I reach zero. The whole circuit is done without rest and took me only about 4mins to complete.

Warm Down:
• Static Stretching

The whole session including warm-up, the workout, finishers and warm down took me 55mins to complete burning about 554kcals with an average heart rate of 126BPM.

Post-Workout Nutrition:
• Straight after the session I downed a Post-workout shake.

Notes:
• All reps and sets are done with good form (no cheating or swinging the weight)
• Rest for exactly a minute between all sets except for the last 2 working sets where you rest for 2mins.
• During the workout sip on water.

Being able to complete this session was a result of good preparation and planning. I knew that there was a possibility that I would get a bit of spare time during the day, and I wanted to be able to take advantage of it. Just as I thought a bit of spare time came up so I jumped at the chance to train. Being like most people I am time poor, so if a spare hour comes up in my day and I failed to utilise it, I would have been filthy with myself. Seizing opportunities like these is a key factor for a time poor person to be able to train consistently.

PS: My plan to shock my legs worked, I could barely walk down the stairs to get out of the gym.