20 tips to improve your training
Don’t change your program if you don’t see immediate results - varying your training is important, but don't completely change things every week. 6-8 weeks is a good minimum time spent doing a program BEFORE you think about changing things
You can’t 'shock' your muscles by doing a new exercise every session - You're impeding your ability to get consistently better at an exercise and won't be able to track progress well
Your diet isn’t a jail sentence - If your diet doesn't feel sustainable for the long term, it's not going to work for you. Find foods that you like that aren't terrible for you, add more of those to your diet
You need a healthy relationship with food - Don't try drop 10kg in two months, crash diets seldom work because you WILL eventually be unable to keep going
Different muscles have different amounts of volume they can recover from. You can’t train each muscle with the same amount of volume. Dr Mike Israetel has excellent research on 'MRV's' (Maximum Recoverable Volume).
Unless you're on steroids, you can’t train each muscle to its MRV's, your body won't handle the volume - Some muscles will get less volume than others and that's fine
There is a minimum amount of volume needed for muscle growth - too little and nothing happens
The minimum hypertrophy threshold is around 60% of your 1 rep max - aiming between 60-85% for your training will put you in the sweet zone, too much and you won't recover.
Going to failure on an exercise may cause more muscle activation but will significantly increase fatigue. Use very sparingly
Cardio won't get you abs - there are only so many calories you can burn in a day through cardio, reducing your calorie intake through diet is far more sustainable than solely through cardio
You probably don't need to train your front deltoid - Compound movements for your chest (e.g bench press) do plenty of work on the front deltoid as is
You probably aren't training your delts enough- the side and rear delts recover incredibly quickly and can handle more volume than almost any muscle
Arms respond well to high-frequency training
Don't compromise your form for more weight - you're increasing your risk of injury with very little gain. Lower the weight and do the exercise with good form.
Lower weight with good form makes better consistent gains than heavy and poor form
Because dumbbells require more stability, they should be used for volume, not intensity.
Go heavy for compound movements not isolation movements
Compound movements produce better muscle gains than isolation
Isolation exercises are great for targeting weak points
Train your back in different planes of motion - Pullups, barbell row and horizontal row are great examples