Train Movements not Muscles
workouts, split routines, muscle isolation, advice
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When designing your workout program try thinking about things from a different perspective. The days of split routines and isolation exercises have long since past outside of the realm of bodybuilding and/or specific weakness in a particular muscle group that is causing other issues ie., injury.
Training individual body parts is a time consuming and ineffective fitness model for fat loss. Split routines are very inefficient and many times the root of common repetitive motion injuries. Here is a short list reasons a split routine is not the best option for fat loss.
Less effect on EPOC (Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption)
Less overall Calorie burn during the workout
Lends itself to inconsistency
Time Consuming
Repetitive Motion injuries due to overtraining and emphasis on one muscle group
Encourages isolation of muscle groups when performing a complex movement in life
Neuro-muscular confusion as to role play within a particular movement (the wrong muscles are taking over during a movement or exercise)
To train effectively and efficiently shift your thinking to the following movements and then perform movements that produce them.
1.) Up and down
2.) Push and Pull
3.) Bend and Twist
4.) Ambulate (move forward, back, side to side etc.)
These are, in a nut shell, how we move. We get up and down; we push things away or pull them to us; we bend and twist and we move by walking, running, etc. Setting up your workout like this can result in the following 4 exercises:
1.) Squats
2.) Push ups
3.) Sit ups
4.) Walk or run
Or
1.) Lunges
2.) Rows
3.) V – sits
4.) Side shuffle
The combinations and exercises are endless and to be more efficient you can combine two or more movement patterns like a lunge walk or a medicine ball squat and press.
Whether you perform the exercises as a circuit (which I highly recommend) or as individual sets with rest in between them – you will burn more calories as you utilize more muscle groups. You also don’t have to worry about missing a workout as you would with a split routine. When you miss a day with a split routine, and that day turns into more of a week – those particular muscle groups have not been worked in quite some time. If you miss a week training the way I have described you know you have still exercised every muscle group in the previous week.
Consistency is your biggest advocate…especially over the long run and training movements instead of muscles gives you the BEST chance to do that.
Train movements. Train hard. Win.
Dave
www.homeofficeworkouts.com
www.homeofficeworkouts.net
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on 9/2/2008
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