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[chrissw22]

Hi all, I have a few questions.

1. How long do you wait between sets of an exercise?

2. Should you do all 3 sets of the same exercise back to back or should you alternate between 2 or 3 exercises?

For example:

Do 3 sets of 10 Concentration Curls, then move on to Biceps Machine or
1 set Concentration Curls 1 set Biceps Machine until you get to 3 of both


3. What percent of your max should you do for building muscle?

4. What set and rep count should you do for building muscle?

5. How many workouts should I include in my routine each day? (Right now I am doing 2 biceps, 2 triceps, 2 shoulders w/ 30 min cardio for one day, etc.)

'Cause my main problem is this, I don't feel any pain the next day.... I go to the point where I can't do anymore, so I assume my muscles are fatigued enough? I have been waiting 2-3 mins. between sets of 10-15 and have been putting as much weight as I feel comfortable lifting, usually between 60-70%... but still very little pain the next day.

[vamp]

So no pain the next day, great, you are doing things right then. Pain is a sign you did something wrong!

All reps should be SLOW. 8-12 is great for muscle growth. 3-4 sets at about 75-85% of 1 rep max. Work the negative side as much as the positive and don't swing the weights.

Work the basics for size as well:
Deadlifts
Squats
Barbell Bench
Bent Over Barbell Rows
Military Presses

A little stiffness the next day is good, pain is bad, especially in the joints.

If you want to bulk up, keep your cardio to a minimum and keep your diet higher with 5-8 meals per day at about 500 cal over your recomended daily intake.

Mix up your routine about every 4-8 weeks, changing number of sets, weight, reps, excercises for a body group etc. Keep the muscles confused for continued gains.

[swanso5]

- slow reps are no good....train slow and you'll be slow
- the muscle confusion principle has nothing on the progressive overload principle...do the exercises listed above, add wt to them each session and watch your body explode in the next 6mths

[vamp]

[swanso5]

not to be an asshole here...

the more wt you can lift the bigger and stronger you'll get, that is a fact...watch wt lifter's at the olympics and see how slow they lift...that's right they don't...

the good thing about facts is that we don;t need trial and error

[vamp]

Cheers

[Snail]

[swanso5]

the best principle there is and is what it says

if you progressivley overload the muscles, they will get bigger and stronger...they have to

you can overload plenty of ways too:

- increasing wt
- deacreasing rest
- increasing time under tension
- increase sets
- increase reps per set etc

the easiest way is to simply add wt each session with the smallest loading you can with the smaller the load increasing, the better...this is why .5 and 1.25kg wt plates are great...i have heaps of them for this very reason

a lot of times people stay at a certain wt until it gets easy like this:

session 1 - bench press with 100kgs 3 x 6 was very hard
session 2 - bench press w/ 100kgs 3 x 6 was not quite as hard
and so on until it's easy...if you've done this 8 times then you've wasted 7 sessions of not getting sdtronger and not getting bigger...once the body does something once, it never works as hard to repeat it as it adapts to the stimulis

make sense??

[vamp]