December 16, 2011
Now and then I catch myself stuck in the same routine and my workout begins to get a little boring. I know this is beginning to occur when it gets straightforward to miss my usual workout. Latterly, I noticed this had occurred when I easily talked myself out of going to the gym for just about 2 weeks straight. Glaringly, something needed to change. So here are 1 or 2 concepts that I use from time to time simply to boost my workout. Give them a try, and I'm sure you'll find some new excitement to your workout as well.
Change your Grip!
This is a tiny change compared to almost all of the others you can do, but one way to spice up your workout from time to time is to change the way you are gripping the bar when doing barbell or machine exercises. One of my favourite grips is the palm grip. Actually I've read 1 or 2 articles from fitness trainers and other pro sportsmen that suggest that on exercises like the bench press, you should only be using a palm grip.
So what's a palm grip? Let’s use the bench press as an example for the palm grip. Many of us have been guilty of employing a standard grip on this exercise, myself included. A standard grip would be where you wrap your hand around bar as if you were holding a baseball bat. If you need a effective bench press, try not wrapping your thumb round the bar. You may think that you’ll lose some stability by doing this, but I have never had that problem. You may have to bend your wrist a touch more to compensate, or lower the weight just a bit bit. The main benefit to using a palm grip on this type of exercising is that by putting your thumb in this position, you are reducing the amount of effort that your forearms will put into the exercise. Therefore , you chest and tricep muscles must work even tougher to do the lift. Try this, and I am sure you may notice a difference next time you perform a bench press.
Try Trisets!
You have probably heard of super sets, where you do two exercise consecutively without resting in between. Ever tried doing 3 different exercises? This works very well with bicep exercises. The benefit to doing a triset with a bicep workout, is it lets you hit the bicep actually hard in three alternative ways. Here is one example of a bicep triset: standing barbell curls, hammer curls, reverse barbell curls. You'll also notice in this sequence that you've got to change your grip with each set of the triset. This is the most effective way to utilize a triset. Here’s an example of a triset with triceps: straight bar wire push downs, rope wire push downs, reverse wire pushdowns. Again, the key here is to change the grip on each exercise. Give these a try, and I'm sure you’ll feel a new pump in whatever body part you exploit them with!
Change your Split!
Have you been following the same split routine for 2 long? Has your split routine incorporated chest and triceps, back and biceps, or something similar for several months? Try reversing your split or doing a 5 day split rather than a 3 day split. Do chest and biceps, back and triceps simply to mix it up a little.
These are merely a few basic ideas, but its always a good concept to mix up your routine on a constant basis. That way you can keep your body making a guess and growing to acclimatize to the changes in stress that you place on your muscles.
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