Sunday, August 1, 2010

My progress and gripes about warmups...

I'm almost done with Jason Ferruggia's MGS programme. Only one more week to go, actually. Yup, I've seen some progress but somehow I feel that I could've done better. I guess this is one of the setbacks of a home gym. You're limited to the weights that you have available.

You can't go on increasing your reps forever, can you? Eventually you have to move on to heavier weights.

And I don't think I'm eating enough. I know I'm supposed to 'stuff my face' but it's really tough to do. The exercises are challenging, yes. But maintaining my diet is way way tougher. Most likely I'd make a whole more progress if only I'd eat more.

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On another note, I notice that I can lift heavier if I minimize my warm up sessions. I hate warm up sessions, to be frank. Many times I just wanna hit the weights and skip on the boring 'let's get our heart rates up and losen those joints a bit' phase.

I don't mind warming up by lifting weights though i.e. high reps lighter weights before moving on to more serious lifting.

Is warming up a necessary evil or can we just skip it altogether. I think I know what the answer is, but I wanna hear your opinion.

7 comments:

FatLouie said...

And what is your warm up sessions?

Maybe can just "simplify" the warm up sessions to like, skipping for 5mins, or run on treadmill for 5 mins?

It's enough for me to get my heart rates up, and plus point is, it's a "short" warm up. :)

yeah. u know the answer. we can't run away from that.

Aizan Suhaira said...

My warm up sessions vary, actually. I kinda hate doing the same thing over and over.

Usually it'll startm with some jumping jacks.

Then some bodyweight squats.

Then some pushups.

Sometimes I'll do pushups + jackknives.

And then I do some bit of hip mobilisation.

Then I hit the weights.

Doesn't look as impressive as it might sound. It doesn't take even 5 minutes. But so far it does the job of keeping me sufficiently warmed up but not too tired for the main event.

But I just don't like it lah.

Sarah said...

im a bad bad girl. i never warm up and never cool down after lifting weights >.< reason... too lazzzzy.

Aizan Suhaira said...

Hallo Sarah. Welcome to my humble little blog.

Ahh.. finally someone who concurs. I hate warming up. So dull and boring. Let's cut to the chase already, eh?

But I guess there must be a reason why they tell us to warm up. Although I know there are people out there who have contrary views.

KevL said...

My warmup set consists of weights which I can lift for up to 15 reps. And one warmup set is all it takes to make a difference in subsequent lifts.

no one said...

Aizan...

Warming up can help prevent injuries if you're planning an intense workout. Warm rubber stretches. Cold rubber breaks. If you're planning a workout with non-explosive reps, generally over 12 reps each set, then probably you dont need that much of a warm up.

If you're going for lower reps, explosive reps, or lower AND explosive reps, definitely warm up - but not 5 minutes on the tred mill. You hit the nail on the head when you said to just do higher reps with lighter weights.

Warming up also gives us something called "potentiation"... which can significantly improve performance. We can spend extra time on this concept, why it works, and how to use it.

Aizan Suhaira said...

KevL: Yeah, I think the next time I train, I'll try to do warm up sets instead of the traditional 'dynamic warmup'. Need to experiment a bit.

Kasey: Great info, as always. That potentiation sounds kind of fancy. Will have to wiki it first :P