Almost everyone who exercises regularly has hit a plateau at one time or another. The key to breaking through a plateau is to hit your muscles with something new, to shock them into growth to continue to lose fat. There are several advanced training techniques which will help to break through a plateau and get you back to burning calories.
Supersets are a fantastic way to train with effective use of time and closely related muscle regions. A superset is when you perform two or more exercises without rest between them. Usually the superset is performed for the same muscle group or in an agonist/antagonist muscle relationship. An example, respectively, should be chest press/chest fly or bicep curl/triceps pull down.
Drop sets are another way to take your training to another level. A drop set consists of performing three sets in one, by continuously dropping the weight back and performing reps to muscle failure. You will fatigue your muscles over and over leading to growth and variety in your routine. These should not be performed more than once per week on any one muscle as they will adapt quickly and it will lose its effectiveness. An example of a drop set doing a chest press is: 10 - 12 reps of 90 lbs, 10 - 12 reps at 70 lbs,then reps until muscle failure at 50 lbs with no rest in between.
21's are yet another form of advanced training, however, not all exercises will work with this technique. Generally, bicep curls, or other forms of contraction exercises are recommended. A '21' is performed by doing the first half of the rep, stopping at the midpoint of the contraction and doing seven reps. Then, the second half of the exercise is performed, from midpoint to ending position for another seven reps, and finally the full range of motion for the exercise is performed for the last seven reps. This technique focuses on fatiguing the muscle from different ranges of motion.
While there are various types of sets you can do to shock your muscles, one of the most underrated yet most effective is changing the tempo speed of your current sets. Most people perform the concentric and eccentric contractions of an exercise at about three seconds. Try dragging the rep out for ten seconds to really work those muscles. It is a simple change and you can press whatever weight you are currently using, and it will strengthen your slow twitch muscle fibers.
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Terry likes to write on various topics and has been doing so for several years. His latest website has information on purchasing an electric heating pad and which is the best heating pad.
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