Benefits of drop sets

Master Personal Training — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:39:02 +0000

Drop sets involve doing a set to failure with weight then straight away, doing another set to failure with less weight. This can be done by reducing the weight once (double-drop), reducing the weight twice (triple-drop) or using every successive sets of dumbbells down a rack (down-the-rack).
Drop sets allow you to use more of your muscle fibres during an exercise and therefore increase the intensity of your workout. A tougher workout will lead to improved muscular stamina and also muscle hypertrophy. Hypertrophy is the method of working your muscles to make them bigger. Drop sets are helpful for those looking to boost the power and intensity of their workouts.
As drop sets lengthen your set further than its usual end point, it will work your muscles much harder than usual. This increased intensity can result in more muscle soreness than usual.
Drop sets are an advanced training method and should be used moderately until you are more experienced. To prevent your muscles becoming over trained, don’t over do drop sets; allow your body ample time to recover before repeating this exercise.

How to lose fat faster

Master Personal Training — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:14:21 +0000

No matter how long you’ve neglected your body, it’s never too late to shape up and get rid of excess fat. However, as everyone has differing body types, simply losing weight on the scales isn’t the only criteria: how you look and how you feel are the best indicators of progress.
Step by step: Smaller and varied reductions in caloric intake produce better results. By varying your calorie intake by eating a variety of healthy foods avoids your body going into ‘starvation’ mode where the metabolic rate slows to compensate. This makes it difficult to reduce fat. Eating more calories on alternate days will keep your metabolic level high, thus burning off more fat.
Benefits of weight training: More than most workouts, weight training increases muscle mass and also prolongs the calories you burn for up to 39 hours afterwards. Even if all you want is to lose body fat, working with weights will ensure the weight you lose is not muscle.
Good fats are healthy fats: These include the polyunsaturated kind, as in those from fish and nuts, olive oil and egg yolks.
More protein less carbs: As your body burns more calories by eating protein than from fats or carbohydrates, increasing the amount of protein in your diet will help reduce fat while improving your muscle mass. Reducing your intake of carbohydrates and focusing on healthy sources such as oatmeal and vegetables, will also help. So too will avoiding eating late at night so your metabolism has time to digest before it slows down during sleep.
Small is beautiful: Similarly, smaller meals more often are better than larger meals, with larger spaces between when your body may move into ‘starvation’ mode, where it burns off muscle rather than fat.
Most important is not to just accept the status quo: you can have the body you want.