Category: Training

Continuing from Beginning Weight Training Part 1, I want to now look at what the specific goals of beginning weight training are (or should be).  That is, the specific adaptations that are being sought during this beginner phase to ensure not only optimal results at this stage but prepare the lifter for more advanced training down the road.

The Overall Goal of Beginning Weight Training

As I stated in Part 1, I believe that, to a first approximation, beginner weight training routines will look more similar than not.  And that this will be the case almost irrespective of the individual’s long-term goals.  Whether it’s physique/bodybuilding or just body composition changes, powerlifting/strength sports or just general health, most beginners will train similarly.  Again, the big exception to this is Olympic lifter who will always be doing a lot of work specific to the OL’s.

In the most general conceptual sense, then, the overarching goal of beginning weight room training is to build a proper “base” or “foundation” upon which to perform more specialized training down the road. … Keep Reading

While it’s always fun to focus on advanced training techniques and the minutiae of training the simple fact is that the basics are equally important.  Every day more people enter the weight room and that makes the topic of beginning weight training critically important.  Because how someone gets started in the weight room can have a huge impact on both their short-term and long-term lifting.

Beginning Weight Training Isn’t Sexy

For the most part, articles about beginner’s training aren’t terribly popular.  This is because, with literally no exception I have ever run into in nearly 20 years of doing this, everybody thinks that they are more advanced than they are.   And they always want to do more rather than less.

It’s simply human nature, nobody wants to think of themselves as a beginner or noob.  In the world of training and dieting the consequence of this is that folks tend to jump into advanced training or diet interpretations long before they are either needed or useful or they have developed the necessary fundamentals.… Keep Reading

Ok, continuing from Part 1, I want to address two more general issue and then give some examples of how two a day training might be applied to weight training along with a couple of other sports.

Summarizing Two a Day Training in the Weight Room Part 1

First let me summarize the points I made in Part 1 of this series.

1.  Two-per-day training is training the same muscles/movements twice a day with an, ideally, 4-6 hour break
2. Initially, individual workout duration should be kept at roughly 40-45 minutes.  Or you can do one full workout (60 minutes) and one supplemental workout
3. The workouts should be divided into heavy and light where the following guidelines apply

• For Growth Training
  Heavy Training is anything below 8 reps
  Light Training is anything higher than 8 reps (at an appropriate intensity)
• For Strength Training:
  Heavy training is anything below 5 reps
  Light Training is anything that falls under repetition effort or dynamic effort methods

With that out of the way, two more general points and then sample workouts for different sports.… Keep Reading

Ok, this article (which will  assuredly be two parts) came out of a question on my FB group regarding two-a-day training for natural lifters.  His question, more or less was if it was productive or counterproductive to train twice daily (assuming one has the time) and while the answer is always that it depends the fact is that two-a-day training has a long history and can be very effective if used well.

I should mention that the idea of bodybuilders training twice daily (and in this specific context, training the SAME muscle group twice daily) is one that I first saw discussed by Charles Poliquin (before he lost his mind completely) and I would feel bad for not giving him at least a shout out.   It’s a concept that has long been used by performance athletes but I’m not sure I would have considered it for bodybuilding purposes without his mention of the idea.… Keep Reading