Posts written by Michael J. Mahony

If you think it through, you could manipulate the sets and weights to get to the rep range you want to hit.  However, when you use HIT and you use measured reps (3 seconds up, 3 seconds down) in a methodical and controlled fashion you are getting honest by taking the muscle to the point of temporary fatigue.  This results in the muscles revealing the truth.  They can no longer fake it.

This leads the body to expose itself and the repetition inroad principle.  The body will reveal to you that your biceps can only handle a maximum of X repetitions.  Just go with it.  Keep adding weight when you hit that number of repetitions.  You will see continual progress by doing this.

As far as honesty goes, remember, too, that you cannot squeeze your body into a man-made system.  It does not know that it is working on a 7 day cycle.  The body will recover when it has recovered.  You cannot train again until your body is recovered.  If you choose to train again before the body has recovered, it will not respond.  The key here is really listening to your body.  It is going to tell you what it likes and does not like.  It will tell you when it is ready to workout again.  Anyone can claim that you need to workout every other day or some other scheme, but only your body, involved in the Experiment of One, can tell you what you need to do for it to grow.

Remember, recovery, rest, fuel…these are the things you must have in order to achieve success with your bodybuilding.

One goal I am after right now is hypertrophy  (the growth of the muscle).  To this end I am working on eating enough, resting enough and lifting with High Intensity Training.  One interesting aspect of this is the "repetition inroad" principle. 

The repetition inroad principle is the idea that a given muscle group will determine its own repetition range.  No matter what you do, this cannot be changed.  The body sets its own repetition limits. This is the flaw in alot of published exercise programs.  They ask you to perform in a certain repetition range and alot of the time the muscle group being worked is incapable of working in that repetition range.  There is no sense in pounding your body trying to get the muscle group to respond by giving you more repetitions.  Instead you listen to your body and work within the repetition range it has set for itself on that muscle group.

This is part of what I always preach about listening to your body.  You have to listen or you will attempt to make it do things it is not capable. of.

Today I had to do several interviews for some developer positions I am trying to fill.  That's why I'm all dressed up in my picture.  I also figured that I haven't shared alot about how I look when I go to meetings, etc., so I decided to share today.  I am going to start sharing more and more of the environment I live in and the things I am doing.  I am going to tie this all in to the release of my eBook.

When you do cardio, do you dig down deep and give it everything you have?  Cardio is the type of exercise that really assists with burning fat.  You have to dig down deep and make your body work in the proper heart rate range in order to be successful at this aspect of your training.  It isn't about how fast you go or how long you go, it is about keeping yourself in the zone as long as possible.  This is accomplished by using a heart rate monitor and paying careful attention to the intensity of your workout.

When you lift are you leaving it all on the gym floor or are you carrying some of it with you out of the gym?  This is important.  You have to give it everything you have when lifting.  Leave nothing in the tanks.  Take it all and burn it up as you do the work.  Leave it all on the floor of the gym. Carry none of it with you when you leave.  Stop shortchanging yourself.  You will only get the desired results by working and working hard.  Your time is wasted if you fail to do this.

If you can tell something is left in your tank you owe it to yourself to empty those tanks immediately.  Work until you feel like you are empty.  It is an intense feeling.  To feel your muscles burn and your body scream out for mercy is something not too many people experience because they don't truly push themselves.  Lift heavy or stay home–that's the philosophy you should be following.  You need muscle to burn fat, so get to work earning that muscle.  Stop fooling yourself with lame workouts that don't make you work hard.  They are a waste of time and wind up getting you hurt in the long run.  Just push and push hard!

There is just something about taking on a full body workout with that intensity that pumps me up.  I felt like I was taking no prisoners.  I was pushing hard and keeping the rest periods to a minimum.  The idea was to rest only as much as needed to give it my all on the next exercise.  This resulted in some amazing feelings during the workout.

I am really enjoying using the Quad Blaster as part of my normal workout routine.  I have also been incorporating the Ab Mat in my routine.  The Ab Mat is every bit as simple as the Quad Blaster and just as effective at what it does.  I can really isolate my abdominals  using this mat.  It is exciting to think that I can be getting similar results on my abs as I have with my quads thanks to a simple device like this.

Today was a cardio only day.  I was able to get in an interval session.  I got my heart rate up to 145 BPM and held it for 2 minutes.  I then allowed myself to recover down to 105 BPM and just repeated the cycle over and over.  It was an intense workout as usual.