Winston Salem Fitness

What is the best love handles exercise?

That was a question a client recently asked.

His heart was in the right place. He wants to get rid of his gut and love handles, and wanted to know the best love handles exercise.

I don’t know if he liked my answer at first, but once I explained it, he got the point and was pretty satisfied, at least I think he was.

When it comes to love handles exercise, there really is no such thing as “the best” love handles exercise.

There are lots of exercises that work the area of the love handles, but even they don’t delier much benefit as it directly pertains to losing the fat that makes up the love handles.

Sure you could do some oblique crunches, twists, etc. as a love handles exercise, but to be quite honest, they won’t do that much when it comes to actually losing your love handles.

You need to focus on a couple things.

First, you need to switch your mentality from “the best love handles exercise” to doing full body abs exercises and full body fat loss workouts.

That doesn’t mean you need to spend all your free time in the gym. Actually, it means quite the opposite.

Because when you work your entire body in your fat loss workouts and do full body abs exercises, you are able to drastically cut down on the total time you need to spend exercising.

So, when it comes to a love handles exercise, I would have you doing exercises like push-up variations including spiderman push-ups, “T” push-ups, medicine ball push-ups, etc.

I would also have you doing full body abs exercises like mountain climbers, or you could do cross body mountain climbers as they put a little bit more emphasis on the love handle area and actually count as a love handles exercise.

I would also have you doing exercises like overhead squats and lunges. Doing those variations of squats and lunges, put extra emphasis on the “core” which includes the love handles, so you not only work your legs and shoulders, you’re also working your abs, core and love handles, making those two leg exercises very good love handle exercises.

One thing that usually gets overlooked when it comes to love handles exercise and losing stomach fat is nutrition.

Most people just don’t want to worry about their nutrition as it pertains to losing fat. They would rather “out exercise a bad diet”, but that really is impossible.

If you want to lose fat, more specifically, if you want to lose your love handles, you need to spend some time cleaning up your diet.

You should totally eliminate all processed grains. So things like white bread, crackers, chips, white pasta, white rice, etc. are out.

Focus instead on getting your carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables and whole grains. Bring some fruit with you to work to have as a snack, or leave an apple in your car to have on the drive home.

Eat at least 1 vegetable with every meal…and don’t ruin it by loading it up with some sort of dressing.

You should also make sure you eat breakfast every morning. Start your day off right with a fat burning smoothie, or an omelet with vegetables in it and whole wheat toast and real fruit juice. Or if you’re a cereal person, just make sure it’s a high fiber cereal that doesn’t include a lot of processed grains.

And when it comes to cardio as a form of love handles exercise, stick with interval training rather than boring, moderate-intensity cardio.

Interval training, when done properly, keeps you burning fat for hours upon hours after you’re done while the fat burning from steady-state cardio pretty much stops when you stop. Plus it’s very boring and takes way too long to complete.

Interval training will have you done with your cardio workout in around 15-20 minutes and only needs to be don a few times a week.

It’s an excellent love handles exercise that you should incorporate today.

If you follow even 2 of the 3 love handles exercise tips I gave you, you will be well on your way to losing stomach fat, and more importantly, the love handles within weeks.

Don’t wait. Start right now.

Core exercises strengthen the muscle groups around the pelvis and torso. These muscles are very important to your overall body strength; however, most people overlook this crucial area.

What you will quickly discover is that once you incorporate core exercises into your daily regimen, doing everyday things will become so much easier. Everyday movements that require some body strength, such as lifting up kids, pushing the lawnmower, using a vacuum cleaner and bending down and back up, become less stressful. Another benefit of doing core exercises is that you find you can now do even more things to include playing tennis, softball, golf, and other fun sports.

Another huge benefit associated with doing core exercises is that you will notice a much better posture. As a result, experiencing muscle strain, injury, and pain subsides. It is a common misperception that pushups and crunches are the only exercises needed to have a strong core. In truth, there are distinct core exercises that do much more. The key is to add core exercises to your normal workout so these muscle groups are no longer neglected.

Now, some core exercises do include doing pushups, crunches, sit ups, and squats. However, there are additional exercises that should be added. For instance, the following are some options that you might consider.

- Bridge – With the bridge, you would begin by lying on your back, keeping your knees bent and your back completely relaxed without any kind of arching or pressing the back to the floor. Tightening the abs, slowly lift your hips off the floor, aligning them with the shoulders and knees. Hold this position for 5 seconds and then slowly move back to the starting position.

- Segmental Rotations – Another of the core exercises that is highly effective is this. This begins with you lying on the floor on your back, bending the knees and relaxing the back. Again, tighten the abs while slowly allowing your knees to move to the left of the body. Just make sure your shoulders do not come up off the floor in the process. At first, you will only be able to lower the knees so far but in time, you will find your flexibility and strength improving. Once your knees have been moved to the left, hold them for five seconds. Return the knees to the center position, slowly moving them to the right, again holding for five seconds before returning to the center. You should do three sets at first, slowly increasing.

- Quadrupeds – Start on your hands and knees, keeping your hands shoulder’s width apart. Then, make sure the neck and head is perfectly aligned with the shoulders. Tighten the abs, lift the right arm off the floor, and reach forward. Hold this position for 3 seconds. Lower the arm and do the same for the left arm.

Abdominal muscles exercise for beginners must begin with a plan for the basics of the workouts. Whew … that’s a mouthful! abs fitness shouldn’t be that complicated. So, let’s start over

You want six pack abs? ::.Create a plan. ::.Start slowly. ::.Follow your plan. Your plan should include these 4 components:

.::. DIET .::.
If you are just starting your quest for six pack abs, you probably need to lose weight. In fact, chances are that you are either overweight or obese.

The Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (cdc.gov) states that “overweight and obesity are both labels for ranges of weight that are greater than what is generally considered healthy for a given height”. If you fall into one of these categories, the likelihood of certain diseases and other health problems is increased.

The body mass index (BMI) generally correlates with the amount of your body fat. Your weight and height are used to calculate your BMI. So, proper diet resulting in reasonable weight loss is one of the 4 primary components in your plan to achieve six pack abs.

.::. WALKING .::.
If you want to know how to get a six pack, you’ll need to understand that walking plays a critical role in your plan. Walking provides great abdominal muscles exercise basics. Beginners should include walking workouts in their plans to get six pack abs.

Try to walk 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) every day. Even if you have not been walking 3+ miles everyday, you should be able to complete this distance in less than 1 hour. After you have walked every day for 2 or 3 weeks, you should be able to reduce your time to 40 or 45 minutes. As long as you are able to walk 3.1 miles at a pace brisk enough to finish in 40 minutes or less, your heart rate should be such that you feel good about your effort but not exhausted. NOTE: Please consult with your doctor before implementing any components of your abdominal muscles exercise plan.

.::. EXERCISE .::.
It is widely recognized that the most important exercise in your quest for six pack abs is … stretching. That’s right, stretching is a critical part of your abdominal muscles exercise workouts because your body must remain limber and flexible in order to reap the fullest benefits from the other components of your plan.

Of course, crunches are one exercise always associated with developing six pack abs. However, you should be aware that some controversy exists about the importance of implementing this type of exercise into your workouts (more info at sixpackabs.biz). You’ll need to review opinions regarding crunches to determine the extent to which you want to implement them into your workouts.

.::. WEIGHTS .::.
Workouts using weights are important in abdominal muscles exercise workouts for beginners. The basics of weightlifting are addressed on thousands of pages on the Internet (for example workoutsgym.com), so with very little effort you should be able to locate step-by-step instructions for using weights at home or at a gym to develop six pack abs. Fitness routines which result in a flat stomach generally include weight training for 3 days per week, while allowing your muscles to rest for 1 day between workouts.

So, you want six pack abs? Your diet, walking, exercise, and weights will all be important to your success. There are lots of FREE resources available. Just remember to create a plan, start slowly, and follow your plan.

Some of the causes of lower back pain are significantly more sinister and complex than others, however a universal constant is the need for an effective regime of specific exercise to strengthen support for the spine. A non-specific exercise program can never expect to achieve the level of support required.

Within 72 hours in a healthy body, muscles can begin to lose strength, and in so doing can reduce their ability to support and mobilise the spine. This is the case in a relatively healthy body, and sooner in the not-so-healthy. Fortunately, the restoration of necessary specific spinal support strength, generally speaking, is a relatively simple and attainable task for most back pain sufferers, provided the task is approached in a systematic and incrementally organised manner.

The lengthening of muscle fibres is achieved by performing appropriate stretching, and so by combining the two activities of specific exercises AND corresponding appropriate stretches, all done in a proper, routine and regular manner, will result in the vital elasticity necessary for a healthy and efficiently functioning spine. As a general rule, most resistance exercises predominantly achieve the shortening of muscle fibres only. Yet the restoration of specific strength represents only one half of the formula for essential elasticity within the soft tissue that supports the spine.

The sequence of the activities is also critical. The essential sequence is to first gently warm up in a non-load-bearing and non-impacting manner; next, to do appropriate stretches. This is then followed by the exercise regime. The sequence concludes by a warm-down [if necessary] and finally with a repeat of the stretching.

Because there are three movement functions of the spine, it is impossible to do only one stretch in order to involve all of the muscles. The series of stretches must include all of the muscles that directly or indirectly relate to the mechanical support of the spine. It is essential therefore to do at least THREE effective stretches both before and after the specific exercise/s.

Stretching not only assists in the restoration of elasticity, but also helps to rid the muscle of waste products, and assists in the restoration of the body’s naturally occurring symmetry. During the specific exercise/s, dependent on the duration and severity of the exercise/s, a build-up of deposited waste product may remain within the muscles/s. Failure to stretch effectively invariably produces an asymmetrical [non-symmetrical] body pattern.

The maintenance of specific spinal support strength will better enable the spine to be less vulnerable to potentially degenerative compression. Having said that, it is crucial to embrace the fact that even a healthy, non-painful spine requires systematic and routine de-compression in order to remain pain-free. As a consequence of this knowledge, specific spinal support strength exercises will better equip the human spine to cope with various weight-bearing activities.

By combining the principles of restoration of elasticity, symmetry and de-compression, the spine invariably possesses the capacity to recover however without respecting these principles, no amount of lower back pain exercises can expect to achieve anything more than temporary pain relief, at best.

Some of the causes of lower back pain are significantly more sinister and complex than others, however a universal constant is the need for an effective regime of specific exercise to strengthen support for the spine. A non-specific exercise program can never expect to achieve the level of support required.

Within 72 hours in a healthy body, muscles can begin to lose strength, and in so doing can reduce their ability to support and mobilise the spine. This is the case in a relatively healthy body, and sooner in the not-so-healthy. Fortunately, the restoration of necessary specific spinal support strength, generally speaking, is a relatively simple and attainable task for most back pain sufferers, provided the task is approached in a systematic and incrementally organised manner.

The lengthening of muscle fibres is achieved by performing appropriate stretching, and so by combining the two activities of specific exercises AND corresponding appropriate stretches, all done in a proper, routine and regular manner, will result in the vital elasticity necessary for a healthy and efficiently functioning spine. As a general rule, most resistance exercises predominantly achieve the shortening of muscle fibres only. Yet the restoration of specific strength represents only one half of the formula for essential elasticity within the soft tissue that supports the spine.

The sequence of the activities is also critical. The essential sequence is to first gently warm up in a non-load-bearing and non-impacting manner; next, to do appropriate stretches. This is then followed by the exercise regime. The sequence concludes by a warm-down [if necessary] and finally with a repeat of the stretching.

Because there are three movement functions of the spine, it is impossible to do only one stretch in order to involve all of the muscles. The series of stretches must include all of the muscles that directly or indirectly relate to the mechanical support of the spine. It is essential therefore to do at least THREE effective stretches both before and after the specific exercise/s.

Stretching not only assists in the restoration of elasticity, but also helps to rid the muscle of waste products, and assists in the restoration of the body’s naturally occurring symmetry. During the specific exercise/s, dependent on the duration and severity of the exercise/s, a build-up of deposited waste product may remain within the muscles/s. Failure to stretch effectively invariably produces an asymmetrical [non-symmetrical] body pattern.

The maintenance of specific spinal support strength will better enable the spine to be less vulnerable to potentially degenerative compression. Having said that, it is crucial to embrace the fact that even a healthy, non-painful spine requires systematic and routine de-compression in order to remain pain-free. As a consequence of this knowledge, specific spinal support strength exercises will better equip the human spine to cope with various weight-bearing activities.

By combining the principles of restoration of elasticity, symmetry and de-compression, the spine invariably possesses the capacity to recover however without respecting these principles, no amount of lower back pain exercises can expect to achieve anything more than temporary pain relief, at best.

By: Richard A. Convery

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Richard A. Convery provides the best advice about how to do Lower Back Pain Exercises for Pain Relief in just 15 minutes a day.

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Pileses is among the most basic awful, embarassing disease to get. Regrettably, statistics tell that one-half of the American folks will have this condition by the time they arrive at the age of fifty. And then allow us to look at one of the great causes of pileses and an physical exercise that allegedly could help.

Pileses or hemorrhoids is one form of a varicose vein. What does that imply? That implies that the venous blood vessel round the rectum turn swollen, and this may cause great irritation. A few citations brings up that Kegel exercise could aid addressing with pileses. Additional citations say that you must be heedful doing the physical exercise when you have got pileses. Perplexing right? Time to get down to the bottom of this contradiction.

What is Kegel exercise?

Kegel exercise is a form of physical exercise made from the originator of it, Arnold Kegel MD.. These physical exercise comprises of tensing and relaxing the muscular tissue in the pelvic floor area. Now, that muscular tissue area is seldom developed by day by day actions, so exercising them must be intentional. Now practicing the physical exercise places pressure on the muscular tissue group. Somebody already with pileses must be heedful not to contract the muscle to the point of pain. That will cause even more force to the anal venous blood vessel and could cause the situation a lot worse.

Hold it! You said Kegel would aid?

Yes, kegel helps preventing pileses from forming. Particularly with pregnant women, pileses is caused since there’s more blood circulating through your venous blood vessel when you’re with child. This can cause your venous blood vessel, specifically those below your womb, to be dilated. Now this is where Kegel contributes! By exercising Kegel practice you’ll be able to benefit from it in 2 manners. The 1st is that they will increase blood circulation to your rectum, this prevent pileses. The 2d is that they will fortify the vaginal and perianal muscular tissue, which will ease curing after delivery. So the point is, Kegel helps to prevent and fortify the muscular tissue areas where pileses could occur. There’s no contradiction in the citations, sometimes they just do not put when is the most effective time to use it.

How do you do it? This is the easiest way I came up with.
1. Tense the muscles in your vaginal and anal area.
2. Keep it in this way for 8 seconds, and then repeat it all over again.
3. Do it a couple times a day.

Sit-up is the most popular AND yet, the worst ab exercise. Most people don’t know that sit-up is not a true ab exercise. When performing a sit-up, your main trunk flexor, the iliopsoas muscle, often does the majority of the work while the abs are not fully recruited.

The iliopsoas muscles originates on the lower back so it pulls on the lower back during every repetition of sit-up, especially when your feet are held down or anchored, or repetitions are performed in a jerky manner. Too many sit-ups can lead to strength imbalance between iliopsoas and abs, poor posture and lower back pain.

People who hold weights while doing sit-ups think that helps to build their abs. Unfortunately, they increase the chances of lower back injury significantly. The iliopsoas muscles work much harder and place even more strain on the lower back than bodyweight sit-ups. Additional weight may lead to poor exercise form, thus amplifying the likelihood of injury.

Crunches are another common ab exercise. Doing hundreds of crunches alone and regularly can pull your head forward and leave your spine slightly flexed (leading to hunch back). You end up with poor posture and lower back pain.

If you don’t overuse crunches, they can still be an effective ab exercise. Vary your ab workout just like you vary your cardio and strength training exercise.

There are plenty of safe and effective ab exercises for conditioning and strengthening your abs, which many people are not aware of. They include total body exercises that work the abs and swiss ball workout.

Believe it or not, you can develop amazing abs without ever doing a single sit-up!

Although walking will benefit almost anyone, someone with high levels of fitness probably wouldn’t gain that much. In fact you only need to walk for as little as 30 minutes every day to start seeing health benefits. Walking fast can be quite tiring though so it is a good idea to take a break or slow down every so often to relax the muscles and joints.

Try walking in different settings, alternating walking with dance on different days, and of course including a partner can be much more interesting than going at it alone. If you are someone who attends the gym regularly, there are machines which give you the opportunity to walk or run on them which can be an efficient use of exercise time.

For anyone that does little physical activity then regular walking would be about the best type of exercise you could carry out. Weight-bearing activities, like walking and golfing, which involve lifting or pushing your own body weight is also excellent as two exercises are combined.

So there are many benefits to walking as an exercise, there is little cost involved; it doesn’t impact on your joints nor do you generally need to buy equipment unless you are looking to set up a home gym and include a treadmill. To start, it is best to limit your walking to just five minutes a day at first and then gradually increase this in stages to that magic thirty minutes pre day.

If you want to improve your general health and keep fit, or if you want to reduce your weight, walking is a good place to start and has a multitude of health benefits for everyone. Although if you are looking for fitness equipment that will maximize your walking efforts, then a treadmill is the obvious choice.

Treadmills are still the most popular exercise machine out there, but not everyone can use a treadmill safely, especially when it is to be used for running because of the often high impact exercise that is required. A treadmill works because it utilizes a belt that rotates at various speeds and can be raised at one end to simulate a hill; this give the equipment the ability to be used to help improve the heart, lungs and circulation of the user and increasing their stamina.

The heart of your exercise treadmill is its motor and it is this plus the treadmill’s ramp size that are the most important aspects to look for. The treadmill works for a lot of people who like to work out in the privacy of their own home.

Some people like the fact that they just spend an odd ten minutes here or there on it whenever it suits them but however you carry out your walking exercise it doesn’t matter just as long as you do.

Strength training programs now come in all shapes and sizes. You can usually find a training program for athletes at most high schools, and even some middle schools. There are a countless number of fitness centers and smaller training studios that offer personal or small group weight training. Some of you may be participating in them right now.

Most of these programs continue to follow a bodybuilding-style format. 3 sets of 8 repetitions, push yourself to the edge, do what it takes to lift large amounts of weights. No real thought on the effect of rest times, or how fast the bar or dumbbell moves during the lift.

In this series of training articles I will attempt to provide some general knowledge on how each variable within a strength training program can affect your long-term results. Today we will cover proper weight choice, and the speed in which the weight is lifted. Parts 2 and 3 will cover rest times, how to determine the number of sets and repetitions, and why proper technique is so important.

Choosing the right weights

We’ll start here because this is the topic that can save you from serious injury, or on the flip side, dedicating months and years to training without ever making significant improvements. Beginner weightlifters often have no clear strategy for picking the right weights, and will often just use what someone else around them does. No two people are alike, however, and each individual should follow a simple plan that suits their own needs.

A weight that is too heavy can obviously cause some major damage, like crushing you for example, but even if you can move it there are still potential problems. Any weight that causes you to move it with poor technique is too much. If you need a spotter to assist you, that is also a sign the weight is too heavy.

Going lighter will overcome these issues, but then you will not sufficiently challenge your body to adapt, or change, to the stress you put on it. Your body is an incredible machine, and it is perceptive enough to know that if it can already perform a task without any potential danger, it won’t change a thing. You will need to challenge yourself a little in order to make progress.

So where does this leave you? Kind of like the old Three Bears fairytale, you need to find weights that are not too heavy, not too light, but just right.

This means being able to do every repetition you were supposed to using the heaviest weight possible, but with excellent form and no help. In addition, you should have been able to do 1 or 2 more repetitions with that weight, even though you will not actually complete them. That is the perfect weight.

You will notice that I am not recommending squeezing every last ounce of effort into each set, more like 90%. Many of the push to failure techniques, or partner assisted extra reps are not only unnecessary for all but the most elite athletes, they are counterproductive. They burn way too much energy for what you will get out of them.

By holding back those last one or two reps, you will be able train more often, and with greater effort in the long run. And a funny thing will start to happen…you will start making gains like you’ve never experienced before in your life!

To find your perfect weight on each exercise, start conservatively. Pick a weight that you absolutely know you can handle, and complete the set. Be observant, pay attention to how easy it actually was, and make a logical increase on your next set. Continue this until you reach that perfect weight.

Performing exercises at the proper speed

This is an overlooked aspect to training, yet it can make a real difference in your results from any program. There is definitely a right pace to raising and lowering a weight if you are training for sports.

Any time you are using a barbell or dumbbell, the exercise is in its “eccentric” phase when you are lowering it. Eccentric as a strength training term refers to when a muscle is being lengthened under the tension of carrying an extra load (the dumbbells, the bar, or any other form of resistance). The “concentric” phase is when the resistance is moving up, or when you have to apply a force to get the weights to move against gravity
(the third phase of a lift, the “isometric” phase, occurs when the weight is not moving at all, and will not be a focus of this discussion). Your muscles will shorten, or contract, in the concentric part of the lift.

The eccentric and concentric phases should be thought of separately, because they develop two different athletic skills. The eccentric phase improves your ability to absorb force. The concentric phase improves your ability to produce force.

One simple example of absorbing force occurs every time your foot hits the ground on a running stride. The muscles in your legs need to lengthen slightly to absorb the forces of gravity before pushing off. An inability to absorb force can lead to slower movements and reaction times, while also increasing your chance for injury.

Producing force is the more obvious part of sport movements. Kicking a soccer ball, throwing a baseball, or taking a slap shot in hockey are just a few examples of force production. The more force you can produce, the faster and more powerful your sports skills will be.

Strength training is a great way to develop force absorption and force production at the same time, but the speed in which the weights move is critical. The eccentric phase needs to be a slow and controlled movement in order to build your capacity to absorb greater stresses. The concentric phase, however, should be done in a much faster and powerful fashion. Within a single repetition, you have two different goals, and because of this the two phases need to be done at different speeds.

In general, the eccentric phase should take anywhere from 2 to 4 seconds to complete on every repetition. The greater your need to improve your force absorption ability, the closer this should be to the 4 second time. For the concentric phase, you should always look to complete it as fast as possible. Most of the time this will be under 1 second, but on the last repetition of a heavy set this may take a little longer. That’s OK, as long as you are trying to move the weight in a fast and powerful fashion.

In this section we will cover how to determine the proper number of sets and repetitions to meet your individual goals. For those who want a better understanding of the program you currently follow, or want to design your own workout schedule, these are important variables that can greatly influence the results you see.

First off, let’s be clear on what these two terms mean. A set is defined as an entire strength training exercise lasting from when you begin the movement to when you complete it. Using the simple bench press as an example, the set begins when you take the weight off the rack, continues through all the times you lower and raise the bar, and officially ends when you place the weight back on the rack. Most workout schedules will have you perform exercises for more than one set.

A repetition takes place within each set. They are the individual efforts that you usually repeat more than once before resting again. Using the bench press, one repetition is completed when you completely lower the bar, and then raise it back to the top. Rarely, if ever, will you complete just one repetition in a set.

Varying the number of sets and repetitions can produce drastically different physical changes over time. If you know what you want to accomplish, then you need to know the right amount of sets and reps to match your needs.

Choosing the number of repetitions

As we mentioned in Part 1, it is important that you know how to choose the right weights, regardless of the number of repetitions you perform. We will not get into that again here, but anything we mention here is dependent on picking weights that are not too heavy or too light. Our goal in this section is to give you guidelines on what you can expect to achieve for each repetition range. Strength training can help you build muscle, get a great cardiovascular workout, and of course, make you stronger.

Very high repetitions, like 15 or more per set, works very well as a cardio workout to help burn calories and strengthen your heart. You will need to take very little rest between sets, and should be careful here not to go too heavy, but for this specific goal a 15+ repetition range is very effective. Do not expect to get significantly stronger or muscular, though. If you are really hardcore and do 50-100+ repetitions on each set, though, you will help to strengthen the tendons and ligaments that hold your joints together.

Choosing a 10-15 repetition range starts to work towards gaining some strength and muscle, but not too much. Personally I think it is a good range for beginner athletes to work with, because the weights won’t be overwhelming and they get a lot of practice perfecting their technique. This is also about the range anyone under the age of 15 should use when they are dealing with free weights, although they shouldn’t be spending a lot of time with them at that age.

The 6-10 repetition range is a good transition zone for 15-16 year olds, and for those who want a little more strength and/or muscle development than they’d get from the 10+ range. Most athletic-based programs use repetitions in this range, but I would suggest that it is not the best choice. It is a somewhat safe choice in that you will not go too heavy, but you will see some strength gains. In my opinion, there is a better choice.

I believe that anyone truly interested in building strength, power, or muscle mass should be primarily working in the 4-5 repetition zone. If you are over 16, follow the guidelines given in Part 1, and have good technique, training this heavy is as safe as anything else you’ll do in a workout program. It allows you to consistently train with heavier weights, which in turn will build your strength and maximize your power potential. And, depending on the number of sets you elect to perform, it can quickly build muscle, as well.

Anything done for 3 repetitions or less works pretty close to your limits, and should be done sparingly. It will build strength and power, but won’t do much for gaining muscle unless you do a very high number of sets. Elite power lifters might work in this range fairly regularly, but for 99% of us you can make great progress with the 4-5 rep plan.

No matter which range you feel is best for you, proper technique is always your first priority. And for those choosing weights of 10 repetitions or less, it is always a good idea to have a spotter watching you in case you misjudged what weight you should have used.

Choosing the number of sets

Regardless of the number of repetitions you perform per set, you can choose to do one, two, or any number of sets for a particular exercise. The amount of sets you complete has to do with one critical variable: volume. Volume involves the total amount of weight you lift within a workout. If you multiply the weight used times the number of repetitions per set, and multiply that by the number of sets, it will give you the total volume of weight you lifted.

Why is this so critical? Because the higher your volume, the greater your chance of building muscle. The lower the volume, the less chance you have of adding bulk.

Some athletes need extra mass to perform better for their sport, but others would be adversely affected. Luckily, this critical factor can easily be controlled.

If you want to gain muscle, do more sets of each exercise. Three to five sets is usually about right, but occasionally you can go even higher. Anything more than 6 sets of a heavy weight exercise (using the 4-5 rep range we recommend) and you may not be able to sustain that volume for long without getting hurt. Tendonitis is the most likely problem you will face.

Unfortunately, there is a definite downside to performing more sets, especially when using heavier weights. The added volume can be incredibly taxing on your body over the long term, and will make it difficult to work on other aspects of your training. I would recommend setting aside a specific time of year to focus almost solely on mass training, if it is even necessary for you, and save other goals for another time.

If you need to get stronger and more powerful, but want to avoid getting bigger or need your energy for other goals, then go with one or two sets per exercise. Two schedules that work well here are to do one set per exercise five days per week, or two sets per exercise three days a week. Both keep the volume relatively low, but the heavy weights will help you adapt to what you need. Keeping the number of sets down will allow you to put more of your energy towards other goals, allowing you to build two or more skills at the same time.

That is our general guide for how to determine the correct number of sets and repetitions you need to meet your goals. This is obviously a more detailed topic than we covered here, but hopefully it is a good starting point for you. In our final article in this series we will cover how to determine the right rest times in between sets, and give you some important reasons why you should always use proper technique in your training.