MindMap Gallery Holiday Fitness Hardcore Fitness Reading Notes
I believe that many people are always very enthusiastic when they first start working out, but as time goes by, this enthusiasm gradually fades, and they give up unknowingly or even enter a cycle of continuous giving up. Thinking of the sweat I had shed and touching the flesh on my belly, I fell into self-doubt. As stated at the beginning of this book, your true purpose is to discover yourself, trapped in your everyday self. It is said that fitness first strengthens the brain. This book not only tells you knowledge and theory, but also conveys a fitness spirit of continuous learning. When you are no longer confused about knowledge, you will naturally have a lot more confidence and confidence in fitness. Fitness is something that requires a lot of feedback. In the process of changing your appearance and body, you should get to know yourself who is growing from within and working hard every day.
Edited at 2022-10-28 17:10:28This is a mind map about bacteria, and its main contents include: overview, morphology, types, structure, reproduction, distribution, application, and expansion. The summary is comprehensive and meticulous, suitable as review materials.
This is a mind map about plant asexual reproduction, and its main contents include: concept, spore reproduction, vegetative reproduction, tissue culture, and buds. The summary is comprehensive and meticulous, suitable as review materials.
This is a mind map about the reproductive development of animals, and its main contents include: insects, frogs, birds, sexual reproduction, and asexual reproduction. The summary is comprehensive and meticulous, suitable as review materials.
This is a mind map about bacteria, and its main contents include: overview, morphology, types, structure, reproduction, distribution, application, and expansion. The summary is comprehensive and meticulous, suitable as review materials.
This is a mind map about plant asexual reproduction, and its main contents include: concept, spore reproduction, vegetative reproduction, tissue culture, and buds. The summary is comprehensive and meticulous, suitable as review materials.
This is a mind map about the reproductive development of animals, and its main contents include: insects, frogs, birds, sexual reproduction, and asexual reproduction. The summary is comprehensive and meticulous, suitable as review materials.
Holiday Fitness|📖Hardcore Fitness Reading Notes
book review
A very practical fitness guidance book that is well-founded and easy to understand, allowing you to fall in love with fitness while eliminating blind spots in knowledge.
Summary & Harvest
I believe that many people are always very enthusiastic when they first start working out, but as time goes by, this enthusiasm gradually fades, and they give up unknowingly or even enter a cycle of continuous giving up. Thinking of the sweat I had shed and touching the flesh on my belly, I fell into self-doubt. As stated at the beginning of this book, your true purpose is to discover yourself, trapped in your everyday self. It is said that fitness first strengthens the brain. This book not only tells you knowledge and theory, but also conveys a fitness spirit of continuous learning. When you are no longer confused about knowledge, you will naturally have a lot more confidence and confidence in fitness. Fitness is something that requires a lot of feedback. In the process of changing your appearance and body, you should get to know yourself who is growing from within and working hard every day. It is every effort you make that allows you to grow and become more self-disciplined. There is a saying that goes well, either exercise or study, body and soul are always on the way. It doesn't matter whether it's chicken soup or not, it's that you find meaning in it, and I hope you can meet a better version of yourself in the future.
Basic information Binka: Hardcore Fitness (Volume 1/Full 3 volumes)
author
binka
publishing house
Boji This work is produced and distributed electronically by Zhihu (Beijing Zhizhi Tianxia Technology Co., Ltd.) authorized by Tianjin Boji New Media Technology Co., Ltd. © Copyright·Infringement will be prosecuted
brief introduction
"Hardcore Fitness": Ten years ago, I started my own fitness training. However, I took many detours and listened to many wrong rumors. In the past ten years, I have discovered that there are too many people in this world who follow what they have said, too many people who mislead others, too many people who are eager for quick success and quick gains, and too many people who are shameless. Ten years later, at this time and here, I hope "Hardcore Fitness" will become your first fitness book.
Classification
fitness, diet, nutrition, training
Recommended
Four out of five stars
Reading date
Start date 20201123
End date 20201203
book excerpt
Introduction When we talk about fitness, what are we talking about?
Body shape is not the purpose of your fitness, happiness is not the purpose of fitness, and even fitness is not your purpose. Your purpose is to find yourself, trapped in your everyday self. Fitness is about working together with your body for a better life. Respect your body, respect science, and look for and discover all kinds of knowledge and treasures in fitness yourself.
Book Reviews & Testimonials 🤓Many people work out 💪 often with enthusiasm at the beginning, then showering in the gym, and never seeing each other again in the end. In fact, no matter why you choose to exercise, whether it’s for health or just to show off, the first thing you have to do is to reconcile with yourself and your body. Fitness is not everything in life. You still have life and there are still many things waiting for you. Just do it, don't tie yourself up and force yourself to lose a few pounds in a few months and become Peng Yuyan quickly. Life will also tell us one thing through slaps in the face. If you don’t peel off a few layers of skin and reborn a few times, you have just reached the beginning. No matter what you do, learning is a lifelong journey. Only by not forgetting your original intention can you achieve success. Understand yourself, your body, and exercise first to strengthen your brain. May all your efforts be in vain, and you can embrace a better future with a healthier body and become a better version of yourself. come on! Dear handsome men and women!
Chapter 1 What kind of body is a good body?
What is an ideal body shape
What you want is not just to be thin, but to be slim and look stylish at the same time. It is your shoulders and back that hold up your clothes, and it is your waist that determines your proportions. At the same time, your waist and hips affect your slenderness. Whether this expression is correct or not will visually determine whether your legs appear longer. .
The desire for health is human instinct and a necessity for survival, and the so-called aesthetics are mostly based on this basis.
1. Those parts that make you look better
human muscle groups
Large muscle groups
Chest, back, hips, legs
The human skeleton is like the basic structure of a house, and the large muscle groups are like walls, protecting our internal organs and filling up our body.
small muscle groups
Shoulders, arms, abdomen, calves
Small muscle groups are more like small decorations such as curtains and coffee tables. To some extent, they are more like an extension of the overall style.
Misunderstandings to be aware of
Always paying attention to some insignificant details instead of paying attention to the overall situation, or in other words, not realizing the problem with your figure at all - no one except you will look at these details so carefully. When you first start exercising, don’t pay too much attention to details.
Parts and advice you need to practice when starting fitness
Change the parts that everyone can see at first glance to create an intuitive overall perfect body shape, rather than changing the tiny details that only you care about.
Give up most small muscle group training. From today on, do 6 to 10 groups of large muscle group training (chest, back, buttocks, legs) once a day, combined with 1 to 3 groups of core muscle group training (abdomen, lower back), and finally Do HIIT (high-intensity interval training) for 15 to 30 minutes. In less than half a year, you will be pleasantly surprised to see the changes in yourself. Health, body shaping, fat loss, clothing support... everything starts with large muscle group training. Grasping the big and letting go of the small is the best way to gain muscle or lose fat when getting started!
2. What does weight represent?
Bodybuilder vs average fat guy
At both ends of the scale, both are 180 centimeters tall and weigh 100 kilograms. In other words, the BMI index of both people is 30.8 (BMI, Body Mass Index. Body mass index is a parameter for judging a person's body constitution and body fat. It is a number calculated by dividing the weight in kilograms by the square of the height in meters. ).
Fat vs Muscle
For the same weight of 5 kilograms, the volume of muscle is much smaller than that of fat. The density of muscle is about 1.12g/cm 3 , while the density of fat is only about 0.79g/cm 3 .
Most of the human body's energy consumption is completed in muscle tissue. In the average person, fat makes up 15% to 25% of body weight, but only 2% to 5% is involved in metabolism.
Muscles are big consumers of energy. Generally, in a resting state, 1 kilogram of muscle can consume approximately 15 kcal of energy in 24 hours, while 1 kilogram of fat can only consume 4 kcal in 24 hours.
When maintaining daily activity, the basic 24-hour calorie consumption per kilogram of muscle is 70 kcal, and fat is still only a pitiful 4 kcal.
BMI and resting metabolism:
Chapter 2 Why do you fail to lose weight?
Common misconceptions
Eat less and move more
For a long time, various traditional fitness media and websites have told us that losing weight means two things: first, eating less - dieting, fasting or hunger strikes, which can reduce the caloric intake; second, moving more - running Running and walking can increase your caloric expenditure. The human body can easily lose weight and body fat through these simple additions and subtractions.
rebound
The human body's weight and body fat control mechanism is quite complex and sophisticated. If you want to make changes, you will never succeed by just relying on addition and subtraction!
Many people have lost weight in a short period of time after trying to diet, but they have never gotten the body they dreamed of. After a period of time, weight and body fat rebound even more, making the body fatter and heavier. The most important thing is that the wrong way to lose weight will cause far greater harm to your body than you think. It will not only make you an unhealthy fat person, but may also turn you into a stupid fat person.
1. Reasons for dieting failure
1. Dieting makes you stupid – did you know your brain can be eaten?
Common weight loss mistakes
Search the Internet for ways to lose weight quickly (such as "× Benhagen Diet", "× Tekins Diet", "Apple 7-day Diet", "Poached Egg Diet", "15 Days to Lose 20 Pounds", etc.). ) 👉Realistic face-slapping process (you will lose weight but the self in the mirror will not change, or even get worse, poor skin color, decreased energy, etc.)
How the body reacts when dieting
Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution tell our bodies that when caloric intake is insufficient, such as in emergencies such as famine or disaster, the body must do something. If we continue to consume our precious calories as much as before, , then you will soon: starve to death! Therefore, the body very smartly begins to control daily expenditure. It reduces daily consumption and only allows you to "live" on a very basic basis instead of "living" well. But the body thinks that such a deduction is still not enough, and it will continue to expand the scope of the restriction, for example, your IQ.
Dieting "eats" your brain
According to research from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the United States, after mice were put on a diet, neurons in their hypothalamus began to devour its organelles and proteins. The hypothalamus area is mainly responsible for managing physiological mechanisms such as sleep, temperature, thirst and hunger (so we often cannot sleep because we are too hungry, and mistakenly think we are hungry because we are thirsty). When the hypothalamus starts eating its own organelles and proteins, we feel hungrier and hungrier. This can also be understood as the brain's self-protective response.
Reducing caloric intake through dieting will not only make it impossible to achieve the simple formula of "daily caloric income < daily caloric expenditure = weight loss" in your imagination, your body will also use behaviors such as undermining IQ and lowering immunity to make you The caloric expenditure is getting lower and lower. In order to keep you alive, your body adjusts the formula to "daily caloric income ≈ daily caloric expenditure - IQ - health", thus failing to lose weight.
If you choose the wrong way to lose weight from the beginning, even if you starve yourself to death, your waistline will not change at all, and you may even become fatter. So sorry, sometimes, maybe, you really deserve it.
2. Dieting will lead to rebound - losing 2 pounds and gaining back 10 pounds, this is the end of dieting
human evolution
Obesogenic environment:
We have been working hard to create an environment that reduces our energy expenditure and increases our energy intake. We have promoted the development of agriculture and improved food, allowing us to eat better and consume more calories. We have also invented various machines to help us work, as well as various automation technologies to save us worry and effort. Nowadays, humans no longer have to travel long distances to find low-calorie food. We can drive our cars and go to the supermarket to buy various snacks that can satisfy our energy needs for the day.
We have created an artificial environment for ourselves that we can only enter but not exit, which is what scholars call an obesogenic environment.
Body genes:
People's physical evolution cannot catch up with this change in time. Our genes still control that our energy can only enter but not exit, and our weight can only increase but not decrease. The body thinks that our living environment is still like the primitive times, with precarious life and a lack of food. If you can find high-calorie food today, monkey genes will make you keep eating, keep getting fat, and never stop.
Therefore, as your body adapts to your current weight, these fats will steadily grow on your body.
Whether you are on a diet or not, it is there, never leaving or abandoning it.
Diet rebound
experiment:
A team of Australian researchers published a study in the New England Journal. They recruited a group of subjects weighing around 94 kilograms. For the first 10 weeks, the researchers conducted a dietary intervention on these people (restricting food and drink to only 500 to 550 kcal per day). During the 10 weeks, the subjects lost an average of about 13 kilograms, sounds great, right? Let’s hear the rebound story later.
After 10 weeks, they tested the hormone levels of these people and found that the following two hormones had changed greatly: One was leptin. As the name suggests, its function is to regulate body weight and make people lose weight. By promoting the body to reduce food intake and increase energy release, it inhibits the synthesis of fat cells (in addition, it also plays an important role in many immune and repair functions). At the end of the 10-week intervention, leptin levels in the subjects had dropped by about two-thirds.
The other is Ghrelin (growth hormone), which stimulates hunger, promotes gastric emptying and gastric acid secretion. Its levels increased significantly after the 10-week intervention.
The experimenters conducted a one-year "weight loss maintenance" intervention on these people, which included regular nutritional counseling and 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every day. The final experimental results showed that after one year, most subjects had regained 7 to 8 kilograms of weight.
A recent domestic study related to the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" proved that just 6 weeks of aerobic and resistance training can make people lose about 5 kilograms on average. One year later, the brain-gut peptide levels of this group of subjects were still higher than before the experimental intervention, and the leptin levels were still about one-third lower than before the experiment began. In other words, one year after the diet ends, the human body still does not get rid of the desire to eat too much and gain weight.
in conclusion:
When your body weight is accurately set at a certain point, it will try its best to maintain or even increase weight in a way that is only in, not out, only adding, not losing.
Without comprehensive changes in your physique and living habits, it is impossible to truly lose weight simply by controlling your diet and reducing your caloric intake!
In other words, when it comes to weight loss, hunger cannot solve the fundamental problem. Compulsively control your diet, unless you can starve for the rest of your life, otherwise, once you return to your normal diet, you will only become fatter than before!
3. Dieting leads to overeating - you can’t control your mouth, it’s all because of your dieting!
Vicious cycle:
When many people are on a diet to lose weight, they constantly cycle between two lives: at the beginning, they formulate various low-calorie diet restrictions, strictly control their dietary intake, and make up their minds to fight fat to the end: "In losing weight, Before I weighed 100 pounds, I only ate vegetables blanched in water.” However, after a day or a few days, you really can’t hold it anymore and your appetite increases. food to eat. After eating it, I regretted it so much that I decided to eat less! Make a vow not to eat the next meal, or eat only the minimum amount of calories at each meal. Then, after being hungry for a few days, you can no longer hold on, and imagine all kinds of delicacies floating around in your mind, so you can't help but eat again. After eating, you feel guilty, and you start to make up your mind to go on a diet again... Just diet like this - Overeating - dieting - overeating, entering an endless cycle...
In the end, even if we exert our masochistic spirit, weight loss still has no effect, so we think that all the mistakes are our own, and scold ourselves for having no willpower, not working hard enough, and not working hard enough... Some people even greatly promote the spirit of Ah Q. , said: "I failed to lose weight because I love myself too much!"
Big mistake!
Body mechanism:
Your willpower is not at the same level as the fighting power of the human body. If willpower alone could defeat the body, cancer would have been a thing of the past. The body has its own operating system. When we are hungry, the body will instinctively resist by secreting various hormones to fight against your will, prompting you to eat various high-sugar, high-fat, and high-calorie foods.
When your body is in a state of hunger and your blood sugar is relatively low, your body will secrete several hormones, the most typical ones being brain-gut peptide and orexin. They all increase their secretion due to hypoglycemia caused by hunger. When their secretion increases, your appetite also begins to increase, and you crave high-sugar and high-fat foods more than usual.
Refrain from eating:
A behavior that habitually reduces energy intake by deliberately suppressing and ignoring physiological needs in order to lose weight or achieve other purposes.
Although restrained eaters desperately want to control their eating behavior, overall, the vast majority of restrained eaters fail in their efforts. They are often in the process of alternating between dieting, overeating, and overeating. Many studies have shown that restraining from eating can significantly increase the frequency of binge eating and bulimia nervosa, as well as the risks that come with it.
Eating itself is not a sin, gluttony is.
A steady flow of water:
Healthy and stable eating habits will not only not make you gain weight, but are more conducive to long-term weight loss and fat loss, and are more effective than short-term dieting. Rome was not built in a day, and fat cannot be lost in a day.
2. The reason for the failure of the movement - you are too easy to listen to others!
1. Common sense destruction 1: Only aerobic exercise for more than 40 minutes is necessary to lose weight? ——Big mistake!
Misconception
Many magazines and websites tell us that fat consumption begins only after more than 40 minutes of aerobic exercise such as jogging and cycling. When we searched for exercise to lose weight on Google, Baidu and other search engines, we found that this sentence has become a truth about exercise that is spread in the streets.
Reality:
Since people need energy supply to live, and fat is the main source of energy for people, even when we sleep quietly, sit and play games, or lie on the sofa eating potato chips, we are still consuming calories. These calories are almost All from fat. When you perform ordinary aerobic exercise such as running or cycling, fat is burned and energy is supplied from the beginning. It does not start only after 40 minutes as some magazines or websites claim.
Data shows that during prolonged aerobic exercise, both sugar and fat provide energy in proportion (50% each). Because women have more free fatty acids in their blood, their initial fat consumption is higher than that of men, and the energy supply ratio from fat is about 60%.
A better way to train:
During exercise, the amount of fat consumed by low-intensity aerobic exercise is significantly higher than that of high-intensity interval training (such as HIIT). However, for a period of time after exercise, compared with low-intensity aerobic exercise, high-intensity interval training consumes less fat. The fat effect continued, and eventually within 24 hours, the total amount of fat consumed actually exceeded that of low-intensity aerobic training. What’s even more amazing is that the continuous fat burning and calorie consumption caused by high-intensity interval exercise can last for about 72 hours.
If you perform high-intensity interval training, your body can continue to consume calories and fat efficiently for a long time after the exercise. The effect is that you can really realize your dream of losing weight while lying down!
Compared with long-term low-intensity aerobic exercise, high-intensity interval training and anaerobic training can improve the body's metabolism and increase the body's ability to consume calories and fat over a period of time. In the long run, it is more effective in reducing fat and losing weight. Better results.
The muscles added by strength training are even more energy-consuming. Some data show that at rest, one pound of muscle can consume 6 kilocalories in 24 hours, while one pound of fat can only consume 2 kilocalories in the same environment. of heat.
2. Common sense destruction 2: Is long-term aerobic exercise the best exercise for weight loss? ——Yes, but it may not be useful to you!
Correct concept:
What would you do if you wanted to woo a god or goddess? Treat him (her) endlessly, pester him (her) for nothing, pursue him (her) tirelessly, or work hard to create your own charm?
The same goes for losing weight. If you want to make yourself look thinner and have better-looking lines, what you have to do is not simply to reduce calorie intake and increase fat and calorie consumption by controlling your diet and running for a long time. This is by no means the most effective method. . The most effective solution is to adjust your physique to become a person with clear lines and low sebum.
To achieve this goal, you must start with strength training and adjust your basal metabolism to transform yourself into a physique with low body fat reserves. Increasing fat consumption through long-term aerobic exercise is like sending him (her) text messages, buying breakfast, and giving him (her) things on holidays before you know what the other person is thinking. If it was never possible for both sides in the first place, these efforts will only add to the sorrow.
Correct understanding:
Losing weight through long-term aerobic exercise is very ineffective for people with normal weight. Simple long-term aerobic exercise can improve some health indicators, such as blood pressure, but it is not conducive to the reduction of weight and body fat on a long-term scale.
Body fat content is a bit like the central bank's reserve requirement ratio. The reserve ratio will not be affected by actual income and expenditure. What can affect the reserve ratio is the bank's assessment of the entire country and the world market. The same goes for body fat content. Your actual caloric income and expenditure will not affect your body fat content. What determines your body fat content is your body's assessment of your overall physique.
example:
Just like when you take a loan to buy a house, you have to pay a down payment. Assuming the down payment is 30%, whether you buy a house for 3 million yuan or a house for 500,000 yuan, 30% remains unchanged, regardless of the amount of deposit you have or the size of the house. The same goes for body fat content. Even if you reduce from 200 pounds to 100 pounds, your body fat content will still be 30%... In other words, although your weight has decreased and you look thinner, you have actually just become He is just a fat man with a small size, and he is not really "thin" anymore.
3. Common sense destruction 3: Expenditure of fat equals reduction of body fat? - Having said that, losing weight is not math.
Genetically, you and I are both [fat]
Anthropologists have discovered that many primitive tribes hunt by chasing their prey to death. Humans are actually one of the mammals with the strongest aerobic endurance, and many biologists even believe that it is "the only mammal with the strongest aerobic endurance." For example, the Tarahumara people in Mexico can run 320 kilometers in two days, first running to exhaustion of deer or other prey, and then killing and eating them. In fact, many of us can run a full marathon after a certain period of long-distance running training. After so many years of screening and elimination by humans, the horses that were finally selected as transportation vehicles generally have less running endurance than humans.
In addition to bipedal walking, long legs, gluteus maximus, Achilles tendon and other factors, there is also a very important factor, which is that the body fat content of humans is significantly higher than that of ordinary mammals. And fat is precisely the main energy supplier for aerobic exercise.
Everyone who wants to lose weight and become more beautiful hopes that he can have a magical physique, that is, the fat consumed through diet or exercise can say goodbye to him forever. He hopes that after a period of vicious weight loss, he will never lose weight again. I won't get fat, and I hope I can have good genes that make me gain weight no matter what I eat. Unfortunately, that kind of gene is unlikely to be preserved in the long river of history. They were eliminated as early as Homo sapiens. The natural method of biological evolution ultimately selects those of us as "fat people" who can efficiently convert food into fat and store it.
Fat is not bad:
Fat is not a bad thing, it is precisely because of the existence of fat that we survive. Fat provides energy for aerobic exercise. If you don't have enough fat, you won't be able to lose weight at all, and you won't even survive. So, spending fat doesn't actually lead to lower body fat. As long as you are still living, eating and drinking normally, your body will let you replenish fat for future use when needed.
Blindly pursuing a fitness plan:
Don't look at athletes who have been engaged in aerobic sports for a long time to lose weight, and imitate their plans to lose weight. This is a misunderstanding.
First, in many sports, athletes can achieve results because they are thin, and you can pay attention to these athletes, rather than losing weight because of doing these sports.
Second, many athletes who engage in aerobic exercise also need to control their diet.
Third, your training volume is far worse than that of athletes. Different quantity, different quality.
To sum up, the human body, as a regulatory system, will not lower your body fat reserves as a whole just because you have performed aerobic exercise and consumed fat. If you want to lose fat and weight effectively, you need more and more comprehensive fitness content.
Human body steward:
Without changing the basic quality of the body, after pure calorie expenditure, the body will force you to take in and absorb more calories to repay the fat you consumed during this aerobic exercise. Don't doubt the body's ability to manage weight. Our bodies have many ways to regulate weight and fat.
4. Common sense destruction 4: Should overweight people do more aerobic exercise? ——But you also have to be able to run!
Resonance:
In physics, if the vibration frequency of an object is similar or overlaps, the resonance caused will make the vibration amplitude larger and stronger, and the intensity will become stronger and stronger, and eventually the object itself will be harmed.
Our bodies also produce vibrations, and the vibration frequencies of different parts are different. The key is that the vibration frequency of fat, joints and other parts is very similar to the impact frequency of running and other sports.
This means that running and other sports will cause resonance in fat and joints, and the resonance effect will eventually cause damage to the body and joints. Current research has found that the larger the volume and weight of fat, the stronger the resonance effect and the stronger the damage to the body.
Face running:
Obese and overweight people can first choose medium-weight, ultra-short interval circuit strength training methods to train muscles and lose fat in the early stages of fat loss. At the same time, the muscles themselves can help fat coordinate the vibration frequency, and the strengthening of muscles can also assist in future fat loss training.
When running, the impact on joints at the start of a run can reach 2 to 8 times your own weight. If the knee joints rub against each other without adequate lubrication, it can easily lead to problems in soft tissue, joints, etc. Even among healthy runners, many are prone to symptoms of runner's knee (iliotibial band friction syndrome) if they do not pay attention to strength training.
Aerobic exercise is a good form of exercise and has a positive impact on cardiopulmonary function, blood pressure health, etc. However, for people who generally exercise, jogging may not be the best choice for them.
Chapter 3 What kind of aerobic exercise is best for fat loss?
HIIT
1. What is HIIT? ——The choice of smart weight losers
Introduction to HIIT:
HIIT is the abbreviation of "High-intensity Interval Training", which means "high-intensity interval training". It generally refers to multiple short-term, high-intensity exercise training, with lower intensity exercise between each two high-intensity exercises. Periods of exercise or complete rest form intervals.
Simply put, HIIT is a training method that alternates between high-intensity exercise and low-intensity exercise. As long as the intensity in the exercise alternates between high and low, it can be regarded as HIIT in a broad sense. For example, if you run fast for a while, jog for a while, or alternate between sprinting and slow walking on a bicycle, it is all HIIT training.
Features of HIIT:
The exercise intensity is high in a short period of time, and the maximum or at least close to the maximum exercise capacity must be reached each time. However, the duration of exercise is relatively short, and symptoms of discomfort can be avoided by using low intensity during intervals.
Therefore, compared to long-term aerobic exercise, such as one or two hours of jogging, HIIT is easier for people to accept and complete the training.
2. Why should we use high-intensity intermittent training? ——How does HIIT, which is popular around the world, help you lose weight?
1. High intensity of change - lasting fat loss and stimulation of growth hormone secretion
Varying high-intensity training can make the effects of fat loss and calorie consumption last for a long time. Studies have shown that the fat-loss effects of high-intensity training are still evident 72 hours later. Compared with ordinary aerobic training, although the amount of fat burning produced by HIIT during exercise may be slightly lower, this powerful fat burning effect will last for a long time.
From a hormonal perspective, high-intensity exercise can also effectively stimulate the secretion of growth hormone. As one of the most important hormones in exercise, growth hormone plays a very direct role in increasing muscle and reducing fat for fitness and shaping.
Academic circles generally believe that growth hormone is related to the level of lactate threshold. If the exercise intensity has been relatively low, the corresponding blood lactate level will also be relatively low. High-intensity exercise can stimulate the secretion of lactic acid, and an increase in lactic acid levels can stimulate the secretion of growth hormone. Long-term aerobic exercise such as jogging will not increase lactic acid levels due to its relatively low intensity, which means it will not secrete a large amount of growth hormone. To put it simply, growth hormone is secreted more when exercise is more intense. Therefore, the higher the training intensity, the more it can stimulate the release of growth hormone.
Alternating between high and low intensity can also promote adrenaline secretion. Adrenaline can also increase fat consumption and total calorie expenditure. Changes in high-intensity interval training can not only stimulate the secretion of growth hormone that increases muscle and reduce fat, but also make the fat-reducing effect of exercise longer-lasting.
2. Intermittent exercise - effectively reduce fat and promote fat metabolism
Intermittent:
In interval training, the response of the adrenal system is greater than in training without intervals, and more adrenaline is secreted. The hormones secreted by the adrenal gland system mainly play a relatively strong role in stimulating the body to break down fat, burn fat, and provide energy for body movement. Therefore, intermittent exercise can actually make the body burn fat better.
3. HIIT – Better Aerobics
Traditional aerobic exercise:
Long-term aerobic exercise is not the best way to lose weight, but because countless websites, magazines and books have repeatedly told us that only aerobic exercise that lasts for more than 40 minutes can burn fat, so here we also Again, this view is incorrect!
Indeed, the traditional view is that any form of exercise will increase fat oxidation, and long-term, medium- and low-intensity aerobic exercise has the highest fat energy supply ratio. Therefore, long-term aerobic exercise can effectively increase fat consumption and improve the body's glycolipids. level, improve aerobic fitness, and finally achieve better weight loss results. From a certain perspective, this view is correct. Most experimental results also prove that the longer the exercise lasts, the higher the proportion of fat used as fuel.
Long term vision:
We should not only focus on the energy consumption during exercise. To lose weight, we should also pay attention to the balance of total energy expenditure in the body. In other words, we should not only look at how much fat and calories were consumed "during this exercise", but also how many calories and fats were consumed "in total" by this exercise.
From a long-term perspective, the total energy consumption during and after exercise is more important than the consumption of the main energy substances during exercise. In this regard, a large number of studies have found that although long-term aerobic exercise alone can improve some health indicators, such as blood pressure, but in the long-term range, aerobic exercise is not conducive to weight loss.
For example, an experiment using bicycles to perform moderate-to-high-intensity, long-term aerobic endurance exercise found that exercise intervention had no significant effect on body weight (only 0.2 kg on average). Another Japanese experiment also showed that long-term walking exercise did not significantly change people's weight.
Long-term aerobic exercise is not recommended:
science experiment:
Many studies have found that long-term aerobic exercise has an endocrine effect similar to dieting. Therefore, long-term aerobic exercise will reduce leptin in the body. Some experiments even pointed out that long-term aerobic endurance exercise will reduce the content of leptin in the blood, and the effect can last for several days. Leptin mainly participates in the regulation of sugar, fat and energy metabolism, prompting the body to reduce food intake, increase energy release, inhibit the synthesis of fat cells, and thereby reduce weight. Data shows that for every percentage point increase in leptin levels, the average body weight decreases by 0.37 kilograms. In other words, long-term aerobic exercise regulates hormones, leading to a decrease in leptin in the body, which actually causes the body to gain weight...
Daily life:
Even if you run on the treadmill for an hour, you won't burn as many calories as you think. An average person's continuous aerobic jogging for one hour, at a speed of about 7 to 8 kilometers per hour, consumes no more than 400 kilocalories, and a bottle of Coke contains more than 200 kilocalories. In other words, if you feel thirsty after running and accidentally drink two bottles of Coke, from a caloric point of view, the hour you just gritted your teeth and persisted will be in vain.
Not only that, long-term aerobic exercise not only consumes fat, but also consumes muscles. As the body's largest calorie consumer, muscles directly affect the body's metabolic efficiency. Therefore, consuming muscles also means that your metabolism will decrease.
To give a simple example, suppose that before you lose weight, you eat three bowls of rice a day without gaining or losing weight. This means that your metabolism can make good use of these three bowls of rice. Now that you have reduced your metabolic capacity through long-term aerobic exercise, you still choose to eat three bowls of rice, but your body can only consume more than two bowls. What about the remaining half a bowl? The body naturally chooses to convert it into fat and store it. Therefore, if you lose weight through long-term aerobic exercise, even if you are exhausted every day, if you do not control and reduce your daily caloric intake accordingly, you will still accumulate more and more fat in your body.
HIIT:
A large number of studies believe that interval exercise is more effective for fat loss. One experiment looked at the difference between continuous and interval running at moderate exercise intensity (55% VO 2max).
Measurement results of energy consumption and substrate metabolism during exercise
In this experiment, subjects first ran for an hour without stopping for a second (how many of you can do that?), and then performed three 20-minute intervals with a 10-minute rest each time. , the intensity remains unchanged at 55%VO 2 max.
Measurement results of energy expenditure and substrate metabolism during recovery period
From the chart, we can see that running for one hour will indeed increase the fat consumption ratio. However, contrary to common sense, resting for 10 minutes can increase the fat consumption ratio even higher! In addition, this experiment does not have data on fat consumption during resting after interval running, but other experiments have proven that the fat consumed during resting after interval running is much higher than the fat consumed during resting after continuous exercise. Finally, when calculating the total amount of fat consumed during the experiment, intermittent running was about 30 mg/(min·kg) higher than continuous running. Obviously, interval running not only does not affect the fat consumption of exercise, but actually consumes more fat than continuous running without stopping!
Total energy consumption and substrate metabolism during exercise and recovery periods of continuous running and interval running
As can be seen from the figure, overall, the fat consumption of interval running is much higher than that of continuous running.
EPOC:
EPOC: (excessive oxygen consumption after exercise)
EPOC is the body's continued super fat-burning state after high-intensity exercise.
Fat burning:
Fat can only be burned in an aerobic state. When you perform high-intensity exercise, the oxygen supply is insufficient for muscle consumption, and the body will be in a state of anaerobic exercise. You can only exercise by consuming glycogen in the body. Only in moderate-intensity aerobic exercise can fat participate in exercise consumption.
example:
For example, in the gym, you are doing a 100kg squat. In order to lift the barbell, you must use explosive force, and the body is in anaerobic exercise state in this state, that is, the fat we mentioned above cannot participate in the energy supply system. At this time, you can only use the fat in the body to Glycogen provides energy. But the problem is, your body doesn’t like it when you use its sugar for exercise. The body is always thinking: "Sugar is so useful, I want to reserve it just in case I need it!" You can only plead: "Please, I am almost crushed to death by the 100 kilogram barbell." "Okay, lend me some candy and let me lift this barbell, and I'll give you more in the future!" So, the body thought about it and said, "That's okay! You can slowly take away the fat you owe during exercise!" Give it back to me!"
EPOC diagram:
Theoretically, the part of the human body that is deficient during exercise is called "oxygen deficit", that is, the part of the body that cannot be supplied with energy through aerobic exercise alone. In this part, you owe a debt, and after exercise, you have to return these sugars and oxygen to the body in the form of fat consumption. This is EPOC, excess post-exercise oxygen consumption.
This is why high-intensity exercise does not involve aerobic respiration and cannot consume fat, but it still has an excellent ability to reduce fat! Studies have found that EPOC can account for 90% of the total oxygen consumption during exercise, and all of this energy supply comes from the oxidation of fat.
Gain muscle and lose fat at the same time: increase EPOC
The discovery of EPOC has given athletes a new revelation: from this moment on, muscle gain and fat loss can go hand in hand.
On the one hand, we can achieve the purpose of improving physical fitness and perfecting body shape through strength training, such as squats, bench presses, and high pull-downs.
On the other hand, EPOC after this kind of resistance training can significantly increase the body's energy consumption and fat burning, allowing people to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.
The key to increasing EPOC is high intensity, short intervals, and multiple intervals.
Resting between sets will not weaken the weight loss effect of exercise, but will increase fat burning. This is because of the existence of EPOC. Studies have found that exercise with intervals is more effective in increasing EPOC than exercise without intervals. That is to say, it can effectively increase fat burning after exercise, and the shorter the rest between groups, the higher the degree of EPOC increase.
Both resistance training and HIIT training have the characteristics of high intensity, so they can significantly increase EPOC and fat consumption, while achieving the purpose of increasing muscle and reducing fat.
So this is why strength training, HIIT and interval running are better for weight loss than constant jogging.
Advantages of HIIT
Compared with long-term aerobic exercise, HIIT also consumes less muscle. To a certain extent, high-intensity exercise also plays the role of anaerobic exercise: it can not only burn fat quickly, but also build muscle. Increasing muscle increases basal metabolism. This means that in the past, if you ate three bowls of rice, your body could metabolize it normally. Now that you have more muscles, your body has the ability to metabolize four bowls of rice. If you still eat If you eat three bowls of rice, your fat will naturally decrease day by day.
Since HIIT is a combination of anaerobic muscle training and aerobic training to a certain extent, it not only helps to reduce total fat mass, body fat percentage, and abdominal fat, but also increases the resting fat oxidation rate and overall metabolism. In other words, after doing HIIT, even if you sit there watching TV and eating, you are still consuming calories and fat. This can be understood as fundamentally changing your physique and adjusting your weight set point downwards.
3. The focus of HIIT training - how to do HIIT for the best effect?
Two conditions are met:
As long as the two conditions of "intermittent" and "high intensity" are met, you can arrange and combine them to some extent. You only need to ensure that you train large muscle groups (buttocks and legs mainly exert force) and alternate high and low intensity for 15 to 20 minutes to achieve the purpose of HIIT fitness.
Lay the foundation:
You must control the rhythm of fitness, make progress bit by bit from entry, and don't set too much resistance for yourself or too many illusory dreams. Start slow, and once you've laid the foundation, you'll progress quickly.
As for the law of alternating high and low intensity, it is recommended that the change interval should be short, not 5 minutes of high intensity and 5 minutes of low intensity, because the high intensity time is too long to ensure that the intensity is faithfully completed, and it will eventually become a medium or low intensity training. The shorter the interval of change, the more the energy supply ratio to fat increases.
Heart rate or oxygen uptake:
The scientific judgment of intensity is heart rate or oxygen uptake. It is best to reach more than 80% of the maximum heart rate or oxygen uptake. People who have the conditions can buy a heart rate monitor and measure it by themselves. If not, you can actually make a rough judgment based on your own feelings. : When it’s fast, it feels like you’re trying your best, and you’re panting; when it’s slow, don’t stop suddenly, but gradually slow down until you stop.
4. Simple HIIT training plan
1. An efficient fat-loss exercise with weight down and floors up - climbing stairs
advantage:
1. Convenience.
2. The fat burning effect is better than expected.
3. The effect of lifting the buttocks is particularly good.
Comparison of energy consumption between running and climbing stairs:
Knee protection:
Joints such as knees are relatively fragile. A fragile structure has to bear the entire body weight and is of course prone to injury. But in fact, what really hurts the knees is not "climbing the stairs", but "going down the stairs". If you do it correctly, stair climbing is minimally harmful to your knees, especially compared to running.
running:
When running, the impact of each foot can reach more than 9 times the human body weight. This 9 times is actually the most basic mechanical concept, which includes the following factors: When running, you will always have one foot on the ground. At this time, one foot Supporting the weight of the whole body is not like sharing it with two feet when standing upright, so the gravity will naturally increase; coupled with the acceleration of gravity when you run, and the work generated when the human body moves... it is simply too easy to injure your knees.
Climb stairs:
When you climb stairs, you are going up against gravity, and the work you generate is opposite to gravity. Moreover, when you have a correct posture and go up two steps at a time, you use your gluteus maximus muscles to exert force, and your center of gravity is further back, which will not directly impact the knees, nor cause excessive friction to the knee joints, nor will it cause Shear force. Therefore, the damage to the knee joint, patella and ligaments caused by climbing stairs is very limited.
Therefore, it is recommended that when you do this HIIT, you only go up the stairs but not down the stairs. The above is only for healthy people. If you have injured your knee before, it is recommended to follow the doctor's advice carefully, just in case.
Climb stairs correctly:
For buttocks:
When climbing stairs, go up two steps at a time to make it easier for your hips to tilt up. When training the buttocks, the most important thing is to change the hip angle between the thighs and the upper body. The greater the change in the hip angle, the greater the stimulation to the buttocks. When ascending two steps at a time, the hip angle is larger than when ascending one step at a time.
But be careful, whether you are going up two steps or one step, your back must be straight and not bent. When lifting your feet, your knees should not exceed your toes. At the same time, you should silently say in your mind: use your buttocks to exert force, use your buttocks to exert force, use your buttocks to exert force... Please do not doubt this. You must know that during the fitness process, you should silently say "exercise force" in your mind. The position is very helpful to improve fitness results. In the field of fitness, we call this behavior the unity of thought and movement. It is not a metaphysics, but one of the tips that many people have proven.
Hip activation:
If you can't find the feeling of force in your glutes, then do a set of glute activation exercises first. This move is called a half-squat lateral walk, and it's very simple and only requires a resistance band.
1. As shown in the picture, use an elastic band or elastic ring on the knee joint or ankle joint and squat down halfway.
2. Walk sideways left and right.
3. Take 10 steps on each side as a group, and do 2 to 3 groups.
Three speeds:
1. "Climb up two steps at a time and sprint up quickly." On this basis, add two more intensities.
2. One is "climb up at a faster speed".
3. The other is "climb up at a normal speed."
There are three speeds, the fastest speed focuses more on shaping the buttocks, the normal speed focuses on cultivating cardiopulmonary function, and the very slow stair climbing speed is equivalent to the intermittent rest in HIIT, which helps the body withstand the stress caused by quickly climbing stairs. pressure. Therefore, the combination of these three speeds is not only very effective in training buttocks, it is also very effective in increasing physical fitness.
Climb up alternately according to these three speeds. For example, the speed on the first floor is very fast, the speed on the second floor is medium, and the speed on the third floor is relatively slow. After that, the speed on the first floor can be fast, the speed on the first floor can be slow, the speed on the first floor can be medium, and then the speed on the first floor can be very slow or very fast. By analogy, as long as the two speeds do not overlap.
Generally speaking, if you live on the 15th to 20th floor, you will be fine if you climb 3 to 6 times. For other floors, you can convert by yourself. For example, if you live on the 10th floor, you will need to climb 10 times, and if you live on the 5th floor, you will need to climb 20 times. Three times a week, half an hour each time.
2.HIIT is for lazy people indoors
The first set of ※Butt lift method: side lunge, sofa squat jump, glute bridge
1. Side lunge
① Stand up straight naturally, but pay attention to keeping your chest up, your head up, and your abdomen in.
② Step forward about one step laterally with your left foot, and then quickly return to the starting position.
③ Change to the other foot and continue.
This is an activation action. Readers with HIIT experience may have seen it in some videos. It can quickly adapt the body to the rhythm of "movement". It is simple and easy to use. Generally within a few seconds, you will find that your entire body is hot, and even your muscles and bones will stretch out. Do this for one minute, then rest for 10 seconds. There is no need to pursue speed at the beginning. If you feel uncomfortable while doing this action, you can go slower and then gradually speed up.
2. Sofa squat jumps
① Slowly sit on the sofa from a standing position with your hands behind your head.
② Keep your back straight and slightly arched (important), and move your buttocks deeper into the sofa! Just sit deep, very close to the inside.
③ Push the buttocks to the back heel! Use explosive power to jump up! When you land, be gentle and use your muscles as a cushion.
Hold for one minute, rest for 10 seconds.
1. Safety.
Since the sofa squats are done on a soft sofa, there is almost no injury or strain to the body.
2. Painless.
Many people did dozens of squats with great interest when they first came into contact with them. Unexpectedly, the pain in their thighs, especially the back of their thighs, was unbearable the next day, so they did not persist and gave up squats... The sofa squat is due to the eccentric phase. There is a sofa to take over, so there is less tension on the muscles during the eccentric phase, reducing pain and allowing you to continue training.
3. Correct your squat form.
To sit deeper on the sofa will allow you to adjust your center of gravity further back, allowing your gluteus maximus to be in a state where it can exert more force. On the sofa, you can easily adjust your body balance without relying on the strength of your biceps femoris, allowing you to do a standard squat! If you don't have a sofa, a bench or chair will do, as long as it's not higher than your knees.
This movement is the same as the side lunge, last for one minute, no need to pursue speed, then rest for 10 seconds.
3. Glute bridge
① Lie on your back, bend your legs at the knees, place your feet on the ground, and spread your arms to both sides.
② Keep the abdominal muscles in a tense state, contract the gluteus maximus, and lift the hips upward until the knees, hips, and shoulders are in a straight line. Stop for a moment and feel the peak contraction of the gluteus maximus.
③ Keep the buttocks tense and restore slowly.
Hold for one minute, rest for 30 seconds.
The glute bridge is also a very good training movement for the buttocks. It uses bare hands and body weight. There is no possibility of overload. There are no other joint activities except the hip joint. Therefore, apart from the buttocks, there will be almost no other trouble.
Number of complete loop groups:
Three movements are made into one set, and you do 4 sets each time. It only takes 15 minutes including rest time, but it can make you burn fat quickly and improve your buttocks. 3 times a week.
The second set of ※Super fast fat loss method: jumping and clapping, straight knee kicking, prone climbing
1. Jump and clap
① Stand with your feet together naturally, hands hanging on both sides of your thighs, ready.
② When jumping up, open your hands and feet at the same time, land with your feet wide apart and clap your hands at the same time; resume the starting position when jumping next time.
This action activates the body. The intensity of the jumping clap is greater than that of the side lunge, and more involvement of the large muscle groups of the lower limbs is involved. Under normal circumstances, jumping will always burn more fat and be more strenuous than standing still. The reason is that you have to overcome gravity and require more muscle groups to participate. But at the same time, the effect is also significant. Continue this movement for one minute, then rest for 10 seconds.
2. Straight knee front kick
① Stand up straight naturally to prepare.
② While kicking one foot straight forward, reach out the hand in the opposite direction to touch the toes, such as your left hand touching your right foot, or your right hand touching your left foot.
③ Replace in turns.
Still hold for one minute, rest for 10 seconds.
3. Climbing prone
① Place your hands on the ground. Your elbows do not need to be fully straightened. Just support your body. Tighten your abdomen and keep your back in a straight line.
② Drive one foot forward and stretch it as far forward as possible, then switch to the other foot.
Hold for one minute, rest for 10 seconds.
Number of complete loop groups:
Perform one set of three moves, one minute each, 10 seconds rest, 4 sets, 3 times a week.
The third set※Big breasts and thin waists: push-ups, push-up jumps, and plank support
1. Push-ups
① Place your hands on the ground, slightly wider than shoulder width, tighten your waist and abdomen, and keep your body in a straight line.
② Bend your elbows, lean your entire body forward and press down until the back of your hands is 3 to 5 cm away from your chest.
③ Return to the starting position and continue.
Continue for one minute, then rest for 10 seconds.
If you can't do push-ups, you can kneel on the ground and do kneeling push-ups. Except for the difference of "kneeling", other movement essentials are almost the same as standard push-ups.
2. Push-up jump
① See push-up action description.
② After completing a push-up, jump up quickly and then return to the starting position to continue.
Continue for one minute, then rest for 10 seconds.
3. Plank support
① Support your forearms on the ground, keep your body in a straight line, and tighten all your muscles as much as possible. The best duration is about one minute. If you can't hold on for that long, then hold on as long as possible.
Continue for one minute, then rest for 10 seconds.
Don't pay attention to the brief swaying or body movements when you can't hold on. Know that these small movements are not only harmless, but even beneficial.
Number of complete loop groups:
Perform 3 moves in sets of 4 at a time, 3 times a week.
The difference between push-ups in the whole set of movements:
On the second time, replace the push-ups with incline push-ups, which will stimulate the upper part of your chest muscles. For the third time, switch to incline push-ups to modify the arc under the chest and allow the chest to develop comprehensively and evenly.
Incline push-ups
Incline push-ups
The movements of incline and decline are also very simple. Find an equipment with a height of 20 to 40 centimeters. Place your hands on it when going up and place your feet on it when going down. It may be a little difficult at first, but if you really can't, just use kneeling push-ups.
Except for push-ups, the other movements remain unchanged. The first movement is push-ups, incline push-ups, and decline push-ups; the second movement adds jumping on the basis of the original movement; and the final step is plank support.
The fourth set of ※Good posture methods: cross push-up, push-up jump, plank support
1. Cross push up
① Lie prone on the ground with your hands stretched forward.
② Lift your left leg and right arm upward at the same time until you feel your lower back contracting and tightening (don’t force it).
③ Keep the above position still, count 1, 2, 3, and wait for 3 seconds.
④ Put down your left leg and right arm, change your right leg and left arm to do the same posture, and wait for 3 seconds.
One minute, followed by 10 seconds of rest.
This action focuses on the protection of the lumbar spine. If you work at a desk all year round, your lumbar spine must not be in good shape. The cross push-up can correct your lumbar spine, allowing you to maintain a healthier posture whether you are standing or sitting quietly.
2. Push-ups, jumps and planks
See above.
The entire set of cycles:
Perform 3 moves in sets of 4 at a time, 3 times a week.
The fifth set ※ Comprehensive and detailed: straight knee front kick, dumbbell squat press, abdominal crunch
1. Straight knee front kick
See above.
2. Dumbbell Squat Press
① Hold a small dumbbell with your feet shoulder-width apart.
② Complete a deep squat.
③ After standing up, hold the dumbbells high with both hands, pause for a second, and return to the starting position.
3. Abdominal crunches
① Lie flat on the floor or yoga mat, bend your legs naturally, and put your hands behind your head. Note that you just put it there without applying any force.
② Activate the power of the abdominal muscles to curl the body. Feel the force in the abdomen to form folds on the skin of the waist. Hold for one second and return to the starting position.
The entire set of cycles:
Perform 3 moves in sets of 4 at a time, 3 times a week.
Five sets of alternating cycles:
The above five sets of movements should be performed in turn, on the basis of ensuring three times a week, as short as one month or as long as three months.
Chapter 4 Resistance training for body shaping - sculpting body details, starting with resistance
1. Big breasts and thin waist - the key to defying gravity
Add charm:
In fitness training, the chest can be initially divided into upper chest, middle chest and lower chest. Upper chest training can elevate the overall vision and give people a taller feeling; mid-chest training can thicken the chest, making men's chest appear wider and women's breasts increase in cup size; scientists believe that the junction of the lower chest and abdomen is the key to invisible female attraction.
Even if you are a fashion-conscious person and don't like big breasts, it is still necessary to train your chest muscles, because flat chest does not mean "ugly breasts." With the continued effect of gravity and the loss of collagen, any breast will become saggy and out of shape, and training the chest muscles can make the chest perky and elastic, making your dressing effect better. At the same time, the lifted chest can also draw the visual focus upward, making the waistline longer, making the waist appear taller and slimmer.
We all know that there are hard, ugly and even rough steel wires inside the hair curler, but the hair curler still looks soft. This is the same as the chest. The pectoral muscles are used to straighten the body and the fat is used to fill the shape. Therefore, well-developed chest muscles will not make your chest look ugly. In fact, it can also create a better line for you.
Structure of chest muscles:
The biggest function of the chest muscles is to adduct the humerus of the upper arm horizontally, which is manifested in daily life by pushing things. To put it simply and crudely, the most common-sense problem with the pectoral muscles is that the uppermost part of the pectoral muscles is connected to the lowermost part of the greater tuberosity ridge of the humerus, and the lowermost part of the pectoral muscles is connected to the uppermost part of the greater tuberosity ridge of the humerus.
In fact, a large part of the real function of the chest muscles is climbing and throwing. The upper and lower structures of the chest muscles only play a role when the hands are raised overhead.
Only when you raise your hands overhead will the upper and lower positions of your chest muscles on the humerus become positive, allowing you to explode with great strength. This is why humans are so amazingly capable of throwing among animals (in fact, throwing is also a unique ability of humans). Considering our ancestors hunted by throwing spears and rocks, it's easy to understand how important the pecs were to human life.
According to the chest muscle map, a large part of the upper chest is connected to the clavicle, and the other part is connected to the upper arm. Therefore, upper chest movements should focus more on changing the sternoclavicular joint and acromioclavicular joint. So, one of the most important points in practicing chest muscles is to move the arms, clamp them inward, move the shoulder joints, and adduct them horizontally!
Freehand chest muscle training: push-ups
push-up
Push-ups are a basic chest exercise that all bodybuilders know. They have the advantages of no equipment, no venue restrictions, and can be trained anytime and anywhere. In addition to very effective training of the pectoralis major, anterior deltoid muscles, and triceps brachii, push-ups also have a good training effect on the core muscles.
Key points of standard push-ups
The real push-up is to use your chest muscles to push yourself up and fall down in a controlled manner, which is equivalent to a weight-bearing training, and the weight is your own body weight.
1. Your body should be straight. No matter whether you are going up or down, your torso should be in a straight line, that is, your abdominal muscles, back muscles, and gluteal muscles should be tight. This can better convey power and train the core muscles.
2. During the movement, pay attention to the way to exert force by clamping the chest and exerting force with the chest instead of straightening the elbows. This can better train the chest.
3. In addition to exerting force during the rising stage, you must also exert force slowly during the falling stage. To enhance the stability of shoulder joints and prevent injuries.
Various variations of push-ups
According to the distance between the hands, push-ups can be divided into wide-grip push-ups and narrow-grip push-ups.
wide push-ups
Can better train the chest muscles.
1. The distance between the hands is wider, the upper arm is abducted, and the role of internal rotation is increased, so that the pectoralis major muscle can better exert force.
2. The wide stance increases the initial length of the chest muscles, causing them to be stretched from the beginning, thus increasing their contraction force accordingly.
3. The wider the grip distance, the greater the work done by gravity. When the load is greater, the chest muscles will exert more force (the chest muscles are the agonist muscles and core joint muscles of movement).
Close push-ups
Can better train the triceps.
Anatomical analysis of the ascending phase
Comparison of the contribution rates of major muscles between the bodybuilding group and the ordinary group during the rising phase of push-ups
As shown in the figure, when the distance becomes wider, the contribution rate of the electromyographic level of the pectoralis major increases. As the distance narrows, the EMG level contribution of the triceps brachii increases. At any time, the bodybuilding group has a stronger chest muscle recruitment ability than ordinary people and can use the chest muscles to exert force.
The wider the distance, the greater the stimulation to the pectoralis major muscle and the smaller the stimulation to the triceps brachii. The bodybuilding group was able to recruit more pectoral muscle fibers than the control group. In other words, as the training level increases, the training effect of push-ups on the chest muscles becomes better. Therefore, the more people can't find the feeling of strength in their chests, the more push-ups they need to do.
Kneeling push-ups or incline push-ups
There is an option for those who cannot do push-ups.
Kneeling push-ups are also called half push-ups. As the name suggests, they are done while kneeling on the ground - it doesn't sound like a big change. In fact, after kneeling down, the angle of the shoulder joint completely changes, allowing the body to help share part of the weight, making it much easier. .
Incline push-ups focus on changing the force angle of the shoulder joint, but the final effect is still the same reduction of the weight being supported, making the movement easier and simpler, and there is a step-by-step process.
Number of groups: If your goal is to shape your body, enlarge your breasts, or build muscle, a group of 8 to 20 push-ups, 3 to 6 groups a day, is enough. If you can easily do more than 20, then try doing standard push-ups.
High five push-ups
Not only is it like push-ups, it requires no equipment and can be easily trained anytime and anywhere, targeting large muscle groups such as the chest muscles, but it can also increase strength and endurance more efficiently and strengthen overall body shaping!
The method is as shown above. Although the name is high-five push-ups, it’s totally fine without high-fives. The action is exactly the same as traditional push-ups, just push yourself up as much as possible during the exertion phase.
With just this slight change, the force exerted by the muscles will be completely different. When a traditional push-up is pushed up, the muscles are contracting isotonicly, and when they are lowered, the muscles are contracting eccentrically. When the high-five push-up is pushed up, the muscles are doing isokinetic contractions, and when they are falling, the muscles are doing superisometric contractions.
isokinetic contraction
Throughout the exercise, all muscles exert their maximum strength. For example, in a traditional push-up, it is likely that the triceps, the weakest muscle, exert 100% of the power, while the pectoralis major, the strongest muscle, only exerts 50% of the power. In high-five push-ups, since you have to push yourself up in an instant, almost all active muscles involved must exert 100% of their strength. This is one of the most effective forms of muscle contraction in training.
Analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of traditional strength training methods
hyperisometric contraction
It refers to a way in which the muscle fibers are stretched during the buffering and braking stage, and then immediately contract quickly and forcefully. At present, academic circles believe that it is the best way to train explosive power. That is to say, during the process of high-five push-ups, the muscles absorb the impact force when falling, lengthen the muscle fibers, and store part of the elastic materials in the muscles such as tendons and tendons. In the fascia, the muscle spindles feel the stretch at the same time, rebound quickly, and push themselves up again.
Advantages of high-five push-ups
1. It solves the problem of training load very well. No matter how heavy you are or how good your strength level is, you can explode close to 100% of your power. Because not only do you have to push yourself up, you also have to get yourself as high into the air as possible.
2. High-five push-ups also solve the imbalance problem of traditional push-ups in muscle strength training. In the past, small muscle groups received 100% load training, while large muscle groups such as chest muscles could only receive 50% to 70% load training. If the small muscle groups have no strength, you will not be able to do push-ups. However, after the isokinetic contraction of the high-five push-up, all muscle groups exert close to 100% of their power. Moreover, traditional strength and super isometric training is currently the most recognized training combination in academic circles for improving strength and explosive power.
Key points to note:
During the exercise, you must proceed step by step. Do not use your joints and bones to absorb the force of the fall at the beginning. This will not only fail to train the muscles well, but will also cause bad wear and tear on the joints. Our goal is to master the method of using the chest muscles and deltoid muscles to absorb the impact, so that you can use the chest muscles to bounce up the body every time.
The function of push-up stand
Change of focus:
Traditional push-ups, with the center of gravity near the palms:
When using a push-up stand, the center of gravity will shift to near the base of the palms:
Shifting the center of gravity can change the force angle of the sternoclavicular joint, allowing your chest muscles to better exert force, allowing you to better train your chest. At the same time, push-up stands can also reduce the shear force on the elbows.
The stretch becomes longer:
The push-up rack can make your initial chest stretch longer, the chest muscles will exert more force, and the load on the chest muscles will become greater.
push-up training plan
The difference between upper and lower chest:
Chest muscle training is also divided into upper chest and lower chest training. We try to focus on the upper chest, because shaping the upper chest can make the chest look more beautiful and powerful. If the lower chest is too thick, the chest muscles will look saggy, so the lower chest line should be sharp.
For different exercises on the upper and lower positions of the chest, you can choose inclined push-up training. You can use incline push-ups to train your lower chest, and you can use decline push-ups to train your upper chest.
Grip distance:
The best way to train the upper chest is to use incline push-ups with a narrow stance, and to train the lower chest with an incline push-up with a wide stance.
Comparison of the electromechanical changes of each muscle in the incline 80% RM (repetition maximum, the highest number of repetitions that can be done continuously with a certain load) three grip distance bench press movements
The picture shows the changes in the EMG levels of various muscle parts under different grip distances during the incline bench press (but the principle of action is basically similar to push-ups). The leftmost part is the upper part of the pectoralis major muscle. You can see the narrow grip. , which has the best training effect on the upper part of the pectoralis major muscle.
General training plan:
Warm-up: 10 standard push-ups x 3 sets.
Formal: Each set of high-five push-ups to failure × 3 sets.
15 high-five incline push-ups x 4 sets (2 sets each of incline and incline push-ups).
Note: If you can't do high-five push-ups, you can do standard push-ups, or you can try decline high-five push-ups or incline high-five push-ups. These two are easier.
Stretching: Place your hands against the wall and slowly turn your body to stretch your chest.
Chest muscle training
barbell bench press
action:
1. Lie on your back on a bench press bench, with your feet on the ground naturally, and hold the barbell with both hands, shoulder width or slightly wider than shoulder width.
2. Remove the barbell from the bench press rack, slowly lower the barbell, and stop when the barbell is a little distance from your chest.
3. Quickly push up until your arms are almost straight, pause for a moment, and then do the next set of movements.
Key points:
1. When exerting force, pay attention to keeping the chest, shoulder joints and upper arms inward, and do not pay attention to the straightening of the elbow joints. Keep your chest high and your shoulders low.
2. During the movement, the upper back and buttocks cannot leave the bench surface, forming an arched waist. If your goal is to train the chest muscles, you'd better not use too much leg strength and keep your feet steady without using force.
3. During training, the position of the barbell should be at the base of the palm, not the center of the palm or the front of the palm.
Attention to detail:
The center of gravity of push-ups moves downward to better stimulate the chest, while the center of gravity of the palms of the bench press moves downward to prevent your wrists from bearing too much pressure, which may damage your wrist bones.
When benching with a flat barbell, many people are used to benching in a high-chest position, which means the barbell falls on the clavicle and up to the face. However, this action is actually not conducive to overall training. Compared with the standard flat bench press that falls on the chest and goes up to the clavicle, the high-chest bench press will reduce the training effect of the pectoralis major muscle.
Standard vs high chest position (myoelectric level)
It can be seen from the experiment that compared with the standard bench press, the EMG levels of the pectoralis major and deltoid muscles in the high-chest position bench press are much lower. In other words, the high chest bench press does not fully train these two main muscle groups.
The high-chest bench press causes excessive abduction of the upper arms, which increases the angle between the resistance line of the barbell and the muscle fibers of the pectoralis major, resulting in a decrease in stimulation of the entire pectoralis major muscle. Therefore, the standard bench press with the barbell lowered to the middle of the chest is a more effective training method.
Smith machine bench press
advantage:
Stable and highly secure. Suitable for those who don’t have a partner and want to increase weight.
Barbell vs Smith Machine (weight)
The chart shows the average weight each lifter used to perform the Smith bench press and the barbell bench press using a weight they could only perform 10 repetitions maximum (10RM).
Because the Smith machine is fixed front and back, it limits the force angle of the pectoral muscle fibers and cannot allow the pectoral muscles to exert their strength 100%, which ultimately leads to limited training effects. It is recommended to mainly use free barbell.
Tips:
1. A standard flat bench press empty bar weighs 20 kilograms.
2. The weight of the empty rod of Smith machine ranges from 10 to 20 kilograms, usually about 15 kilograms.
Grip distance
Standard bench press
Hold the barbell with both hands shoulder-width apart. The bench press with a standard grip can well take into account the training of the chest muscles, deltoid muscles and triceps brachii, allowing you to kill three birds with one stone.
wide grip bench press
It’s best to hold it close to 1.5 times your shoulder length. One study found that when the distance between your hands is greater than 1.5 times shoulder width, it significantly increases the chance of shoulder injury. Because when your grip is too wide, the pressure from the barbell will act on your deltoid muscles and shoulders, which will not only cause shoulder pain, but also increase the probability of shoulder ligament injury.
Standard vs wide grip (EMG level)
The wide-grip bench press will give you better chest training results.
Close grip bench press
Can better train the triceps.
Standard test
If the angle of your elbows does not exceed 90 degrees at the lowest point of the entire bench press, it will not put too much burden on your shoulders.
Incline and decline bench press
upper chest
Bench presses and push-ups are both possible, but the distance between your hands must be narrow. Whether you are supporting on the ground or holding a barbell, a narrow distance between your arms can better stimulate the chest muscles to "clamp".
Incline push-ups themselves assist gravity, making your load smaller, closer to 40% of the load. Therefore, the training effect of a wide grip is better at this time.
Lower chest
Two situations:
When you are carrying a small load, a wide grip is better at training the lower chest; when you are loading close to 80% of the maximum, a narrow grip is significantly better than other grips.
Comparison chart:
Comparison of the training effects of three grip methods on the decline barbell bench press at 40% load
Comparison of the training effects of three grip methods on the decline barbell bench press at 80% load
reason:
Relevant to the horizontal shoulder flexion and extension angle in the bench press.
When you perform a decline bench press, the maximum horizontal shoulder flexion and extension angle decreases. When the load is heavy, if the grip is wider, the body can borrow force because the shoulder flexion and extension angle becomes smaller. At this time, the narrow-grip bench press, which is not easy to borrow force, can train the chest muscles better.
Summarize:
When the load is heavy, choose a narrow grip; when the load is small, choose a wide grip.
Key points of chest muscle training
1. Do not lock the joints.
If the elbow joint is locked, it means that you have to rely heavily on the triceps brachii; if the shoulder joint is locked, it means that you have to rely on the anterior deltoid muscles, neither of which stimulates the chest muscles in isolation. At the same time, when you lock the joints, it also means that you give up the opportunity for isometric contraction when you stop. Heavy weights can also put a lot of pressure on your joints, leading to injury or strain.
2. Sink your shoulders and clamp your chest.
This is what I just said, if you don’t sink your shoulders, you use the front deltoid muscles; if you don’t press your chest, you use the triceps brachii.
3. Thoughts and movements are consistent.
You must think that you are clamping your chest and pay attention to the feeling of your muscles. This is the focus of isolation training for bodybuilding.
4. Various angles, up and down, etc.
Although the upper and lower ends of the chest muscles are determined by overhead exercise training, the fullness of the upper and lower parts of the chest muscles still requires incline and decline dumbbell bench presses, cable bench presses that require frequent changes in angle, etc.
5. Eat more, drink more and sleep more.
Chest muscle training is all about size and strength, so you must make sure to keep up with eating and drinking to ensure excess recovery.
6. Use more elastic bands.
The elastic band can ensure that you are doing isokinetic contractions and that your chest muscles are exerting their maximum strength throughout the exercise.
7. Stretch.
Stretching expands the fascia during hyperemia, thereby promoting muscle growth.
Gym training plan for chest muscles
2. The buttocks are raised to show the length of the legs - the golden section of perfect curves
Perfect butt:
1. It can lengthen and heighten the visual effect of the legs by 5 to 10 cm.
2. The gluteus maximus is one of the largest muscles in the human body and has excellent fat-burning ability.
3. Strong hip muscles will also save you a lot of effort during daily walking, running and even standing.
The composition of a perfect butt:
Gluteus maximus and gluteus medius. The key issue in practicing to lift your butt is how to strengthen your gluteus maximus muscles to make them strong.
Gluteus maximus:
The responsible movements are extension and external rotation of the femur, which means extending the thigh backward. Strong gluteus maximus muscles not only look better, they are also the guarantee of super explosive power in various sports.
Gluteus medius:
It is located in the upper part of the buttocks. Although it is a deep muscle, because it is a pennate muscle, it can also be powerful and stylish, and can be used as an important supplement to the strength of the lower limbs. Of course, the most important thing is appearance. Developing the gluteus medius can not only lift the buttocks completely, but also make the buttocks look fuller and rounder.
Gluteus maximus training focus:
Two important points:
1. Since the main function of the gluteus maximus is to change the hip angle, this key point must be remembered during training.
2. The gluteus maximus is extremely powerful, and it is difficult to stimulate its growth with light weight training.
Reasons why gluteus maximus cannot be trained:
1. The hip muscles are not enough to support the buttocks to complete an action with isolated force. When a heavy-weight compound movement exerts force on the whole body, the parts with insufficient muscle strength must borrow force from the parts with sufficient muscle strength.
2. There is no more restriction on leg force, and the knee angle changes too much. The quadriceps (muscle group on the front of the thigh) and hamstrings (muscle group on the back of the thigh) are powerful, durable, and flexible muscles. The body is accustomed to using these two muscles to fight against external resistance. If you don't restrict the power of these two muscles, it will be difficult to stimulate the buttocks.
Recommendation: Do hip activation exercises first
Half-squatting is the best angle for the gluteal muscles to exert force, while lateral walking is the main movement method of the gluteus medius and other muscle groups. This action activates the gluteal muscles through reasonable postures and movement methods for exerting force. Before training your buttocks, use this action to warm up to get twice the result with half the effort! It also avoids the dilemma of training the buttocks only to the legs. In addition, the resistance of the elastic band should not be too high. Research shows that elastic bands with different resistances have little difference in the activation effect of the gluteal muscles.
Key points to note:
1. Correct half-squat posture (this is also the secret that all butt training must abide by).
2. Keep your upper body upright, with your back spine arched and your tailbone pointing upwards. Do not bend over or hunch your back.
3. The upper body must be close to the thigh, that is, the hip angle must change significantly.
Squat - the king of training:
Hardcore Squats:
A standard squat can train more than 200 major muscles in the body, and the muscle groups trained by squats are also the largest and most important muscle groups in the body, such as hips, legs, lower back, etc. Squats are the "most effective" movement you can do in training. Whether your training purpose is to gain muscle, lose fat, shape your body, raise your butt, or anything else, squat training cannot be avoided. .
"Sit back" instead of "sit down":
The three largest muscle groups in the lower body: quadriceps, biceps femoris, and gluteus maximus. It is also the muscle group with the strongest strength and the strongest fat-burning ability in the whole body.
quadriceps
biceps femoris and gluteus maximus
The researchers analyzed the EMG levels of "sit down" and the more correct squat posture "sit back". Studies have found that correct posture recruits more muscles in the buttocks and hamstrings than incorrect posture.
To put it simply, it means not squatting "back", but squatting "down".
The function of the gluteus maximus is to straighten the hip joint. Therefore, if you focus too much on squatting down instead of squatting back, you will only change the angle of the knee joint without focusing on changing the angle of the hip joint, which will not only affect the overall training effect. It’s useless and will make your thighs thicker and your knees more likely to be injured.
Preliminary version: Sofa squat-safe and efficient at the same time
1. Slowly move from a standing position to sitting on the sofa with your hands behind your head.
2. Keep your back straight and slightly arched (important), and move your buttocks deeper into the sofa! Just sit deep, very close to the inside.
3. With your head looking straight ahead, your back straight and slightly arched, use your buttocks to exert force on your heels, and push off the ground to stand up.
Intermediate version: Pull Squat - perfect for even beginners
1. Place your hands below your chest, about the same height as your belly button, and hold a fixed fulcrum.
2. Sit back, keep your upper body straight (slightly arched, which means you feel like you are raising your chest and belly), and look straight ahead with your head. Hold the anchor point with both hands to prevent yourself from falling backwards. Although it’s called a pull squat, don’t actually use too much force on your arms! Only when you are about to fall, do you give it a little tug.
When doing pull squats, remember not to put too much weight on your hands.
Advanced version: Wall Squat – Test your form
1. Stand facing the wall, holding your head with your hands, holding on to the wall, or hanging your hands naturally (shown as holding your head in the picture).
2. Sit back slowly, just like a standard squat, with your upper body arched and straight.
3. When the thigh is nearly parallel to the ground (the buttocks also feel stretched), the gluteus maximus muscle exerts force to stand up quickly and return to an upright position.
When squatting facing the wall, you must pay attention to arching and straightening your back. To ensure this, the squat posture must be correct.
glute bridge
as the picture shows:
Lie on your back, bend your knees and spread your feet a little apart;
Tighten the buttocks and push upward, feeling that only the hip joint is moving, that is, "stretching the hips";
Contract at the top, that is, stay still for a short while, and feel the tightening of the buttocks;
Use force on your hips and lower them slowly, performing eccentric contractions.
Key points of training
Use the buttocks alone to exert force, do not exert force or borrow force from other places;
Straighten the hip joint immediately, do not force the back to bend, and do not tense the lower back too much. If it is bodyweight training (not HIIT), then do 10 to 20 reps in one set, 3 sets each time. It’s best to do 3 sets for both legs and 3 sets for one leg, twice a week, on glute or lower body training days.
If you feel you have mastered the essentials, you can also do a single-leg glute bridge, which can effectively train the gluteus medius and further improve the curves. If you can do more than 30 easily, it's time to progress to the next level, where you can place a barbell or small plates on your lower abdomen, which will load your hips. You can also do some deformations and change the angle from time to time (putting the upper body on the fitness bench or placing the feet on the fitness bench) to stimulate the development of the buttocks from all directions and angles.
Romanian Deadlift:
Deadlift:
Like squats, deadlifts train hundreds of muscles throughout the body, including almost all large muscle groups, as well as many important small muscle groups that you don't normally train. Deadlifts not only burn more fat than regular training, but they also sculpt your body efficiently.
Romanian deadlift
The main moving joint of the Romanian deadlift is the hip joint (crotch), followed by the knee joint. The main training parts are the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, lower back muscles, and posterior leg muscles, and these muscle groups One of the best training exercises, and these muscle groups are precisely the most important and fastest-acting muscle groups for body sculpting.
Training method:
You can train with barbells, dumbbells, or other weights (such as kettlebells, elastic bands, etc.), and the training methods are similar. The barbell or dumbbell position for the Romanian deadlift starts at mid-calf and does not need to be completely on the ground. Like all movements, the back must be tightened, otherwise it is very easy to get injured.
The Romanian deadlift can start from the ground, pull to an upright position and then lower it (start with B, end with A), or it can start from an upright position, slowly lower it and then pull it up (start with A, end with B).
1. Keep your feet apart, about shoulder width apart, bend your knees slightly (not too much), fold your hips back, and feel the gluteal muscles being stretched. This action is called hip folding, and it must be mastered because this is how the buttocks generate force.
2. Hold the barbell with both hands. (You can hold it either upright or underhand. The way to bear the most weight is to hold it with one hand forward and one hand underhand, which is more stable.) You can use a four-finger grip and a power belt to avoid arm exhaustion and weight shift.
3. The barbell or dumbbell should be attached to the calf, otherwise, the lower back and lumbar spine will be subject to abnormal pressure. Arch your back, tighten your core muscles, tighten your hips, and pull up. During the whole process, the knee joint should not be locked, and the knee should not be completely straightened, but should be slightly bent.
Please note that during the entire lifting process, the center of gravity is placed on the rear buttocks. The center of gravity must be controlled and not too far forward. When lifting, imagine that you have a tail that reaches straight into the sky. This will help you keep your pelvis and hips in the correct position.
Summary of key points:
1. The barbell below reaches up to the middle of the calf. Hands and feet should be shoulder-width apart. Don't hold the barbell too far away from your body, otherwise the lower back will be easily stressed.
2. Hip joint folds and bends. The knee joint remains almost unchanged and changes in angle very little. This way you can train your buttocks instead of your legs.
3. The center of gravity is backward, the back is arched, and the tail is pointed toward the sky.
4. Use your hips to exert force, and do not lock your knee joints.
5. Avoid explosive and extreme speed movements to prevent injuries.
3. Privately hidden sexy abs - the most visually beautiful sight on the body
Misconceptions about abdominal muscle exercise
Myth 1: Your abdominal muscles cannot be built by doing abdominal exercises alone!
In order to have clearly visible abdominal muscles, many people work hard to do various abdominal exercises at home every day: spinning hula hoops, doing sit-ups, but when they lower their heads, they can always see a circle of fat on their stomachs... It's them Are you doing abdominal training wrong?
The truth is, the appearance of abdominal muscles is not primarily determined by abdominal exercises. No matter how many sit-ups and crunches you do, if your body fat content is not low enough, your abdominal muscles will never come out!
Abdominal muscle training mainly focuses on building muscles, but it cannot reduce local belly fat. Therefore, even if you have developed very strong abdominal muscles, when your body fat content is relatively high, they can only be buried obediently by fat. Low body fat means that the corresponding subcutaneous fat becomes less. . Imagine that the layer of fat under your belly has been evacuated, and the abdominal muscles inside will naturally be clearly visible.
Therefore, if your goal is clearly visible abdominal muscles, your first choice should be exercise to lose fat, rather than special training for abdominal muscles. As for smashing abdominal fat, the most effective method currently is high-intensity interval aerobic training, or HIIT.
Myth 2: Crunches are not the best abdominal exercise!
Experiments have proven that the sit-ups we usually learn can easily rely on the strength of the latissimus dorsi and other muscles during exercise, and the stimulation of the abdominal muscles is not very obvious. Moreover, many people experience neck pain when doing sit-ups.
cervical vertebra
As you can see from the picture, the human cervical spine is naturally curved backwards, which is normal. When you do sit-ups, under normal circumstances, most people will hold their heads, that is, pull their heads with their hands to drive their upper body. This posture will put the cervical spine in a very unhealthy and abnormal position. Posture, to put it simply, means that you push your cervical spine forward! When the cervical spine becomes an unnatural and pathological arc, neck pain will naturally occur.
This is still related to the latissimus dorsi muscle. The main functions of the latissimus dorsi are to extend, adduct, and internally rotate the humerus. Then, when the humerus exerts force, that is, when the arm is in an overhead position, the latissimus dorsi muscle will pull the arm, causing the arm to drive the forearm, and the forearm to drive the hand, and then the hand to pull the head, and the head to drive the neck. This series of reactions can lead to neck pain.
Location of abdominal muscles and latissimus dorsi
Even if you don't hold your head, you still feel pain because you stretch your neck hard. All unnatural changes in the position of the cervical spine will cause neck pain. Leverage principle: By moving your head closer to your body, you can shorten the distance between the resistance arms. To put it simply, it is to save some effort.
Therefore, friends who have experienced neck pain must pay attention to the position of their neck when doing these actions, and do not let their cervical spine exceed the normal position too much.
Myth 3: You don’t have to have eight-pack abs!
The shape of the abdominal muscles is caused by the innate physiological structure. In fact, the shape of the abdominal muscles depends on the tendon delineation of the rectus abdominis, but the tendon delineation is not always horizontally symmetrical and may even be serrated. In addition, the number of tendon strokes is not fixed, usually 3 to 4 on each side, so if the abdominal muscles grow asymmetrically, it cannot be corrected and changed by acquired training.
The role of abdominal muscles
The true function of the abdominal muscles is that they are an axis of inheritance for the entire body.
To put it simply, "punch" sports are sports with strong power output such as tennis, volleyball, boxing, etc. The power comes from the legs, and the power of the legs must be transmitted to the flexible arms through a strong and powerful waist and abdominal core. . Therefore, a strong waist and abdominal core is the key to determining the level of exercise.
From a physiological point of view, the abdominal muscles and lumbar spine play complementary roles. The quality of the lumbar spine is largely determined by the abdominal muscles. Strong abdominal muscles can make the body more stable and prevent injuries; on the contrary, Weak abdominal muscles will greatly increase the probability of back pain. Therefore, the most effective way to combat this kind of low back pain is to strengthen the abdominal muscles. Low back pain is not caused by weak muscles such as the erector spinae muscles in the waist. On the contrary, it is caused by the weak strength of the abdominal muscles, which makes the body rely too much on the erector spinae muscles and longissimus muscles of the lower back. Therefore, reasonable abdominal core training is the best way to combat low back pain.
Summary: The important role of waist and abdominal core training
1. Increase the stability of the spine and pelvis.
2. The core strength of the waist and abdomen is strong, which can better improve the body's control and balance capabilities.
3. Improve the coordination ability and movement efficiency between the upper and lower limbs and movements during exercise.
4. A stable waist and abdominal core can prevent some injuries in sports and daily life.
Therefore, the waist and abdominal core is the basis for better performance in any sport!
Plank
As the most effective introductory core muscle group training, plank support is often called the strongest movement for core muscle group training. You can work almost every core muscle group you can think of in this move.
No matter how you change your posture, your core muscles must remain tight and exert force. If your waist is slumped and your lower back is unable to tighten, you may be injured or strained. During the training process, if you are not familiar with some movements, do it slowly. The most important thing is to do it step by step.
Crunch
The key point of crunching is crunching! Simply put, you want to see your abdominal muscles flex. Never pull yourself up with your back straight just to get your upper body up! It would be better not to stand up completely, but to ensure that the abdominal muscles are strengthened and curled!
Flash waist
Among daily actions, the most likely cause of backache is bending down to pull heavy objects on the ground!
Normal shape of human spine
As shown in the figure, the normal posture of the human spine is slightly arched with the tailbone pointing upward. Therefore, if you bend over to pull heavy objects on the ground, you must need several muscle groups in the back that maintain the normal posture of the spine to contract and exert force. But the actual situation is that these muscle groups simply do not have the strength required to complete this action. This is like relying on the erector spinae and other muscles on the back to complete actions such as deadlifts, squats, and moving things. The outcome will definitely be It was an ugly death. Therefore, the training weight of the lower back muscles of ordinary athletes, such as weight-bearing bends, will be about 100 kilograms lighter than the squat deadlift.
In daily life, when you encounter things that require back muscle strength such as carrying heavy objects, please remember: you must squat down first, straighten your back, let the back muscles stretch, and maintain isometric contraction (isometric contraction). Much stronger than ordinary shortening and contraction), and then use the strength of the legs to lift the heavy object from the ground. At this time, remember that your back and upper limbs do not change positions, otherwise it is very easy to cause injury.
The back is straight and slightly arched. In addition to being a rule for carrying heavy objects in daily life, it is also the basic posture of the trunk for almost all movements that require explosive force transmission, because this position is the easiest to faithfully transmit the powerful explosive force of the lower limbs to the flexible upper limbs. For example, basketball defense and many basic postures. In addition, training the core muscles of the lower back is also very effective for straightening the posture!
cross step
Action introduction:
Lie on the ground with your hands stretched forward;
Lift your left leg and right arm upward at the same time until you feel your lower back contracting and tightening (don't force it);
Keep the above position still, count 1, 2, 3, and wait for 3 seconds;
Put down your left leg and right arm, change your right leg and left arm to do the same position, and wait for 3 seconds;
Generally, for each set of movements, the left and right hands should do 20 times each, and 3 to 5 sets each time. Although this action is relatively basic, it allows beginners to quickly find the feeling of exerting force and contraction of several muscle groups in the lower back. At the same time, it can also correct the posture and avoid hunching over! The effect will be better if trained together with plank support.
Anterior pelvic tilt
Comparison chart of normal pelvis, anterior pelvic tilt, and posterior pelvic tilt
Generally speaking, anterior pelvic tilt is a pathological phenomenon in which the pelvic position is incorrect. As shown in the picture, the pelvic position of a person who leans forward is slightly forward compared to that of a normal person. Generally speaking, if the lower abdomen is lordotic and the lumbar spine is lordotic, there may be some symptoms of anterior pelvic tilt.
An important cause of anterior pelvic tilt: imbalance of anterior and posterior lumbar muscle strength.
There are many muscle groups in the front and back of the human spine that pull and pull each other, which will cause such a situation: when the muscles that pull the lumbar spine backward (such as the erector spinae, etc.) are in a state of continuous tension and force, those that pull the lumbar spine backward will be in a state of continuous tension and force. The muscles that pull the lumbar spine forward (such as the rectus abdominis, etc.) are not strong enough. If there is no corresponding restraint ability, the pull between the muscle groups will be out of balance, which can easily lead to the problem of anterior pelvic tilt.
reverse crunch
Reverse crunches can effectively prevent the pelvis from tilting forward. At the same time, this action can also effectively train several abdominal muscles in the lower abdomen.
reverse crunch
Start the action:
Lie flat on the floor or mat, with your knees bent or your legs straight. You can place your hands behind your head, or you can hold on to an exercise bench or the edge of the bed for support.
Action process:
Use the power of your abdominal muscles to curl up your body, and slowly pull your thighs closer to your body until your lower waist leaves the ground, and then slowly lower it. Repeat the action.
Action points:
The focus of reverse crunches is not on the movement of the thighs, but on using the abdominal muscles to curl the trunk. Therefore, be sure not to use inertia to swing your legs during the movement, and try to use the strength of your abdominal muscles to control the movement.
It is recommended that ordinary trainers do 10 to 20 exercises in one group and 3 to 5 groups every day.
Key points of abdominal muscle training
1. When doing abdominal muscle movements, the faster the speed and the higher the frequency, the greater the root mean square amplitude of surface electromyography of the rectus abdominis, external oblique muscles, and erector spinae muscles, and the more intense the muscle activity.
2. When doing abdominal training, keep your abdominal muscles tight and push your navel outward. When doing crunches, try to shorten the distance between the bottom of your ribcage and your groin; at the same time, focus on moving your ribs downward and inward. Research reports that this modified version of the crunch is more effective in stimulating the rectus abdominis muscles.
3. The external abdominal and internal oblique muscles can completely curl up the abdominal muscles so that the navel faces the floor; keep the abdominal muscles tight; when curling up, pay attention to keeping the chest cavity forward.
4. Straight and elegant shoulders - the key to becoming a clothes hanger
Shoulder muscle composition
Shoulder and back muscles
The shoulder muscles are mainly composed of the shoulder deltoid muscles. In almost all arm movements, the deltoid muscles play a role in transmitting the force of the trunk muscles. It is divided into three muscles, and when training, these three muscles require isolated training. Only in this way can lines be shaped and look better visually.
As shown in the picture above, the shoulder deltoid muscle is located on the shoulder and is triangular in shape. It is mainly a single-joint muscle that can move the arms in all directions. It is structurally composed of three muscles: the anterior deltoid, the middle deltoid, and the deltoid. Retromuscular fasciculus. In terms of shape, most of the middle deltoid muscles are pennate muscles, while the anterior and posterior deltoid muscles are mostly fusiform muscles. The shaping of the deltoid muscles is mainly based on these three parts.
Generally speaking, the deltoid muscle has the characteristics of small size, high strength, and poor endurance. This is why we feel extremely sore when we lift our arms for a long time. Therefore, high intensity and high density are the best deltoid muscle exercise modes.
The anterior deltoid muscles can be well exercised during chest muscle training such as bench presses and push-ups.
Training method for the middle deltoid muscles - lateral raises
Action introduction:
1. Hold dumbbells, mineral water bottles, elastic bands, handles, etc. with both arms. Be careful not to weigh too much! The joints of both arms are slightly bent (the joints are not locked, that is, they are not extended to their straightest, immovable state, so they are less likely to be injured).
2. Slowly raise your arms. At this time, do not shrug your shoulders, straighten your waist, or bend and extend your legs (do not rely on the strength of the trapezius, back muscles, leg muscles, etc.). The elbow joint can be pointed slightly upward, so that it is easier to find the feeling of the middle deltoid muscle exerting force.
3. Fall slowly and in a controlled manner! This is also an important way to find the feeling of exerting force, and it is an important step in shaping muscle lines.
The key point of this action is to ensure continuous force exertion and ensure that the muscles are always in a state of tension. In other words, when raising and lowering the arm, do not rely on inertia, but use your muscles to make the arm rise and fall at a uniform speed!
Generally speaking, use moderate weight, do about 12 times per group, and 3 groups per session, which is more suitable for shoulder muscle growth. Like any other muscle group training method, if you can train to failure, you can better stimulate shoulder muscle growth. Of course, there will be a strong burning sensation when your shoulders fail. Please be sure to grit your teeth and persevere while imagining the broad shoulders you will soon have!
Proprioceptive training of the middle deltoid muscle:
Action introduction:
The first two steps of the movement are the same as a standard lateral raise, but the weight can be lighter than usual.
Key steps: Keep your left arm still, continue to lift it, and do isometric contractions. At the same time, lower your right arm and do one-arm side raises 5 times. Then raise your right arm and do one-arm side raises with your left arm 5 times. Then switch to your right arm and do 3 more times. By analogy, do one arm side raise without moving one side, the times are 5 times, 3 times, 2 times, and 1 time respectively. This is group 1. 3 groups in total.
Using this method, you can strongly feel the feeling and soreness of the middle deltoid muscle, which will help you better master the way the middle deltoid muscle exerts force. As a reminder, if it hurts too much at the beginning, you can use a very small weight, but you must at least find the feeling of exerting force in the middle bundle.
Rear deltoid training method - bent over side raise
Action introduction:
Starting position: Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, hold a dumbbell with your palms facing each other (palms facing each other or fists facing each other), bend your upper body forward until it is parallel to the ground, bend your legs slightly, keep your waist straight, and look toward Look ahead.
Action process: Hold the dumbbells in both hands and raise them to both sides until the upper arms are parallel to the shoulders (or slightly beyond), pause slightly at the highest point for a moment, then lower the dumbbells at a constant speed and return to the original position.
Like the lateral raise, this action also uses moderate weight. Each group is done about 12 times, and 3 groups per round is more appropriate. It is even better if you can reach failure!
Similarly, people who cannot find the feeling in the posterior deltoid muscles can use the proprioceptive training method introduced above: do one-arm bent side raise with one arm, do peak contraction with the other arm, and then alternate and so on. 5 times, 3 times, 2 times, 1 time. Do this for one set, for a total of 3 sets.
Action focus:
The waist must be straight! Imagine that you are pushing your butt back hard while keeping your chest raised. Remember not to bend your waist!
When lifting the bell to both sides, bend your elbows and wrists slightly without locking the joints. You can more obviously feel the contraction of the deltoid muscles.
During the entire movement, your mind should be focused on the contracted muscle groups, which can better mobilize and recruit your muscle groups.
How to enhance shoulder joint stability
importance of shoulders
In many technical sports, shoulder muscles directly affect basic movements and joint stability. The shoulder joint is the most flexible and least stable joint in the body. The shoulder joint is the joint most commonly used by people and is also easily injured.
Structure of the four muscles of the rotator cuff
prime mover and antagonist muscles
When you lift up with dumbbell curls, the biceps brachii (the upper one) is the prime mover, and it contracts concentrically to allow the arm to lift the weight. In contrast, the triceps brachii is the antagonist muscle (the one on the lower head). It plays the role of relaxation, elongation, and eccentric contraction. It also serves to allow the arm to lift heavy objects.
The same goes for the shoulder joint. In general sports, the prime movers of the shoulder joint include the pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi, anterior and middle deltoid muscles and other well-known super muscles. Their function is usually to internally rotate the shoulder joint. What is shoulder internal rotation? The most typical movement is the smash in tennis (of course, this movement is definitely not just pronation, just feel the changes in the shoulders during the smash). The antagonist muscles of the shoulder joint include supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis, the legendary four muscles of the rotator cuff. They play a role in external rotation or abduction of the shoulder joint.
These four muscles are connected to the shoulder, tying it like a rope, and wrapping the shoulder like a shoulder sleeve. They are also called scapular rotation sleeves, so they are called "rotator cuffs" for short. Since the four muscles of the rotator cuff play an extremely important role in the function and stability of the shoulder, many shoulder diseases are directly related to the rotator cuff, so problems in this area are very troublesome, so you must pay attention!
However, the prime movers that the four muscles of the rotator cuff oppose are relatively developed muscle groups such as the latissimus dorsi and pectoralis major, as well as muscle groups that everyone usually likes to exercise more. In this case, in many sports, if our prime mover muscles are too strong and the eccentric force of the antagonist muscles is small, it will lead to shoulder joint impingement syndrome (impingement syndrome) and rotator cuff injury (rotator cuff). injury) and other issues.
Therefore, if we want to reduce the damage to the rotator cuff muscles and enhance the stability of the rotator cuff, we must strengthen the antagonist muscles of these movements, specifically the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, subscapularis and other rotator cuff muscles." "Four Heroes"!
How to strengthen the four muscles of the rotator cuff
To strengthen the stability of the rotator cuff, simply put, you only need to perform external rotation exercises of the shoulder joint. The main movements involving external rotation of the shoulder joint are the following two: L lateral raise and Cuban press holding the barbell (only the front half). In fact, these two movements are basically a complete external rotation of the shoulder joint.
Action introduction:
Bend your upper and lower arms to 90 degrees, forming an "L" shape. Hold a dumbbell and lift it until your upper arm and shoulder are in a straight line;
Use force to externally rotate the shoulder joint until the forearm and head are in a straight line;
Lower the dumbbell slowly and under control (super important) and repeat the above movements.
Training plan:
L lateral raises, bent over lateral raises, barbell, and Cuban press, do each movement 8 to 10 times in one group, and do about 3 groups each time.
In addition, strengthening the posterior deltoid muscle can also enhance the stability of the shoulder, because it is abducted and has good strength. Therefore, some typical shoulder joint abduction movements, such as rear deltoid exercises, dumbbell bent over side raises, etc., can all exercise the shoulders well.
The main problem with small muscle groups can easily become a shortcoming in heavy weight movements, leading to injury. However, since these muscles are not particularly large and powerful, you only need to do one or two movement exercises and don't let them become a shortcoming in your upper body movements.
5. Slender and slender vs sexy and powerful arms - Bye bye, bye bye flesh
neck arm flexion and extension
Women's penis is dangling loosely because it lacks muscles and is not firm enough; and men also want muscles. A training exercise that can improve your upper arms is targeting the hamstrings and triceps brachii - arm flexion and extension at the back of the neck.
Action essentials:
1. Hold a heavy object and place it behind your head. Dumbbells, water bottles, and elastic bands are all fine. The weight must be light. This movement focuses on sculptural form. It should not be too heavy, otherwise the elbow joint will be easily injured.
2. At the lowest point of the movement, you should feel that the back of the upper arm is stretched! This sense of stretch is why arm flexion and extension at the back of the neck is better than other movements as an introductory movement for sculpting the arms. Stretching can inherently improve muscle strength and shape. This action allows beginners to fully experience the force and stretch of the triceps brachii, and can effectively sculpt the shape of the upper arms.
3. Slowly lift the weight until your arms are nearly straight. Note: It is "close to" straightening! By the end, the elbow joint is unlocked (as shown). If you end up with your elbow fully extended, the muscles will not be fully trained. Instead, gravity will be exerted on the joint and cartilage, which may cause a little damage.
4. Lower the heavy object slowly, gently and slowly. Because the elbow joint ligaments are more susceptible to injury, too fast movements can easily cause impact damage to the elbow joint.
After you are familiar with the movements, you can also do some single-arm arm flexion and extension at the back of the neck. Beginners can use their other hand to assist the elbow joint.
When to practice?
Arm flexion and extension at the back of the neck is a sculpting exercise for small muscle groups, and is best placed after training for large muscle groups. The best time to train is after major muscle group training and before core muscle group and aerobic training. For men who have a strong need to build muscle in their arms (those with a giant arm plan), please alternate this action with the biceps training action, because the triceps and biceps are the agonist and antagonist muscles of each other.
How many times and how many sets should you practice?
It is best to warm up with a set of light weights first, because if you do not warm up for this movement, it is likely to cause damage to the elbow joint. Female friends can quickly warm up with their bare hands. After warming up, do 2 to 4 more sets of 8 to 12 times each.
6. Shapely and sexy calves - a tool that makes you slimmer than your waistline
Reasons for thick calves - how to improve and adjust the shape of calves?
The main determinant of the visual effect of the calf is the triceps surae muscle and tendons. Although it is controversial whether the length of the tendon can be changed day by day, there is no doubt that the shape of the muscle can be improved and adjusted through training.
The triceps surae is made up of two muscles, the gastrocnemius and the soleus.
The gastrocnemius muscle is what we commonly call the "calf". Most people think that their calves are very thick. This mainly means that their "calf" is relatively thick, and due to the amount of fat, it stretches lower, causing the widest point of the calf to move downward. Visually, it is more likely to cause the calves to look short and thick.
The soleus is a flat muscle that is inserted deep into the calf and can visually heighten and lengthen the calf.
But most of the time, the calf gastrocnemius of us ordinary people is relatively developed, and the soleus muscle is relatively weak, which leads to imbalanced muscle development and makes the calf look thick.
Most of the time, the gastrocnemius muscle can exert its best strength when the knee joint is relatively straight, while the soleus muscle is more accustomed to exerting force when the knee joint is bent.
In most cases, you only use your calves when standing and walking. At this time, the knee joint is in a relatively straight state, so the gastrocnemius muscle is often in a state of exertion, resulting in a thicker calf. Moreover, people who are accustomed to standing and walking in daily life are more likely to accumulate fat than people who often run and jump. Only when you run or jump frequently, the knee joint is in a bent state. This is when the soleus muscle, which has a beautifying effect on the calf, is exerting force. So, if you look at those NBA basketball stars, their calves appear thinner because they often bounce and run.
Therefore, if we can balance the development of the soleus and gastrocnemius muscles of the calf, tighten the calf, and eliminate some fat, the overall visual effect of the calf will be significantly lifted, and it will look much slimmer. In addition, if the soleus muscle can develop, when you look at the calf from the side, there will be light shadows and layers, and it will also appear slimmer visually.
If you feel that your calves look thicker, it’s not because your calf muscles are overdeveloped. The real reason is that you lack exercise.
The star move for sculpting calves - seated calf raise
Seated calf raise
Action introduction:
1. Sit on a chair with books or other stable objects placed under the soles of your feet. This is mainly to allow your heels to lift off the ground and your calves to feel stretched.
2. Press several barbell plates, dumbbells or other heavy objects on your knees.
3. Raise your back heel as high as possible. Heel raise means to raise the heel.
4. Repeat the above actions.
Action points:
1. Be sure to feel your calves being stretched when sitting.
2. When doing this action, you can choose a faster speed, or you can choose a larger weight to carry the weight. The triceps surae is the second strongest muscle in the body, along with the gluteus maximus, so there is no need to worry about injury due to excessive force.
3. You can also do more reps, and the weight for training at home is generally not too heavy.
If you are fast, you can do 30 to 50 times in one group, and do 3 groups each time.
Chapter 5 Ten Questions about Fitness
1. What should I do if my muscles are sore after working out?
Muscle soreness after exercise is actually delayed onset muscle pain - DOMS. The reason why this kind of pain occurs is related to muscle fiber rupture and muscle tissue damage. It may sound scary, but human muscle fibers are broken and repaired every day. If you just go up the stairs, you will break a lot, and dead skin will fall off. Same, it is a normal physiological phenomenon. Generally, this pain will reach its peak after a day or two (this is why we don’t feel pain during exercise), and then begin to subside and calm down. But DOMS does not only exist in novices. In fact, no matter how long you exercise and how much you exercise, your body will always be sore once you start exercising after a long period of inactivity.
Scientific research confirms that when muscles are already very sore after exercise, more exercise does not increase the pain of DOMS but rather relieves the symptoms. When soreness has already occurred, continuing to exercise can effectively relieve the current pain. Researchers believe this may be related to factors such as accelerated blood circulation within the muscles. So, pain is no reason to stop you from exercising.
If the pain is really severe, you should no longer do heavy resistance training or fast running and jumping. At this time, the physical condition is relatively weak and the nerve sensation is relatively poor. High-intensity and heavy-load exercise may lead to injury. Exercise after DOMS should focus on circuit strength training with light weight and multiple reps and slow recovery aerobic training.
2. I am very tired after work. Should I exercise?
Physical fatigue refers to the excessive consumption of biological energy, accumulation of metabolic waste and some endocrine changes in muscles and body after exercise. For example, during exercise and fitness, a large amount of glycogen in the body is consumed, and changes in endocrine testosterone and cortisol will cause physical fatigue in the body. Most of the fatigue caused by exercise and fitness is this type, which can be recovered through supplementary diet and rest.
Psychological fatigue refers to the subjective fatigue caused by nervous system tension or long-term monotonous and boring work when the human body's work intensity is not high. For example, fatigue caused by long-term, non-stimulating mental activities such as writing code and copywriting, or neurological fatigue caused by highly concentrated activities such as playing games for a long time.
Fatigue caused by work will not affect fitness exercises, and exercise will not make work more tiring. A large number of studies and experiments have proven that appropriate physical activity not only contributes to physical health, but also relieves mental fatigue caused by daily work. The above are only for the fatigue caused by daily work, and do not include staying up late and working overtime.
3. Is training on an empty stomach better for fat loss or is it harmful to the body?
1. Fasting training is likely to be more beneficial to fat consumption during exercise. Therefore, trainers who need extreme fat loss can choose to perform aerobic and high-intensity aerobic interval training on an empty stomach.
2. For strength training, there are not many studies on fasting exercise, and the conclusions are not clear. The author personally believes that to maximize muscle gain, slow-release carbohydrates should be consumed two hours before training. If you like, you can also train on an empty stomach.
3. Healthy people can generally train on an empty stomach, but people with blood sugar regulation needs or cardiovascular and cerebrovascular problems should use it with caution, as there may be problems, so be careful.
4. Be sure to drink more water! Drinking water can prevent some free fat and ketone bodies in the blood from damaging the body, and can also promote fat loss.
5. It may consume muscles. Muscle gainers are advised to drink some slow-release carbohydrate and protein drinks before training.
4. Is fitness without equipment really better?
An overweight person with no training experience may easily end up getting injured if he trains with his own weight. Training with equipment is relatively safer if you fully understand the equipment or have someone to guide you. The aerobic training equipment in the gym can also help people with excess fat avoid too much resonance damage.
For beginners with little exercise experience, bodyweight training is not conducive to experiencing proprioception, which means it is difficult to find the right feeling for training. The original intention of developing many kinds of gym equipment is to target the physiological characteristics of a certain muscle and help beginners get started better.
For people with rich sports experience and strong abilities, the weights and training methods of bodyweight training are not very effective. For thin people, their body weight is too small, so they often turn strength training into aerobic training. For them, bodyweight training cannot achieve their goals.
For most people, gym training is better than bodyweight training. Because the equipment in the gym is safe, controllable, targeted, and weight-adjustable that bodyweight training does not have.
RM (repetition maximum, highest number of repetitions)
This means that when you lift a certain weight, the maximum number of repetitions you can perform is the RM of this movement and this weight. For example, when you do 100 kg bench press, you can only do one, then your RM of 100 kg bench press is 1; if you can bench press below 80 kg for 10 times, then your RM of bench press below 80 kg is 10.
Depending on RM and rest time between sets, different workouts can be used for different purposes:
1. For training focusing on absolute strength and explosive power, the training weight should be 1 to 5 RM, with a rest of 2 to 5 minutes between groups.
2. Training focused on increasing muscle volume and anaerobic endurance, mainly using 8 to 12 RM training weights and resting between sets for 30 seconds to 90 seconds.
3. To train to reduce body fat, enhance aerobic capacity and anaerobic endurance, mainly use 15 to 20 RM reps, with a rest of 10 to 30 seconds between sets.
5. Cycling or running, running or brisk walking, which one is better for losing weight?
Comparison of energy consumption between running and cycling
Research (Study on Energy Consumption and Substrate Metabolism Characteristics of Cycling and Running at Different Intensities) found that at the same intensity, running consumes much more calories than cycling. In addition, the ratio of fat consumption to fat energy supply is also much higher. Running consumes more calories than cycling, consumes more fat than cycling, and has a higher fat consumption rate than cycling.
In addition, some studies have found that the weight loss effect of running can increase with the improvement of physical fitness. In other words, the more you run, the better your body will be; the more you run, the better your running fat loss effect will be. However, the fat loss effect of cycling will not increase with the improvement of physical function and training level. Studies have found that the maximum fat oxidation intensity of ordinary people and cyclists is basically the same.
Running and cycling are different movements. Cycling basically only involves the lower limbs, while running, in addition to lower limbs, the upper limbs and the core of the trunk also play an important role. During cycling, the muscles only contract concentrically, while during running, the muscles contract both eccentrically and concentrically.
Compared with running, cycling only involves concentric movements of the lower limbs. Its movement method is closer to anaerobic training. There are fewer work units for aerobic metabolism, resulting in lower energy consumption than running (lower total energy consumption) and participation in oxidative energy supply. There is also less fat (poor fat reduction effect). Of course, although cycling training is not as effective as running in terms of fat loss, cycling also has its own advantages. For example, when riding a bicycle, you experience less impact and will not injure your body and joints so easily.
6. If there is abnormal noise in the joints, can I still move?
1. Only make sounds when the joints move.
2. When the noise occurs, there is no special pain or discomfort.
If all of the above are true, then the sound produced by the joints is only physiological and not serious. But if it doesn't, I'm afraid you need to go to the hospital for a checkup. Even if this is the case, a doctor's advice is more effective than reading a book.
Sounds will occur in three situations:
1. It is similar to the sound of pressing fingers. This is the sound of the airtight joints being moved apart and the gas inside bursting (similar to the sound of bubbles popping). The sound is crisp and single.
2. Commonly seen in the hip and elbow joints at the base of the thigh, it is the sound of tissues such as tendons and fascia sliding over bone protrusions, similar to the sound of guitar string picking.
3. It is similar to the sound made by rough bone when one joint surface rubs against another joint surface. It is relatively small and dull, and is common in knee joints. Insufficient secretion of bursal fluid between the knee joints can easily cause the bones of the knee joints to rub against each other.
If there is no obvious pain, the physiological sound between joints will generally not affect exercise and normal life. If it is a friction sound in the knee joint, I suggest you stop running for a period of time and switch to aerobic exercise that is less harmful to the knee joint, such as fast walking or swimming. It's okay to do squats with bare hands, but be sure to avoid jumping. Strength training with small weights (only your own weight), such as squats, is very beneficial to joint health. Squats with bare hands have little impact on the joints and the number of repetitions is not high. It only benefits the body and does no harm.
After a period of exercise, the strength of the knee joint is strengthened, which also helps to protect the joint. Once you get used to exercise, bursal fluid secretion will also increase.
7. If I am afraid of joint pain, can I do resistance training?
The impact of squats on the knees is slow, not instantaneous. For example, when running, the impact on the knees is a single foot, instantaneous, and several times the body weight. Because the body is in the air, it has to overcome its own gravity, acceleration, etc. In some high-speed running and jumping processes, the impact force can even reach more than 8 times the body weight. As for squats, although there is weight, the feet are relaxed, and the impact force is almost only body weight plus weight.
As for weight-bearing, the average person's body weight only weighs a few dozen kilograms. We walk, sleep, eat, and date with this weight every day, and we have long been accustomed to it. So, when squatting, the range of motion of the knee joint is almost the same as if you were getting up from the couch.
Since the elastic part of the muscle stretches and absorbs the impact, generating potential energy and passive tension, and the impact is only slowly and evenly distributed to the feet, the probability of knee injury when squatting with bare hands may not be as high as getting up from the sofa.
Current research results believe that ordinary people squatting will not increase the probability of knee injuries; on the contrary, many studies believe that even home strength training can effectively reduce joint pain and joint inflammation. The reason is that strength training can improve muscle quality and improve joints. functions of surrounding tissues. Some studies provide specialized exercise programs for bone and joint treatment that include freehand squats, which shows how powerful the physical therapy effect of squats is. In addition, strength training can increase and maintain bone density and effectively prevent osteoporosis. Of course, if the knee has already had a pathological reaction, such as meniscus injury, patellar injury, etc., it is recommended to consult a doctor and get a professional explanation before deciding on the training content.
8. Will stretching help me avoid injury or make me more likely to get injured?
Stretching before training
Most sports theories and experiments have proved that whether it is to maintain health, lose weight, or strengthen the body, build muscle and shape, it is best not to do stretching training before training. Stretching before training makes you slower, weaker, and more susceptible to injury.
First, pre-training stretching has a significant negative impact on maximal muscle strength.
Imagine that when you jump, you must squat down and then jump up. When you squat down, the muscles are pulled and stretched. The sensing organs in the muscles sense this stretch and become excited, prompting the muscles to contract violently, thus generating powerful force. However, if you stretch before training, these sensing organs have been sensing the stretching of the muscles. They have become accustomed to the excitement and have passed the sensitive point, so the muscle contraction force becomes smaller and weaker.
Second, these sensing organs not only play a role in improving sports performance, they are also the basis for protecting muscles from moving within a reasonable range.
During daily training, when the muscles are passively and unnaturally stretched, the sensing organs will immediately prompt the muscles to contract to protect themselves. To give a simple example: when you play basketball, your muscles are ready to land at the moment you jump, but suppose someone comes to grab the ball from you at this time and bumps into you - this is passive If the muscles are stretched unnaturally, they will contract to protect themselves. But when you finish stretching and then perform training or exercise, these basic organs have become accustomed to stretching. If they encounter any abnormal stretch again, their defense function will not be activated normally, so they will be easily injured.
How to warm up before training?
The current international mainstream warm-up standard is based on body temperature. As long as the armpit temperature is between 37.8 degrees Celsius and 38.8 degrees Celsius after preparing for activities, and the heart rate is adjusted to 70% to 80% of the maximum heart rate, a good warm-up effect can be achieved. .
People who are training to lose weight can use gentle aerobic equipment such as treadmills, skipping ropes, and elliptical machines for daily warm-up. The time should be 5 to 10 minutes, not too long, and the heart rate should be about 150 beats per minute. .
People who train to increase muscle strength can use 30% to 40% of the maximum weight of the training part today, 20 to 30 times in one set, and 2 to 3 sets of multi-joint compound movements to warm up. For example, you can choose squats for your legs, lat pulldowns for your back, bench presses for your chest, and fixed shoulder press machines for your shoulders.
Stretching after training
Stretching is a useful exercise, but it is not appropriate before training. Since stretching targets the extension limit and flexibility of the muscles, it is not suitable to be done before training, but it can be done after training or at a separate time.
Stretching training is aimed at this aspect. Stretching can improve muscle flexibility. Studies have proven that after stretching training, the flexibility of the human body will be significantly improved. Even if you only do stretching without strength training, people's strength levels will greatly increase due to stretching training.
Because the way muscles stretch is very similar to the way muscles contract eccentrically in our daily training (eccentric contraction is when the muscles are stretched due to external force, such as slowly falling with a dumbbell), and eccentric contraction is an important means to promote muscle growth, which can Promotes the secretion of many beneficial hormones, so stretching can be very effective in building muscle. According to research, because when muscles are passively stretched, muscle synergy increases, and the muscles will be in a state that is extremely easy to grow.
If you stretch after strength training, the effect of increasing muscles for men and enlarging breasts and buttocks for women will be doubled, which is comparable to doubling the points spent on a credit card.
How to stretch?
static stretching
A currently popular stretching method, it slowly stretches muscles, tendons, and ligaments until there is a certain feeling of soreness. Then hold in this position for a while, usually 30 to 60 seconds. This stretch should be repeated 3 to 4 times for each muscle.
Dynamic ballistic stretching
That is, stretch the muscle quickly, stretch it to the extreme to produce rebound, and then continue stretching. The most typical one is the chest expansion exercise we do in physical education class. A muscle part can be bounced like this for a minute or two, repeated two or three times.
PNF stretching method
Proprioceptive neuro-muscular facilitation.
1. Find an external force and stretch the target muscle until you feel slight soreness for 10 seconds. For example, push the wall with your hands, kick your legs and turn your waist to provide an external force to stretch the pectoralis major muscles.
2. Against external force, the stretched part actively exerts force, actively contracts, and slowly returns to its original position. For example, push the wall with your hands, kick your legs and turn your waist to stretch your pectoralis major muscles. The chest muscles resist this stretch and slowly turn the waist back.
3. Relax the target muscle group and continue to stretch it with external force - that is, repeat the first step. This action can be repeated four or five times so that the target muscle groups can be well stretched.
Studies have shown that the first phase of PNF stretching can stretch the target muscle to the extreme, eliminate the stretch reflex, and allow it to reach its maximum stretch range. In the second stage, when the anti-stretch reflex is eliminated, the target muscle is actively contracted to stretch the muscle, improving flexibility and protecting it from injury. This phenomenon is called reciprocal inhibition. In other words, the PNF training method is not only a muscle stretching training, but also a nerve training method.
FST-7 training mode
FST-7 means Fascial Muscle Stretching-7 mode. It is a very popular training method in the international fitness circle. It was invented by Hani Raymond Bode, the creator of the two Mr. Olympias. This training method and PNF stretching work well together for training.
The FST-7 training method is to add 7 so-called muscle fascial stretching training groups after all muscle training. In this set, you want to choose low- to medium-weight exercises that are very isolated and stretch your muscles. At the beginning of the movement, stretch hard, then resist the external force of the stretch, actively contract the target muscles, and complete the movement. This training method is very close to the PNF stretching method. Because it uses isolation movements, it can be very effective in targeting the target muscles you want to train, and because it uses medium and low weights, it can well avoid injuries.
You can use the FST-7 training method on training days when you need to increase muscle size (such as chest, butt, back, etc.). But it’s best not to use it every day, because it puts a heavy burden on the body.
Here are a few moves you can do to train the FST-7 (that is, isolation moves for those areas). When doing it, you should tighten it quickly and release it slowly, integrating thought and movement to keep the muscles focused and pumping. We can choose the following movements as the final 7 groups. Note that you can choose multiple movements, as long as they are combined into a tight 7 groups.
1. Chest: Big gantry fly, seated butterfly machine to hold the chest.
2. Back: Straight arm pull-down, Smith machine row.
3. Triceps brachii: flex and extend the arms while lying on your back, and press down on the cable.
4. Biceps: dumbbell incline curl, dumbbell alternating curl, dumbbell curl.
5. Front and middle deltoid muscles: dumbbell front raise and dumbbell lateral raise.
6. Rear deltoid muscle: bent over dumbbell lateral raise, butterfly machine reverse fly.
7. Glute: Glute bridge, single-leg glute bridge, back push-up, single-leg deadlift.
9. Can muscle gain and fat loss be done at the same time?
Comparison of the weight loss effects of resistance and aerobic combined
12 weeks resistance aerobic weight loss effect
When it comes to fitness, fat loss, and body shaping, don't consider weight. Be sure to look at body fat content, waist circumference, leg circumference, etc. Because of normal fitness and body shaping, lean body mass (muscle) will increase, and no special changes will be seen in weight.
First of all, gaining muscle will inevitably mean an increase in energy consumption. Muscle is built by the body through the consumption of calories and protein. Furthermore, under normal health conditions, skeletal muscle undergoes a turnover of 1% to 2% per day at rest, consuming 15% to 25% of total body energy. Muscles are energy consumers. At rest, one pound of muscle consumes many more calories than one pound of fat!
There are two very important hormones in exercise, one is called testosterone and the other is growth hormone. Both hormones have many functions, the most useful for our fitness and shaping is to increase muscle and reduce fat.
The general mechanism of action of growth hormone is to promote protein synthesis, inhibit the use of glucose by peripheral tissues, reduce glucose consumption, accelerate the decomposition of fat, and shift the body's energy source from sugar metabolism to fat metabolism, which is beneficial to growth, development and tissue repair.
The mechanism of action of testosterone is roughly to increase muscle weight and promote skeletal muscle protein synthesis. In addition, testosterone is an important factor in fat distribution and metabolic regulation in the body.
1. The more painful the pain, the more growth hormone is secreted.
The higher the training intensity, the more it can stimulate the release of growth hormone. Growth hormone is generally thought to be related to lactate threshold strength. It is generally believed that medium-to-high-intensity training can better stimulate the secretion of growth hormone (in fact, this is one reason why HIIT training can achieve extreme fat loss).
2. In strength training, failure and forced training are mostly used. Doing so helps the secretion of growth hormone.
Same reason as above. The so-called failure set means that you must do the movement until you can no longer do it. The so-called forced set, such as 100 kg bench press, you have already reached your limit by doing 10 reps. After completing 10 reps, immediately switch to 90 kg and do 2 more reps.
3. The larger and more muscle groups involved in the movement and the higher the load, the more it can stimulate the secretion of testosterone.
To put it simply, you need to practice more heavy weight and large muscle group training such as squats, bench presses, deadlifts, and power cleans.
4. Strength training can stimulate testosterone secretion more than aerobic training.
5. From a whole-body perspective, high-intensity aerobic training can better stimulate the secretion of growth hormone, while strength training can better stimulate changes in the concentration of local growth hormone (depending on whether you want to lose fat or gain local muscle and shape more).
6. Frequent changes in training plans can better promote the secretion of these two hormones.
The body uses exercise as a stress source. Exercise will promote the decomposition and synthesis of protein. However, as time goes by and the body slowly adapts to the stimulus, this promotion will weaken, so the training plan must be changed frequently.
10. How to choose a gym?
Important factors to consider when choosing a gym:
Location
The travel time from home or work to the gym should not exceed 20 minutes. This is arguably the most important principle when choosing a gym. If you go beyond 20 minutes, no matter how ambitious you are to change yourself, you will occasionally feel lazy or bored.
instrument
When choosing a gym, you must consider the ratio of the number of cards issued to the number of equipment in the gym. To check this, check it out during your regular exercise time.
If you are a man, it is recommended to check the usage, ratio, function and queue status of fitness benches, bench press racks, squat racks and Smith barbell machines.
As you become more experienced you can consider some factors:
1. Are there a wide variety of strength equipment? For example, are there fixed training equipment for each part, such as hummer machine, cable training machine, etc.
2. Can the angle of the strength equipment be adjusted? Do you think it is suitable? Everyone's height and frame are different, and there are always suitable and inappropriate equipment for them.
3. Is the weight of the strength equipment suitable for you? After many people train, they will find that the weight limit of the equipment in domestic gyms is relatively small.
If you are a woman, the focus of inspection is various aerobic equipment and fixed equipment.
1. Are the varieties complete? Treadmills, elliptical machines, mountain climbers, spinning bikes, and rowing machines can help you lose fat. You have a variety of options to choose from, you don’t have to do just one or it will get boring. The fixed strength equipment for each part helps you sculpt parts of the body. Unlike free weight equipment such as barbells and dumbbells, which have a higher threshold for use, they are simple and safe.
2. How does the device function? For example, is the treadmill track wide and slippery? Is there a simple direct selection function? You know, long-term aerobic exercise is not conducive to weight loss, so what you do on the treadmill is high-intensity interval aerobic training such as HIIT. If there is no direct selection button, how long does it take to adjust from 20 kilometers per hour to 10 kilometers per hour? How difficult and dangerous would it be to try operating at that speed for that long?
Other environmental factors to consider are:
1. Is there a water dispenser? Are there tissues for wiping sweat?
2. Is it convenient to take a bath? Is there enough hot water? Do I need to queue when there are many people?
3. Are the instruments regularly cleaned? Don’t you mind someone else’s sweaty exercise bench?
4. If you drive to exercise, are the transportation and parking spaces convenient?
5. How is the air quality? Are there air purifiers?
6. If you like swimming, you should also consider whether there is a swimming pool.
7. Do you like the decoration style? Such as the arrangement of light, etc.
8. Other points added or subtracted. SPA, hot yoga and other beauty and leisure places. Tennis courts, badminton courts, and other sports venues such as squash and basketball.
Chapter 6 What do we eat when we exercise?
1. How should you eat during fitness to gain muscle and lose fat?
The key point: fitness exercise. If you practice without eating, it is equivalent to practicing in vain.
1. Calories
Origin of calories:
As a unit of nutritional energy, calories were first proposed by American chemist Wilbur Atwater in the 19th century and have not been modified until now.
Different nutrients consume calories in different ways
Human dietary energy supply mainly consists of three major nutrients: protein, carbohydrates and fat. People usually approximate the calories provided by these three nutrients as: approximately 4 kcal per gram of protein and carbohydrate, and 9 kcal per gram of fat. But in fact, the meanings of calories contained in these three major nutrients are different, and their differences are not solely based on the caloric value they can provide.
To give a simple example, although protein provides similar calories to carbohydrates, protein-rich foods and foods mainly composed of carbohydrates require completely different amounts of energy to be digested and absorbed by the body after eating. In fact, it takes five times more energy to digest protein than it does to consume the same amount of fat. Many carbohydrates, such as sugar or honey, can enter the body directly without digestion and are absorbed and stored by the body. Therefore, even though from a calorie point of view, the calories of an egg may be higher than that of a lollipop, we should eat more eggs instead of lollipops during fitness and weight loss.
There is a limit to how much food the body can degrade
Students who are trying to lose weight must have heard the theory of eating less nuts, because most nuts, such as almonds, peanuts, walnuts, etc., have extremely high calorie counts. According to the weight loss theory of calorie increase and decrease, it is natural to eliminate such high-calorie foods as much as possible. However, can the nuts you eat really be fully digested and absorbed by your body? In fact, humans cannot digest all nuts.
A study by the United States Department of Agriculture showed that eating a serving of almonds only provides more than 120 kcal, not the more than 170 kcal written on the label. Nuts are rich in essential fatty acids, antioxidants, potassium, magnesium, fiber and protein, which are very good for the human body!
The way food is processed causes it to be absorbed differently
For the human body, most foods will consume more calories after cooking. For example, protein and carbohydrates can significantly increase the amount of calories consumed by the human body after heating. Therefore, when we choose food, it is best to choose food with less artificial processing. In other words, brown rice is better than white rice; whole wheat noodles with wheat bran are better than refined noodles.
Diet indicators other than calories: salvation from fatness and hunger, glycemic index
GI value:
The glycemic index is an index that reflects the degree to which food causes blood sugar to rise in the human body. It is used to describe the speed at which food is digested and absorbed by the human body and the body's response to blood sugar production. To put it simply and crudely, in terms of weight loss, a high GI value means that a food is easily stored as fat and makes you hungry after eating it.
Studies have shown that eating foods with high GI values for a long time is more likely to cause metabolic diseases such as diabetes. Foods with low GI values, on the other hand, are less likely to cause weight gain and hunger after being absorbed by the body.
Here’s why:
First, after foods with a high GI value enter the intestine, the digestion and absorption rate of the body is higher and faster, allowing glucose to quickly enter the blood, leading to reactions such as high blood pressure and hyperglycemia, and also causing high blood pressure. The main function of insulin is to promote the synthesis of glycogen, fat and protein, making it easier for the food eaten to be stored as fat.
Second, after foods with low GI values enter the intestines, they stay for a relatively long time and are digested and absorbed by the body relatively slowly. This causes the blood sugar index in the body to rise relatively steadily without a sudden peak. Correspondingly less insulin is required, triggering lower insulin levels, thereby effectively controlling blood sugar fluctuations. And foods with low GI values are generally more likely to produce a feeling of satiety, which can help the body burn fat and better achieve weight loss.
This is why whole grains are highly recommended in both weight loss and fitness articles. It can not only reduce calorie intake and prevent you from gaining weight, but also become healthy. You know, the daily caloric intake of us modern people exceeds the standard. Even for people who are not in fitness, we recommend changing the staple food to whole grains.
What foods have a higher GI value?
Common ones include polished rice noodles, bread and cakes, cooked peeled root foods, candies, etc. Simply put, the more refined and processed the food, the higher the GI value. Among them, the most important thing to avoid is simple sugar (white sugar, fructose syrup, and corn syrup are commonly found in food ingredient lists), such as sugar-rich sodas, juices, candies, and cakes. Not only do they have a high GI value and can make you fat and hungry easily, but they are also very harmful to the human body due to the large amount of food additives added to them.
Correspondingly, foods with low GI values are generally whole grains, lean meats, nuts and other foods that are not highly processed. You can eat more in your daily life, or partially replace foods with high GI values.
Of course, the GI value is not the only criterion for judging whether food is healthy. A high GI value does not necessarily mean that it is very unhealthy. For example, some fruits and vegetables may have a relatively high GI value (carrots have a very high GI value), but from the perspective of nutritional intake, they are relatively healthy; while some fruits and vegetables, like chocolate, may have a relatively high GI value. Foods with high fat content such as beans and Snickers bars have relatively low GI values, but they are not healthy and we should eat them as little as possible in our daily lives.
In addition, everyone should eat more foods with high GI value after exercise, which can better promote the body's absorption and recovery. This is also the most enjoyable time for fitness and weight loss.
Think about the foods you like to eat and eat regularly, check the GI values, and adjust accordingly. Generally, you have to be wary of foods with a GI value higher than 60. It may sound difficult to completely eliminate them all at once, but it may be a good idea to try to find some similar substitutes and gradually reduce them.
2. Fitness diet – protein
The role of protein:
As an important component of the three major nutrients in food, it is closely related to human body growth and development, cell repair, immunity, hormone and enzyme activity, etc. Protein can help synthesize and repair cell tissues, promote the function of hormones, enzymes, and antibodies, maintain the body's pH balance, and maintain normal hormone secretion.
For example, protein is to our body what lubricants are to equipment. It can help our body to "depreciate" less seriously, and it will always be as smooth and natural as brand new. The effect of such a substance on fat loss cannot be underestimated. If you adopt a high-protein diet in your daily diet, it can very effectively reduce weight gain and prevent weight rebound.
Benefits of increasing your protein intake:
First, a high-protein diet increases feelings of fullness. Eating protein-rich foods will make you feel fuller and more satisfied. At present, most opinions believe that this may be related to the brain's mechanism for regulating appetite. Some studies have found that the brain's mechanism for regulating appetite may be related to the concentration of serum amino acids, and the concentration of serum amino acids can regulate appetite. A high-protein diet increases the concentration of amino acids in the serum, making people eat less, less hungry, and less greedy.
On the other hand, the human body does not have the ability to store protein. Most protein will be digested when eaten in the stomach, and the undigested part will be converted into urea and excreted from the body. Unlike carbohydrates and fats, even if they cannot be digested, they will be excreted. The part consumed by the body in time will also be fully absorbed by the body and stored as fat on the belly.
Therefore, increasing the proportion of protein in the dietary structure can lead to a corresponding decrease in the proportion of carbohydrates and fat, which will help the body reduce the amount of calories and fat it can store.
The premise is to increase the proportion of some proteins appropriately while ensuring that the three major nutrients are balanced, rather than extremely increasing protein and reducing carbohydrates and fat to achieve fat loss. And if you already suffer from kidney diseases, it is better to consume less protein because the digestion of protein will increase the burden on the kidneys.
Muscle building and shaping - protein that adds more bricks and mortar
Effects of strength training on protein synthesis
The 3 hours after strength training is prime time for muscle growth. At this point, the rate of protein synthesis in the muscles increases by more than 3 times. Muscles are growing and repairing very actively. Appropriate protein intake at this time can greatly promote the synthesis speed and efficiency of muscles, thus increasing muscle weight. This is especially obvious for strength training exercises.
Ingesting protein during fitness training also helps muscle growth from a hormonal perspective. Take testosterone for example. During training, protein supplementation can well promote the secretion of testosterone. The main function of testosterone is to improve a person's male performance, increase a person's competitiveness and ability, help promote protein synthesis and muscle growth, and testosterone can also increase the number of red blood cells in the body, thereby improving blood sugar levels, lowering blood pressure, and increasing insulin. sensitivity, lower cholesterol and body fat, and increase muscle strength.
Changes in protein requirements of strength and endurance athletes and sedentary individuals
Research shows that the protein requirement of normal people is approximately 0.8 g/kg/day, and the appropriate protein intake for strength training athletes is 1.6 to 1.8 g/kg/day. As for bodybuilders, since they damage and reconstruct muscles to a greater extent than other training methods, they may consume more protein. Some studies believe that around 3.5 g/kg/day is more suitable for maximal increase in girth. train.
Therefore, if you are a strength trainer aiming to build muscle and shape, calculate based on a reasonable daily protein intake of 1.6 to 1.8 grams per kilogram. It is more appropriate to consume 1.2 grams per kilogram of protein during and after exercise. . That means if you weigh 70kg, you should eat a total of 84g of protein during and after exercise. Broken down into specific time periods, you can choose to eat about 30g of protein powder (about a spoonful) during exercise, or you can choose a bottle of skimmed milk, or the egg whites of several eggs. In the meal after exercise, eat a palm-sized portion of lean meat and some staple food. This way, your protein intake for the day will be well satisfied.
3. Carbohydrates - the most important nutrient, allowing meat to grow where it should.
Importance of Carbohydrates:
Carbohydrates are an important source of glycogen for the human body, and supplementing carbohydrates during exercise is an indispensable method of sports nutrition.
Generally speaking, according to different purposes, carbohydrate supplementation during exercise can be divided into three ways: before exercise, during exercise and after exercise. The purpose of supplementing glycogen at different time periods is to help increase the body's glycogen reserves, thereby maintaining the relative stability of blood sugar concentration during long-term exercise, helping to improve endurance and exercise capacity.
Pre-exercise carbohydrate supplement
General bodybuilders can and preferably consume high-quality carbohydrates with a low glycemic index two hours before exercise. The benefits of this are: first, it promotes exercise performance and increases exercise endurance; second, it promotes the decomposition of fat; third, it does not affect the secretion of growth hormone during exercise.
Eating low-glycemic index carbohydrates about two hours before training can not only ensure energy supply during training, but also ensure that the food has been digested and will not cause gastrointestinal discomfort during training. The benefits of low GI foods in terms of building muscle and losing fat actually include training benefits when consuming low GI foods before exercise.
Carbohydrate replenishment during and after exercise
The human body consumes muscle glycogen during exercise, and strength training mainly relies on muscle glycogen for energy. When muscle glycogen decreases, exercise ability and exercise endurance will decrease accordingly. Most current views agree that depletion of muscle glycogen and reduction in blood glucose concentration are the main factors leading to exercise fatigue. Therefore, during exercise, properly supplementing carbohydrates can increase blood sugar levels and increase muscle sugar oxidation, thereby increasing the use of exogenous energy, saving muscle glycogen, slowing down muscle glycogen depletion, and extending the time. exercise time and improve exercise efficiency.
Carbohydrate replenishment after exercise is the most important. The digestion and absorption of carbohydrates is closely related to the secretion of insulin in the body. To put it simply, insulin in the body mainly plays a role in helping the body recover, including energy reserves, muscle synthesis, fat synthesis, etc. To some extent, we can think of insulin as a transporter. It delivers energy (sugar or amino acids) to where it is needed most for use. Three hours after training is the golden period for muscle growth. If you don’t eat at this time, you are likely to miss the opportunity for muscle growth. And when you eat it later, these nutrients will be converted into fat.
Research shows that supplementing carbohydrates immediately after training can increase muscle glycogen synthesis more than supplementing carbohydrates several hours after training. At the same time, supplementing carbohydrates immediately after exercise can also efficiently stimulate the secretion of insulin, allowing the body to recover and grow. And in order to accelerate the secretion of insulin, we need to eat foods with a high GI value that can quickly increase blood sugar.
How much carbohydrate is appropriate to eat
The recommended dietary intake in fitness and other fields is to consume at least 1.2 g/kg (body weight) of carbohydrates during exercise and within 2 hours after exercise. A reasonable daily carbohydrate intake is preferably within Within the range of 5 g/kg.
Based on the standard of weighing 70 kilograms, you should consume at least 84 grams of carbohydrates during exercise and within 2 hours after exercise. The rest of the time should be distributed evenly to ensure that the carbohydrate intake for the day is about 350 grams. .
Details and extremes for advanced players
Ingesting sports drinks with a carbohydrate:protein ratio of 3:1 during exercise is the most obvious in promoting testosterone and other related hormones during fitness exercises.
The main reason is that sugar plus high protein (CHO: PRO=3:1) nutrition can promote the conversion of testosterone into dihydrotestosterone. This conversion can promote the energy supply of the body's adipose tissue and sugar (testosterone can reduce lipids), thereby promoting Restoration of body movement ability. Students who want to optimize the effect of exercise can also use protein powder and sugar to easily match the drinks during exercise.
The meal after exercise
In order to effectively increase insulin secretion levels, you can enjoy a high-glycemic index meal and consume 100 to 200 grams of high-quality carbohydrates. If you don’t have time to eat a main meal, you should try to replenish high-quality carbohydrates in a short time. For example, you can use skim milk and oatmeal or skim yogurt and cereal breakfast to replenish protein and carbohydrates in time.
4. Fat – it’s all about time
The role of fat
Fat forms cellular tissue in the human body and promotes cell function. It also insulates and protects organs, and helps absorb fat-soluble vitamins. Appropriate intake of fat in daily life can produce hormones and promote the secretion of testosterone and other hormones, which is very effective in building muscle and reducing fat.
Don’t eat fat before training!
Different from the two major nutrients of protein and carbohydrates, although healthy fats are necessary for humans, and reasonable intake of healthy fats is also of positive significance for fat loss and body shaping, within two hours before and after fitness training, , please stay away from fat!
On the one hand, fat intake will affect training levels and restrict blood flow to the muscles. More importantly, consuming fat before fitness will affect the level of growth hormone (GH) production during training.
Maximum Growth Hormone Levels with Different Pre-Workout Diets
Growth hormone can accelerate the breakdown of fat, which is beneficial to growth, development and tissue repair. Its production can promote protein synthesis, inhibit the use of glucose by peripheral tissues, reduce glucose consumption, accelerate the decomposition of fat, and shift the body's energy source from sugar metabolism to fat metabolism. In a word, growth hormone is an important hormone for building muscle and losing fat.
However, eating high-fat food before training will reduce the secretion of growth hormone, which will accordingly affect your body's recovery and growth, as well as the effect of your fat loss and body shaping. The reason why high fat intake affects GH production levels is because fat consumption produces somatostatin, a reverse hormone that reduces GH production.
Therefore, in order to have a more efficient and beneficial training level during training, let me reiterate again: before training, please absolutely do not consume fat!
Do not eat fat during training or within 2 hours after training!
After strenuous exercise, glycogen in the body is depleted significantly, and muscle glycogen and liver glycogen reserves are significantly reduced or even emptied. At this time, we need to consume a large amount of carbohydrates to replenish the glycogen and blood sugar reserves in the body. Moreover, the human body will over-recover. When the body feels that the energy this time is not enough, it will reserve more energy than the last time to carry out work. Eating foods with a high glycemic index at this time will create more glycogen stores than eating foods with a low GI value.
The body's over-recovery process requires the regulation of insulin, and the main factors that stimulate insulin secretion are carbohydrates and proteins. As for fat, it is not only difficult to effectively stimulate the blood sugar index, but can even slow down the overall blood sugar rise rate.
During and after training, the body's digestive capacity is often poor, and fatty foods should not be consumed at this time, because in most cases, the ranking of gastric emptying rate is sugar > protein > fat. Ingesting fatty foods during or after training is likely to cause gastrointestinal discomfort. Therefore, don’t consume fat during fitness.
2. The impact of exercise on appetite
in conclusion:
Aerobic exercise such as running may increase appetite and put the body in a state of increasing body fat and weight. Anaerobic exercise is the opposite. Long-term strength training may reduce appetite and put the body in a state of reducing body fat and weight.
reason:
Two players closely related to appetite: leptin and growth hormone.
Leptin binds to system receptors in the central nervous system and affects the satiety center through the regulation of the hypothalamus. Therefore, leptin can prompt the body to reduce food intake and increase energy expenditure, thereby reducing weight. The secretion of leptin is negatively correlated with appetite. Increased leptin will decrease appetite, and decreased leptin will increase appetite.
Long-term aerobic exercise will increase growth hormone levels. Combined with the long-term aerobic exercise mentioned above, leptin levels will decrease, so long-term aerobic exercise will only keep the body in a state of hunger and fat gain. The more you run, the hungrier you will be, and the more you run, the fatter you will be. Long-term strength training will reduce everyone's growth hormone levels (lower appetite). Combined with the long-term strength training mentioned above, leptin levels will increase relatively, which means that the more you do strength training, the lower your body fat will be and the better your figure will be.
Summarize:
The impact of exercise on appetite:
Long-term aerobic exercise will increase growth hormone levels and decrease leptin levels, leaving the body in a state of hunger and the need to gain fat and weight.
Long-term resistance training will cause the level of growth hormone to decrease and the level of leptin to increase, putting the body in a state of satiety and reducing fat body weight.
3. Why do bodybuilders only eat beef and chicken but not lean pork?
You think the pig is fat, the pig thinks you are fat
When it comes to pigs, many people's first reaction is "fat". Because of its shape, pork is considered a meat with a high fat content.
In fact, the body fat rate of domestic pigs is only about 15%. You must know that the standard body fat range for adult men is also between 15% and 18%, while for women it is higher, between 25% and 28%. In other words, from the perspective of body fat percentage, pigs are thinner than most of us normal people!
Not only that, compared with highly respected lean beef, chicken breast and other muscle-building ingredients, the nutritional value of pork is not bad, and it can even be said that each has its own merits!
1. Fitness culture
From the perspective of meat consumption, Chinese people mainly consume pork (China consumes an average of 700,000 tons of pork per year, more than double the pork consumption of the United States), while Americans mainly consume beef and chicken.
This difference in meat consumption has led domestic public opinion to believe that foreign bodybuilders eat beef and chicken to stay strong, while Chinese people are not strong because they eat pork instead of beef. Some people even believe that this dietary difference directly leads to the level gap between domestic and foreign bodybuilders. Eventually a certain kind of beef and chicken dietary cult developed.
2.Cooking method
The reason why pork is considered to be high in fat is actually directly related to the cooking method. In domestic cooking tradition, pork is famous for its plump and plump taste. Think about it carefully, the most popular pork dishes on weekdays are braised pork, twice-cooked pork, Dongpo pork elbow, braised pork with pickled vegetables...the main taste is the richness of fat and the sweetness of oil. In domestic food culture, pork itself is closely related to oil, fat and fat.
The cooking of lean pork itself is a big problem. Lean beef made into steaks or sliced and fried will have a lot of gravy. Although chicken breasts are a little dry, they are also delicious if they are starched and coated with egg white and the heat is controlled when frying. But lean pork is very easy to cook, and the gravy is far from plump and abundant. This also leads to many people not liking to eat lean pork.
Creatine:
It is the safest and most effective natural compound for building muscle. It is particularly effective for growing muscle and enhancing strength. It is also very effective for improving exercise capacity, promoting body recovery, and increasing insulin sensitivity.
From a creatine perspective, pork also has a relatively higher creatine content. Creatine content in food (g/kg): pork 5.0, beef 4.5, cod 3.0, chicken none. Therefore, bodybuilders may have better muscle-building effects by eating lean pork. Especially for advanced trainers, if they are unwilling to use exogenous creatine supplements, eating lean pork can be an effective way to supplement creatine.
In the daily diet, lean pork is also a good choice for bodybuilders. Not only is it not as nutritious as beef, leading to weight gain, as everyone thinks, but it is a good helper for building muscle and losing fat. It is also more convenient to purchase and more cost-effective. Higher, more nutritious and more delicious!
Chapter 7 Daily Training Plan
training frequency
training frequency
Training frequency, as the name suggests, refers to how many times a week you can practice. Since everyone's situation is different and the time span is also very large, the specific frequency still depends on the individual. From practicing once a week to practicing seven times a week, you can choose according to your actual situation.
The arrangement of training items should also be different between once-a-week practice and seven-a-week practice. Instead of running for 30 minutes and playing with various machines for 20 minutes once a week, run 30 minutes and play with various machines for 20 minutes seven times a week.
Practice once a week
The "upper body training, lower body training" mode allows you to train the main muscle groups of the body in a balanced manner in as few training times as possible.
Gym version: Initial training for the upper body in the gym Initial training for the lower body in the gym
Home version 1: upper body shaping version without equipment, butt and leg version without equipment
Home Edition 2: Full Body Fat Reduction Without Equipment, Advanced Edition Full Body Fat Reduction Without Equipment, Advanced Edition
Practice 3 to 5 times a week
Please choose the main large muscle groups, such as chest, back, glutes and legs, as the main training content.
People who train three times a week can just arrange one major muscle group training at a time, and on this basis, add core or shoulder and other small muscle group training. After completing the training of the major muscle groups, take 10 to 15 minutes to Perfecting some details is enough to make the figure look better. For example, people who want to practice their waistline can do more planks, crunches, etc.; while people who focus on losing weight can do HIIT to speed up the weight loss process.
For those who train 4 times a week or 5 times a week, after taking turns to train large muscle groups for 3 days, in the remaining 1 to 2 days, you can arrange strengthening exercises for the parts you feel are weak. For example, it is important for both men and women. core muscles, etc.
Gym version: equipment chest training plan, equipment back training plan, equipment hip and leg training plan
Home version: Equipment-free upper body sculpting version, Equipment-free shoulder & core training plan, Equipment-free glute and leg version
Practice 6-7 days a week
In addition to the rotating combination of training of the three major muscle groups introduced above, you can also choose to intersperse the training of the large muscle groups for a day or two to combine small and medium muscle groups for more targeted training.
training interval
Training intervals:
Interval refers to the rest time between two sets of movements. Interval time is also very important for fitness results. We must not only rest reasonably, but also rest scientifically.
What needs to be explained here is that the process of anaerobic resistance training is actually a process of consuming muscle tissue and energy substances in the muscles again and again. Adequate rest after each muscle exercise and the time to replenish sufficient nutrients are the perfect periods for muscle recovery and growth.
recover:
Generally speaking, the recovery time of intramuscular muscle glycogen is more than 24 hours, and the recovery time of our common large muscle groups is between 48 and 72 hours. The recovery time for tendons and other tissues within large muscle groups, such as muscles and bones, is also about 72 hours. During exercise, the recovery time for the nerves and nerve centers that coordinate large muscle groups to complete training actions may be as high as 80 hours.
in conclusion:
In order to allow your body to recover and grow better after each fitness training, it is best to allow about 72 hours, or 3 days, between two large muscle group training sessions. The interval time does not refer to the interval of the whole body, but the rest time of a specific muscle group.
training intensity
training intensity
That is, training volume is composed of the total load of a single training session. In general daily use, you only need to simply think of it as "training weight" × "training times".
simple measure
1. Large training volume: the training load when you are at your best.
2. Medium training volume: Large training volume ×90%.
3. Small training volume: Large training volume × 85%.
Training intensity, or training volume, is determined by your training load for each training session! The training load is determined by the training weight and training times. Therefore, when you want to change your training intensity, there are two different ways to change it: change the training weight of the training, or change the training intensity of the training. Number of training sessions.
training weight
Heavy training volume = 100% × weight, medium training volume = 90% × weight, low training volume = 85% × weight.
For example, when you are at your best, you do 50kg squats in sets of 10. Then, this 50 kg × 10 is your large training volume, 45 kg × 10 is the medium training volume, and 42.5 kg × 10 is the small training volume.
training times
Large training volume = 100% × times, medium training volume = 90% × times, and small training volume = 85% × times.
For example, when you are in the best condition and do squats, you do 50 kg Correspondingly, your moderate training volume is 50 kg (30×90%), and 50 kg (30×85%) is low training volume. Assuming you do 3 sets at a time, your high-volume squats will be 10 reps per set, medium-volume squats will be 9 reps per set, and low-volume squats will be 8 reps per set.
Over recovery
The excess recovery theory is one of the basic theories of sports training in the world and was proposed by Soviet kinesiology experts. The general idea is: During exercise, muscle glycogen and other substances will be consumed. After exercise, the body will store more muscle glycogen in preparation for the next exercise.
After exercise, the body will reserve more energy
Optional recovery time after exhaustive exercise
In addition, the human body's natural recovery time is also related to the amount of training. Each time the amount of training is different, the recovery time required by the body will be different. Therefore, when formulating a training plan, we should also consider factors such as personal training volume and recovery time.
Applying the above theory to the actual formulation of fitness training plans, the best training intensity arrangement is actually three training volume cycles of high, medium and low.
Generally, it is a cycle of heavy training volume → small training volume (recovery period) → medium training volume (excessive recovery period) → medium training volume (excessive recovery period) → large training volume, and so on.
It should be noted that when designing training intensity, the natural recovery period of the body is considered in "days" as the time unit. This means that even on days when you are not training, your body will be over-recovering from the last training, and what determines the intensity of each training is the intensity of your last training and the time between training. interval time.
Two week training plan
Recommended two-week training plan
How to make plans yourself?
1. You can only take one day a week to exercise. It is recommended that those who train at home choose full-body shaping content in the one-day training plan, while those who train in the gym can choose to train the upper and lower body muscles one after another. Each group Just reduce the number of movements accordingly.
2. If you can spend 2 days a week exercising, whether in the gym or at home, you'd better divide your training schedule into upper body muscle groups and lower body muscle groups. It's best to space out the two training sessions. More than 2 days to ensure full recovery of the body.
3. If you have 3 days of training time a week, then you can choose to refine your training areas well. What we recommend is still large muscle group training focusing on the chest, back, and buttocks.
4. For those who want to do 4 exercises a week or more, you can choose to take 3 exercises a week as a baseline, and then do it again in turn on the extra days, while ensuring that your body is well rested and your nutrition is sufficient. ; Or you can directly choose the part you want to strengthen, as long as you don't train the same part in two consecutive training sessions.
Training plans for different parts
Training plans for different parts
1. Shoulder training plan
shoulder training program
2. Chest training plan
Home push-up training program (chest, body shaping, no equipment)
If you can't do high-five push-ups, you can do standard push-ups. You can try incline high-five push-ups or incline high-five push-ups, both of which are easier.
Gym version chest gym training plan (men’s version, muscle building and shaping)
Chest gym training plan (female version, fat reduction and shaping)
Chest and bench press training plan (chest, muscle building and shaping, gym)
3. Core muscle training plan
Core muscle training program
Suggestion: Core training can be combined with training of other large muscle groups and done after training of large muscle groups. If you want to strengthen the core muscles alone, you can also combine the core and small muscle groups together.
4. Butt training program
Home Butt Training Program
Equipment-free butt training program
·If you don’t have an elastic band, you can also jog for 5 minutes to warm up;
·HIIT can choose: ① Alternate fast and slow jogging: half a minute fast, half a minute slow, etc.;
② Alternate single and double shakes of skipping rope: 100 single shakes mixed with 10 double shakes;
③ Various HIIT exercises.
· Emphasis on the buttocks when stretching.
Squat·beginner training plan
·Applicable people: Beginners, those with weak constitution or those who are recovering from injuries;
·Program features: All movements are relatively gentle and safe, and are comprehensive for body shaping, laying a solid foundation for the most standard deep squats;
·Activating the glutes can be used as a warm-up set. If you don’t have an elastic band, you can also jog for 5 minutes to warm up;
·Students who want to lose fat can add 15 to 30 minutes of HIIT aerobic training after training.
Squat·Advanced training plan
·Applicable people: Home bodybuilders, with a certain basic squatting skills and no injuries;
·Program features: The effect of fat reduction and shaping is stronger, and it better balances "warping" and "thinning" (gluteus maximus and gluteus medius), laying a solid foundation for power-bearing squats;
·Activating the glutes can be used as a warm-up set. If you don’t have an elastic band, you can also jog for 5 minutes to warm up;
·Students who want to lose fat can add 15 to 30 minutes of HIIT aerobic training after training.
5. Back Gym Training Program
Back gym training program