Motivating oneself sometimes feels like an ongoing uphill battle. However, what if you had the tools to make sure that you made the most of every minute you spent in the gym and out?
Being more deliberate with your fitness regimen and knowing the right skills can really aid progress and motivation. Here are five ways you can maximise your efforts and keep you on the right path.
1. Resistance Training
Loading your muscles with weights is key to building strength. Beginners can start with their own body weight as their load, and progress slowly by adding weights. Small increases over time will help both motivation and drive your strength goals.
2. Nutrition
Eating a balanced macronutrient diet (including all macros; proteins, carbs, fats) will fuel your body with energy for training sessions and support strength gains. It is always better to get your macros through whole foods in their most natural forms.
Eating processed foods with non-natural additives interferes with our gut bacteria and usually leads to inflammation and bloating. In this state humans do not digest food properly and feel lethargic and tired.
If supplementation is required we recommend Creatine monohydrate and Protein powder for strength gains.
3. Technique
Technique is vital to target the desired muscle groups but also to prevent injury and movement compensations. Focus on slowing the movement down with eccentric loading (downward phase). This will make the muscle work harder by spending more time under tension, recruiting more muscle fibres under a lighter load, and putting less strain through joints and tendons.
If you are not confident in your technique and movement get a coach/personal trainer to help you through your training exercise and routine.
4. Type of Movement
The most efficient strength building exercises are compound movements including squats, lunges and push/pull exercises. Incorporating these fundamental strength training movements are key, however can take years to perfect. These should be incorporated in to every program with slight variation.
5. Progressive Overload
Safely increasing the weights used in resistance training should occur weekly to achieve strength gains and prevent plateau. Our bodies are very good at adaptation. By progressively overloading the muscles we are “tricking” the muscle and preventing adaption. The same can be said for exercise ‘Variation’, number of ‘Sets’, ‘Reps’ and ‘Time’ spent under tension. Each element needs to be changed every 4-6 weeks to burn more calories and achieve strength gains.
Hope the above tips are digestible enough to help you make some small changes that will have a big impact on your strength gain. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out to the SOMA team hello@somacollection.com.au
IMPORTANT: All SOMA blogs provide general research and views based on the authors’ experience, but are not medical advice, and have not considered your own personal health. You should always consult your doctor changing your diet or trying nutritional supplements. You should also decide whether these tips are suitable for you, given your own personal health and physical limitations, problems or existing medication.