The Do's & Don'ts Of Strength Training
Oct 15, 2024
If you've followed me for more than a few weeks, you'll know that I'm passionate about a few things.
Coffee: Because it's just amazing and I'm in no way addicted to it 👀
Sports: As a teenager one summer I found myself watching the Cricket World Cup every night at like 2 am - for reference, I hate cricket 😂
Business: I get a real kick out of growing my business and finding ways of making it better, plus it's what brings in the moolah 💰
Last but not least, my biggest of them all is, you guessed it...
Strength training!
Hands down the GREATEST decision I have ever made in my life was going to the gym for the first time at 14 years old - Way to go you lanky beanpole.
So, today's email is all about strength training, and I'm going to do it with a list of...
The Do's & Don'ts Of Strength Training
- Do focus on proper form: If you plan on being in this game for the long haul, then prioritize technique over the amount of weight you're lifting. Not only will you work the targeted muscles more efficiently, but the correct form reduces injury risk.
- Don't rush through your sets: Controlled, slow movements engage muscles more effectively than fast, sloppy reps. Focus on the quality of each rep. Tension is your best friend when it comes to building muscle.
- Do include compound movements: Exercises like squats, deadlifts, and bench presses work multiple muscle groups, giving you more bang for your buck in terms of strength and muscle gain.
- Don't skip rest days: You bang weights in the gym, but you make gains when you're at home resting. The body is only as strong as its ability to recover and that happens when you're sleeping and eating.
- Do progressively overload exercises: Gradually increase the weight, reps, or intensity over time to continue challenging your muscles and seeing progress. Doing the same workout every week is an express ticket to very limited progress.
- Don't neglect mobility training: Incorporating mobility work not only helps with joint health and range of motion, which improves your performance, but it also increases the number of exercises that are available for you to train.
- Do warm-up correctly: Start with a dynamic warm-up to increase blood flow and prepare your muscles and joints for lifting. For the sake of better performance and less risk of injury, spend 5 minutes getting loose and ready.
- Don't train like a bodybuilder: Ignore this advice if you are in fact a bodybuilder, but I doubt you are. The 'bro split' isn't that efficient, especially for time-strapped individuals who want a lot of bang for their buck.
- Do train full body or upper/lower splits: You'll get a lot of work done in a fraction of the time. Plus in the off chance that you miss a workout, maybe a sick kid needs picking up from school, then your program won't fall apart.
- Don't push every set to failure: It may feel counterintuitive, but keeping reps in the tank is a tremendously effective way of progressing. On top of that, killing yourself every set is a great way of exhausting your mind, and muscles, as well as impeding your ability to recover. Sometimes less is more 👀
- Do balance muscle groups: Training opposing muscle groups (e.g., chest and back, quads and hamstrings) ensures you're providing balance to your body. Muscle imbalances can and will happen, but you can do your best to avoid them with the right training program.
- Don't skip leg day: This is linked to the previous one and is aimed mostly at the fellas, you know who you are. Your lower body is half your body and therefore it needs to be trained regularly. In case you need more incentive, training your lower body can in fact make your upper body grow, as you produce a lot of growth hormone from training your lower body - get it done!
- Do track your workouts: Keep a log of your workouts to monitor improvements and identify areas for growth. You won't know whether or not your program is working if you don't track it.
- Don't ignore pain: This shouldn't even need to be on the list because it should be pretty self-explanatory, but we humans don't always do what's best for us. Find an injury, deal with it, move on with your life...simple!
- Do lift 3 times per week: If you do three 45-minute sessions per week, you'll be an animal in no time! You don't need 5 sessions per week and you certainly don't need to be spending 2 hours in the gym.
- Don't lift like a dic**ead: This is kinda like the very first point I made but I felt obliged to say it again. Nobody cares what you are doing in the gym. Everyone is too self-absorbed in their own lives to take any notice of you, as much as that may hurt to realise. So you going in and trying to lift more than you're capable of, ain't impressing anyone. Leave the ego at the door and train smartly.
- Do ask for help: There is strength (pun intended) in asking for help. Learning the basics, or even the more advanced stuff, from a coach, is a no-brainer in my opinion. Learning from an expert fast tracks your progress and stops you from doing any dumb shit, well it should do anyway. A few months of coaching could get you 1-2 years of progress in the space of time were you to go it alone.
I could keep going and going but 9 of each is plenty.
If you're on this email list then there's a strong possibility that you already strength-train,
But in the off chance that you don't, after reading that list you should be signing up for a gym membership as we speak,
And then messaging me to teach you everything you need to know about working out. I'm sure I've missed out on one or two important things,
Like I've just remembered rest periods and how many sets to do.
So if you have any you fancy sharing, or you want to know even more - I could easily share another 20, Pop me a reply.
Quote For The Day
"Ain't nothing but a peanut" - The legend that is Ronnie Coleman
If you don't know who Ronnie is, go check him out on YouTube.
We used to watch his videos in the University library to get us pumped for our workout later that day,
Probably why it took me an extra year to get my degree 😂
- Mark