Are you confused over your training? You’re not alone! There’s widespread and massive confusion about virtually every aspect of training and diet, and everywhere you look, whether it be in books or magazines or blogs, you’ll find endless variations and contradictions. So good luck if you plan to follow them, or make sense of them, because following one means you’re almost certainly going against another one, or against lots of them. It’s enough to cause confusion in the most organised and rational mind.

How many times a week should you train? What kind of exercises should you be doing? Should you be training more than once a day? Heavy or light? Gym, or home workouts? Should you be pushing yourself to the limit, or taking it easier? And how about your diet? It’s mind boggling, trying to make sense of it all, and it’s enough to put you off training altogether if you take it all too seriously.

Trying to clear up the confusion

We need to try to make some sense of it all. We need to try to clear the fog of confusion and contradiction, and the way to do that is to come up with some simple, sensible guidelines. Note that word … sensible. It really is as well to try to be sensible about things like this – there are enough people out there peddling daft, sometimes dangerous, and often extreme ideas that fly in the face of common sense. Don’t get caught up in it all. Whatever else you do, try to cling on to the lifebelt of common sense.

Firstly, I’d say there simply is no one single definitive answer. If that’s what you’re looking for, stop right now, you’re wasting your time. We’re all different, and we all need to do what suits each of us. Of course we’re all the same in some respects – there are after all only so many muscles and joints in the body and so many ways of using them – but where we differ is in our individual lives and our own personal individuality. Some might be able to get to the gym regularly, 3 or 4 times a week (maybe even more), while others might have commitments that mean getting to the gym even once or twice isn’t easy. Some might be in the prime of life and find it fairly easy to work out often and recuperate quickly, while others might be better settling for a more sedate workout plan. And some might respond best to just a few basic exercises, while someone preparing for competition, for example, might feel the need to use as many variations of as many exercises as possible.

The permutations are endless. It’s pointless to say there’s just one way to train, or one routine for everyone. But there are guidelines that should apply to virtually everyone, and generally they’re based on sound information and common sense. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Intensity

The whole point of weight training is to put your body under extreme strain, so you should get that point firmly fixed in your mind for a start. If you’re not making your muscles feel the strain, you can’t expect to see much growth in response, no matter how often you work out. Work hard, or don’t bother! Don’t waste your time training if you’re just going to coast along comfortably.

Yet even with this simple, yet golden, rule, there’s room for variation. Plenty of room actually. For a start, you can’t train at your absolute maximum for every single rep of every set, and at every workout. Unless you want to burn out, of course. That’s like driving your car with your foot pressed right to the floor all the time – eventually something’s got to give. No machine can stand the strain of a non-stop, all-out workload for any length of time, it’ll just break down. And the same goes for your body. If you hammer it every single workout you’ll end up with chronic injuries which will mean missed workouts and possibly long interruptions to your training.

So let’s adjust that first point then – you want to use maximum effort, but not all the time. Start an exercise with a warm-up set, let’s say, then maybe one or two heavier sets (or longer sets), then finish on a final set where you go all-out. And on that set, specially, push it hard, till you’re right there, in the pain zone, and don’t quit till you simply have to. So the first few sets can be hard, but there’s hard and there’s really hard, and that last set should be virtually unbearable. No pain, no gain has become a cliché, but there’s a reason for that – it’s true!

So the guideline here is to use common sense, and you’ll see that applies to nearly everything in relation to training.

Aim to train with great intensity, but temper that urge with common sense. Don’t try to work to literally one hundred percent of your ability on every rep of every set. Build up to one very hard set, and make that one really count. 

Frequency

Frequency of workouts can be another minefield. The frequency of your workouts will be determined by a few different factors. As I mentioned, if you’re a competitive bodybuilder you might have different goals than the rest of us. You might want to devote your time and energy almost solely to your training, while that wouldn’t be realistic for most people. And if you’re in your teens or twenties you’ll probably feel able to effectively work out more often than an older person, or someone who has health issues. But beware, just because you feel you’re able to train more frequently, that doesn’t necessarily mean your body can take the strain of frequent workouts. Everything you do in the gym comes at an energy cost, and the more energy you expend the less you have available for recuperation.

You have to monitor your progress and see what works for you personally. You can train virtually every day of the week, but if you feel that it’s making you ‘stale’, then you need to take note of that. Keep a note (either a mental note or in a training log) of how each workout pans out.

How did you feel about training that day?
Were you looking forward to it? Dreading it? Not really interested in the prospect one way or the other?
How did the workout feel?
Did you enjoy it? Or just endure it?
How did you feel after the workout?
Did it leave you feeling drained later? Or exhilarated? Did it result in any joint pain? Did you actually feel amazing after it? Did you feel ‘pumped’?

Ask yourself these questions and make a careful note of the answers. Get a feel of how your training frequency is working out for you. If it feels too much, be ready to cut back. If it feels too easy, try to increase the frequency. But always, always, keep a close eye on the best indicator of how things are going … the way they make you feel.

Overtraining

Of course you might be overtraining, that’s easily done. I was always overtraining, for years. Even when it became pretty obvious that I was doing too much, I just loved training so much that I couldn’t get enough of it. Which is crazy, to be honest. I suppose it was like a drug to me, and that could be literally true since training results in the release of feel-good hormones. You can literally get high on training!

The surest way to avoid overtraining is to never lose sight of why you’re training. This is one of the most important points I could ever make. Never lose sight of your goal … not ever. Once you lose perspective things can go badly wrong and you won’t even notice it, because you’ve taken your eyes off the prize. You’ve literally forgotten exactly why you’re training.

If you’re training to add muscle, then you need to make very sure you’re not overtraining, otherwise all your hard work will be for nothing. If you keep expending energy past the optimum point you’ll simply have nothing left to use for recuperation, let alone growth. Pointless! Don’t go there, it really is a waste of time. And energy. Your two most important and most valuable commodities. Don’t squander them!

If you’re training to increase your general fitness, then overtraining is just as damaging. You can’t get fitter if you’re continually bothered by aches and pains, or by not feeling good about your training, or by falling prey to recurrent infections, and that’s likely to happen if you’ve drifted into overtraining territory.

How will you know if you’re overtraining? It’s not that difficult – your body will be eager to convey this vital piece of information, if only you’re paying attention.

Watch for the signs

You’ll have aches and pains …
Your appetite won’t be what it was …
Your sleep pattern will be disturbed …
You’ll feel listless …
You won’t feel eager to go training …
You’ll catch every infection going around …
You’ll find excuses to miss workouts …
And you’ll feel you’re not really getting anywhere.

Your body will be desperately trying to make you realise it needs a rest. It simply can’t cope with the demands you’re putting on it and it wants you to realise it’s time to ease up.

As soon as you sense you’re overtraining, ease off the gas. You’re going nowhere fast trying to push and push and push when your body is just begging for a break. Don’t ignore it! Pay attention!

Big exercises!

What exercises should you be doing? There are wildly different views on this point, but a good way to look at it is to focus mainly on what I can big exercises. I’m talking about exercises that make you use major muscle groups, and preferably more than one muscle group.

Squats come immediately to mind. Tough exercise, and you may not like it. Guess what … that’s a sure sign you need to be doing it! Pull ups. Again, tough exercise, and a real tester. You won’t be looking forward to doing them, but they will deliver results. Low pulley rows – you’ll be using your legs, your back, your arms, your chest, your shoulders … where does it stop?? Low pulley rows make you use your entire body! Don’t shirk them! There are other major exercises, but these few will do for now. If you make these the basis of your workout you’re on the right track.

And when you’re doing these exercises, do you think you really need isolation exercises for your arms? Do them by all means, but be aware your arms will be getting a great workout from these killer exercises, so your need for them might not be as great as you think.

Bodyweight exercises

The whole subject of bodyweight exercises gets ignored by most people once they start using weights regularly. It’s as though they see it as the poor relation and not really worthy of much attention at all. But the truth of it is that these exercises are amazing – they represent the type of thing we all used to do as kids, and our forefathers did in the work environment (and going way, way back, just to survive). In other words they’re functional – they make you use your body as a single unit and in a totally natural way. That’s why you rarely get any injuries doing these exercises.

The range of bodyweight exercises is virtually limitless, bounded only by your own imagination and creativity. You can pull, push, climb, crawl, lift, jump, squat and do dozens of other movements, and for each and every one there are a multitude of possible variations.

Even if you barely do any bodyweight exercises, chances are you do push-ups and pull-ups, and they’re both very challenging exercises (and yeah, they’re bodyweight exercises, although you might not have thought of them that way before).

Nutrition

It’s amazing how many people pay so little attention to nutrition. They work so hard at the gym (or at home), but they eat just the same as an office worker. If you’re putting your body under the strain of regular workouts, and quite intense ones, it makes no sense at all to eat like a sparrow.

You don’t have to be constantly stuffing your face, but you should be eating more than a sedentary person. Three meals a day just won’t cut it. You need to be eating more like five or six times a day, although they don’t need to be huge meals. You want that nourishment to reach your muscles often during the day. The important thing is to achieve a steady intake of the nutrients, i.e. enough protein to repair damaged muscle tissue and add it it, plenty of carbohydrates to fuel your workouts, and some fats. Not all fats are bad for you, and you actually do need fats in your diet, for various reasons, so don’t make the mistake of trying cut out all fat. That’s a common mistake, and it can cause all kinds of problems.

Above all, have a varied diet. Don’t bore yourself silly with a bland, repetitive diet of the same old stuff, meal after meal, day after day. Eat lots of different foods and enjoy them (that’s kinda the whole point!), and stay away from the junk food. You don’t have to eat a ‘perfect’ diet, i.e. cut out every little bit of processed food, but as a general rule your diet should mainly consist of ‘real’ food, such as eggs, meat, fresh vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, etc. And while you needn’t become obsessive about cutting out junk food, it’s not going to do you any harm to have some tinned peas or tomatoes, or even baked beans sometimes. Just don’t make them your staple diet!

Water

Again, it’s remarkable how many people put so much effort into their training, and yet drink hardly any water all day long. Oh, you might see them drinking, but how much of that is cans and bottles of cola and soda pop packed with sugar and chemical additives? Water is the most essential thing in your diet, but most people barely think about it. And the result is that they are dehydrated and don’t even realise it.

Water is essential for practically every bodily function and process. Without adequate water your digestion and elimination quickly suffer. Your muscles don’t work particularly well (bad news if you’re training!). Also they will tend to cramp easily, sometimes with just the slightest exertion, or even none at all. You won’t be able to regulate your core temperature effectively through sweating. Your body will struggle to build muscle, since muscle is composed of about 70% water. You’ll probably feel lousy most of the time, since things aren’t working properly and because your brain won’t be functioning properly either (that’s very soft and squishy, and a lot more than 70% water!).

Drink water first thing in the morning, every morning (preferably with a little cider vinegar and honey, or lemon juice and honey), and before each meal. And at other times (between meals, while training, at work, etc). Get into the habit of carrying a small bottle of water with you  – you can fill it up from a tap anytime you need to.

So, to recap:

• Train with intensity, but don’t go mad. You can’t train with very high intensity on every set without burning out.
• Don’t train too often, but often enough to stimulate growth and to maintain a high level of fitness.
• Choose exercises that engage virtually your whole body, instead of wasting energy doing tiny little isolation exercises that provide a very small payoff.
• Don’t limit yourself to weights – there are countless bodyweight exercises you can do and they can give you a fantastic workout. And you can do them anywhere, and with barely any equipment, and usually just furniture and fittings.
• Be on the lookout for overtraining. Best cut back at the first sign; you’re far better off doing a little less than the optimum amount rather than too much. Resting won’t hurt you, overtraining will.
• Make sure you’re getting adequate nutrition and plenty of water.

If you pay attention to these common sense guidelines you won’t go far wrong. If you ignore them, you’ll probably be wasting a huge chunk of your training time and energy, and that’s really not very clever. In fact, it’s a recipe for disaster. It’s the kind of thing that leads you to training month after month and year after year and seeing hardly any benefit for all your hard work.

Remember, if you’re going to train, which by its very nature entails hard work, do all you can to make every minute of that training count. Then you’ll see the results you’ve been working for and missing out on!