SS 110 – Basic Weight Training (Part 3)

DESIGNING WEIGHT TRAINING PROGRAMS

Limitations to Consider
• Goal – Muscle growth, rehab, sports performance, muscular endurance, strength gain, etc.
• Time – How often per week and how long each session.
• Equipment - The exercises you choose are limited to the equipment available to you.
• Fitness Level – Dictates the intensity of the routine

Program Variables to Keep in Mind:

1. Exercise Selection – depends on the availability of equipment and exercise preferences. For large muscle
groups (back, chest, legs including hips), ideally 2 exercises. For small muscle groups (shoulders, arms,
calves), 1 exercise is enough.

2. Training Frequency – dictated by time constraint; ideally 2 workouts per muscle, per week

3. Exercise Order – In general, follow the rule of doing your upper and lower body exercises in the order of your
larger muscles first, and then your smaller muscles. Lastly, exercise your middle body, your lower back and
abdominals, as they serve to stabilize your body as you do all the prior exercises. These muscle groups are:
o Upper body - Chest and back, Shoulders, Biceps and triceps
o Lower body - Hips/Glutes, Thighs, Calves and shins
o Middle body - abdominal and lower back muscle

4. Number of reps and load – Power training usually involves 1-2 reps, strength is about 3-5 reps, muscle size
about 6 to 12 (6-8, 8-10, 10-12 for rep ranges) and muscular endurance needs upwards of 12 to 30 reps.
Power training should only be done for heavy compound movements of large muscle groups. The load is
simply dictated by the number of reps based on the principle of progressive overload.

5. Number of Sets – One set is usually enough for beginners or people in a hurry; 2 to 3 sets for intermediate
level of fitness and 3 sets or more for more advanced individuals.

6. Rest Periods - If you are a beginner, take as long as you need. Otherwise, your rest intervals should be
dictated by your training goal.

Split Routines
Regardless of your goals, you need to hit each muscle group twice a week. The simplest way to accomplish this is to
perform two total-body workouts per week; in other words, twice a week perform a routine that works every major
muscle group. Some people may want to go to the gym more often and thus a split routine can be done.

When designing a split routine, you need to follow two basic rules:
1. Train each muscle group twice a week and;
2. Don’t work the same muscle group on consecutive days

The upper body/lower body split

The upper body/lower body split is perhaps the simplest split, a good one for beginners to try. You train one half of
your body per session, requiring a training frequency of 4 training days per week.

Push-pull-legs split routine

This type of split separates your upper body pushing muscles (the chest and triceps) from the upper body muscles
involved in pulling (your back and biceps), and your lower body and abdominal exercises. You divide you workouts
into three muscle groups requiring a training frequency of 6 days a week.
Hybrid Splits
Hybrid splits can be done if you have an odd schedule or you need to make up for missed workouts. For example, if
you have 3 days a week to train, you can have 1 day for upper body, 1 day for lower body, and the third day for a
full-body workout (as long as the workouts do not tax the same muscles on consecutive days).

A hybrid split can also be done for 5-day training schedules. For example - Monday pull, Tuesday Legs, Wednesday
push, Thursday pull, Friday push and legs. Each muscle group still gets worked twice a week but they each get at
least one day that is dedicated to them.

Whole-Body vs Split Routines

All approaches to training have their benefits as well as their drawbacks. Whole-body workouts have resurging in
popularity lately, so here are some quick benefits and drawbacks of this training approach.

Benefits of whole-body routines:

1. Great for people who can only make it to the gym two times a week.
2. Great way to burn a lot of calories in one session and set up even more calorie burning during recovery (EPOC).
3. Great for general fitness goals and those whose first priority is NOT lifting. If you want a good muscular stimulus
and general development but you're a cyclist or a runner or a yoga practitioner, whole-body workouts are ideal.

Drawbacks:
1. Limited number of exercises and sets - when you want to add exercises and sets, a full-body workout can become
tedious and unsustainable.

2. More time spent warming up - the stronger you get, the more time you spend warming up. If you're JUST training
legs or JUST training chest (with shoulders, triceps), then once you've warmed up for the first lift of each, there is
usually no need to warm up for the next exercises. If you do whole body workouts, you have to warm up completely
between each muscle group which can take too much time.

2. Overload problems in the later exercises of the session - For example, if you're trying to do bench presses AFTER
deadlifts AND squats, you're going to have a very unproductive bench press. The first compound exercises will
accumulate fatigue that may hinder your performance in the later exercises.

Summary:
Whole body workouts are great for those with limited goals, time commitment, and strength levels. For lifters with
more advanced goals, they can come to the gym multiple times per week and higher strength levels, split routines are
better especially in groups like "push", "pull" and "legs."

Decay Rates of Training

The chart below describes how long certain fitness characteristics stay if you stop training or train other related
characteristics.

Training Effects Retention with:

Goal
No training Power Strength Hypertrophy
decrease in + 1 Increase 4-6 mo.
Power no change decrease in 1 week
week then decrease
decrease in 1-3 slight decrease in
Strength decrease in 3-5 mo. long-term increase
weeks 2-4 weeks
decrease in 2-3
Hypertrophy decrease in 2-4 mo. no change long-term increase
weeks
 SPECIAL TOPICS
Lean Gains
1. Is it possible to gain muscle WITHOUT gaining fat?
2. Is it possible to gain muscle WHILE losing fat?

Reality of Muscle Gain – The most powerful nutritional influence for muscle growth is a HYPERCALORIC diet.
• Constant influx of anabolic nutrients
• Hormonal effects (testosterone, insulin)
• Cellular signaling regulation (mTOR signaling)

Reality of Fat Loss – The most powerful nutritional influence for fat loss is a HYPORCALORIC diet.
• Constant nutrient deficit
• Hormonal effects (insulin, epinephrine, norepinephrine)
- Low insulin lowers adiposity (fat storage) and more fat burning
- Increased epinephrine and norepinephrine levels which are fat burning hormones
• Cellular signaling regulation (AMP-activated protein kinase)

Trying to gain muscle WHILE losing fat:

• Takes out the two best influences for both
• Trying to do both at the same time makes the whole idea needlessly difficult.
• Both processes are already difficult on their own.

Further problems
• Cardio
- Great for fat loss
- DIRECTLY interferes with muscle growth
• Fat Burners
- Great for fat loss
- Impair appetite

Basic Facts
• Muscle is much harder to GAIN than it is to MAINTAIN - you can retain muscle relatively easily once you’ve
gained it.
• Fat LOSS is easier than muscle GAIN – you can lose 20 pounds of fat in 3 months but you can’t gain 20
pounds of muscle in 3 months.

Strategies
1. Gain muscle first (and some fat) through a hypercaloric diet.
2. Re-set Set Point – Hold weight steady to allow the body to acclimate to the new body weight for about a
month.
3. Lose fat slowly using a hypocaloric diet – you will then be down to the same body fat percentage when you
started but you will now have more muscle.
- Optimal calorie drop rate for fat loss is 500-1000 calories per day. Whether through diet or exercise is
irrelevant.

Real World Tips

• Mass-Stabilize-Cut. Recommendations:
o Mass – Gain weight on a steady rate of 0.25 to 0.5% body weight per week for a span of 4 to 12
weeks depending on where your body responds best.
o Stabilize – hold (maintain) that weight for 4 weeks.
o Cut – Lose weight on a steady rate of 0.5 to 1.0% body weight per week for a span of 4 to 12 weeks
depending on where your body responds best.
o Repeat if desired.
Exceptions
• Beginners (for the first few months up to even a year)
• New to scientific dieting
 • Start taking Anabolic steroids and other Performance enhancing drugs
• Start taking stronger anabolic drugs
• Detrained individuals

Start with Exercise or Diet for Weight Loss?

If your goal is long term success in weight loss, it's important to make slow and sustainable changes to your lifestyle
one at a time. This way, you'll get used to the changes before new ones are introduced. Example, if you're new to both
exercise and dieting and you want to get in shape by doing both, just start with exercise first (ideally with weight
training). After several months of just training (and still eating similarly to how you have been), you'll have more
muscle. This, in turn, will:
1. Make exercise a normal part of your life and you won’t be overwhelmed when you eventually
start changing your diet
2. Make future fat loss easier because the new, bigger muscles burns more calories daily
3. Make you look and feel better without having even lost much weight

You've got a lot of time to change your habits. Change them slowly and one at a time and get used to the lifestyle
before you add in more changes. This approach will keep you succeeding at a slow pace but will be more sustainable.

Resistance Training and the Immune System

Resistance training tends to acutely degrade antibody production in the immune system and slows down the
immune function. During this period of stress, the immune system is suppressed, leaving you susceptible to viral and
bacterial infection. On the other hand, immune function may be enhanced by resistance training in the long-term
because it reduces stress, thus allowing the body to produce more white blood cells to fight off infection.

Endurance athletes or those who do heavy cardiovascular training are at higher risk of overtraining and diminished
immune function. There is a window of opportunity when the immune response is low. This is the time when
antibody production is decreased because the body is under physical stress. The window of opportunity is 1 to 4
hours after training. At this time, white blood cells have decreased and do not return to normal until 8 to 12 hours
post-training. Illnesses that typically occur during this period are upper and lower respiratory tract infections.

Bone Adaptations to Exercise

The Minimal Essential Strain (MES) is the threshold stimulus that initiates new bone formation. A force that reaches
or exceeds the MES initiates new bone formation in the area experiencing the mechanical strain. This leads to
changes in both the size and the density of the bone (mostly in the density).

Forces that fall below the MES do not provide a stimulus for new bone formation. This adaptation of bone mass
establishes a margin of safety in the bone against fracture. MES is thought to be 1/10 of the breaking force needed
to fracture the bone.

The loss of bone and bone mineral density following a period of reduced loading or immobility appears to occur at a
much faster rate than the formation of new bone. To generalize, a decrease in muscle strength or mass through
periods of reduced activity results in a corresponding decrease in bone mass.

Sex-Related Differences and their Implications for Resistance Training

Body size and Composition

Before puberty, there are essentially no differences in height, weight, and body size between boys and girls. Boys
have a longer growth period, and therefore adult men tend to be taller than adult women. Anthropometric
measurements of adults also indicate that men tend to have broader shoulders relative to their hips and women
tend to have broader hips relative to their waists and shoulders. The broader shoulders in men can support more
muscle tissue and can also provide a mechanical advantage for muscles acting at the shoulders. Men also tend to be
leaner than women of the same height and weight thus allowing for greater size-to-strength ratios

Muscular Strength
In terms of absolute strength, women generally have just two-thirds the strength of men. When compared on a
relative basis, sex-related differences in muscular strength are greatly reduced. The lower-body strength of women is
similar to that of men on a relative basis. The upper-body strength of women is still somewhat less, however.
Power Output
Sex-related differences in power output are similar to those for muscular strength. Measurements on competitive
lifters showed that women’s power output were about 63% of men’s. Maximal vertical jump and standing long jump
scores also tend to be lower in women. The larger size of males, their greater muscle mass, and larger fiber size are
physiologically responsible for their greater strength and power.

Program Design Considerations for Women

Since the physiological characteristics of muscle in both sexes are the same, there is no sensible reason why training
programs for women need to be different from that of men. The only real difference between training programs is
generally the amount of absolute weight used for a given exercise, which is based on the individual’s strength
capabilities.

Alcohol and Weight Training

Consuming alcohol in moderation has some positive effects on the body in the areas of stress reduction, "good"
cholesterol and reduced insulin resistance. Many believe that the main benefit of alcohol comes from its ability to
raise HDL cholesterol levels (the “good” type that helps sweep cholesterol deposits out of your arteries and protects
against a heart attack). Moderation may be considered as no more than one alcoholic drink for women or two drinks
for men per day.

The reasons for avoiding alcoholic drinks during weight-lifting are obvious. Alcohol can impair your coordination and
interfere with your muscle gains. What you may not know, however, is that drinking alcohol after lifting can be just as
damaging to your efforts.

Drinking after you lift may hinder any gains you would have received during your workout. Alcohol inhibits growth
hormone activity, which is essential for protein synthesis needed for muscle building after exercise. In fact, alcohol can
decrease secretion of this hormone by 70 to 75 percent.

Drinking alcohol after a workout may make the next workout/session harder. When alcohol is absorbed through your
gastrointestinal system and then into your cells, it disrupts the water balance in your muscle cells. This harms the cells’
ability to produce ATP, a top energy source for your muscles. Drinking every now and then probably won’t hurt your
overall progress. However, keep in mind that alcohol is a non-essential nutrient, packs a lot of calories and has no
nutritional value.

“Functional Training”
The term “functional training” is vague and so often misused. “Functional” should be defined within the context of a
SPECIFIED ACTIVITY. Is there such a thing as being 'generally functional?' No. What’s missing is the specificity of
training. Functional strength has no universal meaning. For each sports-specific and “real world” scenario, the needs
of the individual are different.

The concept of functional strength has nothing to do with one type of strength being more functional than another.
Strength is still strength irrespective of how one trains to obtain it and strength is never a weakness. Adding a balance
and/or coordination aspect to conventional strength exercises does not automatically make it “functional”.

Is it Okay to Shower after a Workout?

The quick answer is YES. If you do have to choose between a hot or cold shower, cold showers seem to be better. A
cold shower will instantly cool down your temperature as well as your heart rate. Apparently, studies show that a cold
shower right after a workout likewise increases blood flow.

A cold shower may also reduce your risk of muscle pain and inflammation due to a vigorous workout. Aching muscles
the day after a hard exercise session may be prevented by having a cold shower. Lastly, a shower after exercise is
essential in terms of hygiene.

Taking a bath right after exercise is not bad for you. Just ask swimmers, they all seem to be okay.

END OF 3rd LONG EXAM TOPICS