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Category: Resistance training

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Is Personal Training Too Expensive?

When it comes to fitness and health, there’s often a perception that personal training is too expensive. While it’s true that personal training can be costly, it’s essential to recognise that poor health and psychological well-being can also be very expensive.

 

We all have priorities, and it’s important to consider where our health falls on that list. Without good health, it can be difficult to enjoy other aspects of our lives fully. It’s also essential to understand that investing in our health is a long-term investment in ourselves.

 

Personal training may seem expensive, but when you compare it to the costs associated with poor health, it can be a very cost-effective option. Medical bills, missed workdays, and reduced quality of life can all result from poor health, which can be costly in both financial and emotional terms.

 

The benefits of personal training go beyond physical fitness. Personal trainers can help clients set realistic goals and develop a focused program that caters to their specific needs. A personal trainer can also hold you accountable, ensuring you stay on track with your fitness journey.

 

When you choose to work with a personal trainer, you also benefit from focused training with minimal distractions. At a traditional gym, it’s easy to become sidetracked by other gym-goers, equipment, and noise. In contrast, working with a personal trainer in a private gym environment means you can focus on your goals and get the most out of your workouts.

 

It’s worth noting that personal training is not for everyone, and that’s okay. However, anyone who has considered taking steps to get into shape should at least explore the option of hiring a personal trainer. The benefits of having someone guide you through your fitness journey can be invaluable.

 

It’s important to remember that getting fit and healthy is hard work and takes effort. But so does being overweight, unfit, tired, and unhealthy. It’s a matter of choosing your hard. Prioritising your health and investing in yourself is one of the most important things you can do. And with the help of a personal trainer, you can make sure you’re on the right track to achieving your health and fitness goals.

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Energy Systems: Lactic Acid System

This article will go more in-depth about the Lactic Acid Energy System and also how you can focus you’re training to improve its efficiency to further benefit your performance in the gym.

 

The name Lactic Acid Energy System derives its name from the fact that the by-product lactate is produced when this energy system is predominant. This system uses only carbohydrates as its fuel source to, like every energy system, produce energy in the form of ATP for muscular contraction. It does this by a process called anaerobic glycolysis. Anaerobic means without the use of oxygen and glycolysis is a series of reactions that extract energy (ATP) from glucose (a carbohydrate).

 

The lactic energy system produces ATP quickly, which is why it is the predominant energy system for exercise between 30 seconds and 3 minutes, depending on intensity and the person’s fitness level who is exercising. It yields 2 molecules of ATP for every molecule of glucose broken down.

 

However, the build-up of the by-products of this energy system causes fatigue. This cause of fatigue is due to the build-up of pyruvic acid in the muscle. Pyruvic acid is made up of two molecules; pyruvate and a hydrogen ion (H+). Without oxygen, the body converts the pyruvate and two H+ to lactate. This helps to reduce the acidity of the muscle and allows anaerobic glycolysis to last longer, as the lactate is removed from the muscle and taken to the liver where it is converted to a useful fuel source such as glucose. However, in continued high intensity activity the lactate cannot be removed fast enough, which results in a buildup of pyruvic acid. It is specifically the buildup of the H+ within the muscle that causes fatigue. It does this by increasing the acidity of the muscle and causing the enzymes needed for anaerobic glycolysis to slow down.

 

To apply this to athletic performance and the gym, we have to acknowledge that any working set or event lasting between 30 seconds to 3 minutes will primarily be using the lactic acid energy system. In sport, this would include events such as the 400m and 800m. In the gym, any sets 12 or more reps or circuit training for working sets within the duration mentioned. Therefore, to become better at these events, we must know how to train this system effectively.

 

We have established that our working sets need to be between 30 seconds and 3 minutes, but ideally less than 3 minutes when training though as 3 minutes using the lactic acid energy system would be an all-out effort, taking a lot of time to recover from. However, how long should our recovery intervals be? The process of recovery once fatigue has occurred requires oxygen. Pyruvic acid in the presence of oxygen will be converted to acetyl coenzyme A, which is then broken down through the Krebs cycle to produce more ATP. Without oxygen, it is converted to lactate and removed from the muscle and taken to the liver to be converted into glucose. Full recovery can take anywhere between 30min and 60 min. Although, to train this energy system we do not want to fully recover, we want to recover just enough so that we can do another rep whereby this energy system is predominant. For this, a work to rest ratio of 1:1 is recommended. To give an example, if you are training this system to improve 800m performance, then a session consisting of 3-10 45-second-high intensity running intervals with 45 seconds rest in between would be enough to stimulate improvement of this energy system.

 

Adaptations to this type of training include an improved tolerance to lactic acid, as well as the ability to buffer the amount of lactic acid produced. Thereby, allowing you to perform at a high intensity for a longer period of time before the event becomes too painful to continue at that sustained intensity. One way to improve lactic acid buffering besides from training alone is the supplementation of beta alanine. Beta-alanine supplementation increases carnosine levels which, simply put, helps your muscles reduce their acidity levels during exercise, thereby reducing pain. It is recommended that to see these benefits to performance, 2-5 grams is taken daily. 500g of Beta Alanine can typically be bought for 40 pounds. Therefore, at 40p per serving it is a relatively cheap supplement. Caffeine has also been shown to reduce perceived exertion during endurance performance. For these effects, 3-9mg per kg of bodyweight is recommended 1 hour prior to performance. For a 70kg person, a dose between 210mg and 630mg is recommended. However, tolerance can build quickly and if taken less than 6 hours before sleeping, can be detrimental to sleep quality, so it is worth being selective on when using it.

 

Overall, I hope this article has been insightful as to how you can improve the efficiency of your lactic acid energy system and how you can apply this knowledge to your own training to benefit your performance.

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The Energy Systems: ATP-PC System

When we exercise, our bodies require energy to cause our muscles to contract, resulting in movement, cardiac muscle to contract more frequently and powerfully to increase blood flow and smooth muscle, such as the muscles in our respiratory system, to increase the amount of oxygen we take into our bodies. Energy can otherwise be called Adenosine Triphosphate (1 molecule of adenosine and three molecules of phosphate) or ATP for short. The body has 3 systems that it can create ATP from and, although we always use all 3 simultaneously, there will always be one system that is much more predominant than the others, based upon the activity and environment you’re in. This article will go more in-depth about the ATP-PC system or Alactic System and also how you can focus you’re training to improve its efficiency to further benefit your performance in the gym.

 

The ATP/PC system derives its name simply because it recycles the small storage of our bodies ATP and PC (Phosphocreatine) to produce ATP for exercise. Firstly, ATP is broken into ADP (Adenosine Diphosphate which is 1 Molecule of Adenosine and two molecules of phosphate). This action releases the energy required for our muscles to contract. Phosphocreatine is then broken down into creatine and a molecule of phosphate by an enzyme called creatine kinase. The energy released from this reaction is then used to join the phosphate group to ADP to create ATP which can then be broken down to create more energy for muscular contraction. Therefore, the limiting factor for this energy system is our body’s stores of phosphocreatine (or just creatine, which will be touched on later in the article.

 

As our bodies only have small stores of ATP and PC, this energy system can only be used for 10 seconds of exercise before we primarily use either to lactic acid energy system or the aerobic energy system, which will be looked at in the coming articles. However, despite its short duration, a huge positive of this energy system is that doesn’t produce performance debilitating by-products like lactic acid. Once used up, it takes approximately 3 minutes to replenish our body’s stores of ATP and PC, in order for the ATP/PC system to be the predominant system used in the next 10 second bout of exercise.

 

If we apply this to training in the gym, strength training, power training (less than 6 reps per set) and sprint training (10 second bouts or shorter) will primarily use this energy system. Therefore, if you are looking to improve on your strength, power and/or sprint performance, then it’s important to remember the principle of the 3-minute rest in order to be providing the stimulus to the ATP/PC system and therefore bring about the desired outcome of becoming stronger, faster or more powerful. Inadequate rest or prolonging the duration of repetitions will place stress onto the lactic acid energy system. The negative of doing so, is that this does not have the same benefit when it comes to all out efforts of 10 seconds or less, which is of particular concern for people partaking in sports where performance in these areas is key.

 

Although our stores of PC are very small, there is ways to increase them slightly. We can do this by supplementing our diet with creatine. This is because creatine has the ability to increase our muscle’s stores of PC and thereby prolonging the amount of time we can utilise the ATP/PC system before the lactic acid energy system becomes to primary energy system. The benefit to this is that you can place the training stimulus onto the ATP/PC system for an extra couple of reps/ few seconds per set which, over time, results in greater adaptations, and therefore performance, in strength and power.

 

Also, creatine is the most well researched supplement in the world and, unlike some supplements, it has been found to have no negative side effects. The recommended dosage for creatine is 5g per day which is relatively cheap as you can purchase 250g for approximately £15-£20. However, as it is a loading supplement, it is important to consume every day so that the quantity of creatine in the muscles can build up in order for you to see the benefits, unlike caffeine, whereby you take a dosage 1 hour prior to training and feel the effects for the next few hours.

 

I hope this has explained how you can improve the accuracy of your training and supplementation when you wish to focus on improving your strength, speed or power performance and overall bring about better results.

 

 

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Pre-Fatigue Training vs Traditional Sets on muscle growth

 

 

Reference of the Study: Trinidade et. al. (2019). Effects of Pre-Exhaustion Versus Traditional Resistance Training on Training Volume, Maximal Strength and Quadriceps Hypertrophy FRONT PHYSIOL

 

 

Details of the Study:

 

  • Trainees performed 3 sets of leg press to failure 75% 1RM, 2x per week, for 9 weeks in total.

 

  • One group performed 1 set of leg extensions before the leg press (pre-fatigue group), while another group performed the leg press training in a non-fatigued state (traditional training group).

 

  • It was found that both groups saw significant muscle growth of all quad muscles, with no notable differences between groups.

 

  • This study suggests that when taking each set close to failure, pre-fatiguing a muscle can achieve similar muscle growth compared with traditional training, with no additional benefit.

 

  • This is despite the fact that lifting performance (load lifted), on the leg press for the pre-fatigue group was significantly affected.

 

 

Real World Application:

 

  • Pre-Fatiguing the muscles provides an opportunity to gain the same muscle growth as traditional training, with lighter loads and less repetitions, thereby minimising joint stress.

 

  • Therefore, this could be particularly useful for people returning to the gym after rehabilitating certain joint injuries.
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Load vs Rep Progression

 

 

Reference:

Plotkin et. al. (2022) Progressive Overload Without Progressing the Load? The Effects of Load or Repetition Progression on Muscular Adaptations. PERJ.

 

Details of the Study:

 

  • Trainees performed the same lower-body workout 2x per week for 8 weeks, taking all sets to failure.

 

  • One group lifted within the 8-12 rep range and attempted to increase the load over time, still sticking to this rep range.

 

  • The other group also lifted within the 8-12 rep range initially. However they aimed to perform more reps overtime whilst maintaining the same load.

 

Results:

 

  • It was found that both groups saw increases in muscle thickness of all muscles measured, with no notable trends favouring either condition.

 

  • Furthermore, changes in lean mass of the legs were similar between groups.

 

  • This supports the main know drivers of hypertrophy are mechanical tension and metabolic stress are both great for hypertrophy.

 

Real World Application:

  • This study suggests that progression via load or reps results in similar outcomes, as long as the set is taken to failure. Therefore, if muscle growth is the aim then proximity to failure should be prioritized.

 

  • Once you know you can train to failure successfully and it comes the decision to either up the weight or increase reps. Exercise execution is vital for all lifts and movements it would be useful to hire a personal trainer to coach you on exercise execution.

 

  • A useful strategy would be to perform your compound more mid range movements with the progression of load and your isolation movements towards the shortened and lengthened ranges of the muscle towards higher rep ranges.
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Are Eccentrics more important for Hypertrophy?

Reference to Study: Sato et. al. (2022). Comparison between concentric-only, eccentric-only and concentric-eccentric resistance training of the elbow flexors for their effects on muscle strength and hypertrophy. EUR J APPL PHYSIOL

 

Details of the Study:

 

  • Trainees performed 3×10 bicep curls 2x per week for 5 weeks

 

  • 1 group only performed the concentric portion, another group only performed the eccentric portion and the last group performed both concentric and eccentric portions of the bicep curl.

 

  • Note: The total volume load (weight x number of contractions) was double for the concentric+eccentric group.

 

  • Despite this difference in load, it was found that biceps growth was similar between the concentric+eccentric group & the eccentric only group, whilst the concentric only group saw significantly less group.

 

  • Therefore, the study supports the idea that the eccentric portion of the contraction is more important for growth

 

 

Real world application:

  • Many people chasing muscle growth often rush the eccentric portion of lifts, allowing gravity to take the weight down instead of keeping the muscle under as much tension as they could to control the weight. Therefore, this study is part of the growing evidence why this is highly suboptimal for their training goal.
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Principles of Training – Individualisation

Each and every one of us is physically and mentally different. This is why, when it comes to training, everyone’s approach needs to be bespoke to them, if it’s going to be optimal.

 

One of these factors will be their starting point, in terms of ability, in their fitness journey. For example, if two people come to a personal trainer saying they wish to build better whole-body strength, then both will be assessed to see where their starting point is at. If it becomes clear one athlete has a proportionately stronger upper body than their lower body, and the other person vice versa then despite the same goal, their programmes will look different. The first person will need a more lower body focussed approach whereas the other person would need the opposite, this is an example of applying the principle of individualisation.

 

Another key factor to consider is lifestyle variations. Everyone has a life outside of the gym, all of which will include factors which influence their performance inside the gym. Therefore, this needs to be considered when programming. To give another example, imagine someone wants to become generally fitter all round. If they’re a labourer then you need to consider that their job is very taxing, therefore workload needs to be managed more carefully as to avoid overtraining and injury.

 

 

Next, there’s anatomical variants between each individual which can affect performance in the gym. For example, someone with a larger rib cage convexity, steeper sternum angle and short limbs is going to have a better chance at being better at the Bench Press compared to someone with a smaller ribcage, flatter sternum angle and long limbs, due to the first person having a shorter range of motion to achieve a full repetition and the line of pull on the pecs from insertion to origin. Another way in which anatomical differences influence training, can be down to active range. Everyone’s active range for a given movement is different. A common example would be overhead mobility. If someone cannot lift their hands directly above their heads (180 degrees of shoulder flexion) then trying to perform an overhead press is going to take them out of their active range and they will lean back to achieve the overhead position. This person will be putting a lot of stress on joint structures outside of this range and also increase the risk of injury when lifting outside of it. Therefore, consider this individual difference and give them an exercise that challenges them in their active range, for instance an incline press, set to a height whereby they are working in the active range that they can achieve.

 

Next, there’s two factors that link together. These are tolerance to training loads and responsiveness to training load. One’s tolerance to training load is going to help you in the initial phase of deciding things like how frequently they should train and how demanding each session should be. Their responsiveness to training will link closely with progressive overload. So, someone who responds very quickly to training will need to increase their training load more frequently than a slow responder. It’s important however that progressive overload is applied correctly to both people to prevent any from overtraining or undertraining.

 

Finally, the psychology behind training must also be taken into consideration. As with most things, intrinsic motivation is the key to long term adherence and this is achieved when someone feels competent, so the training programme must not feel too difficult for the participant. They also need relatedness, this comes from good relationships attached with the activity. Therefore, having great rapport with your PT, or attending the gym with a friend is a great idea. It’s also a reason why exercise groups with a more ‘community feel’ are more popular, the biggest example of this being the rapid growth of CrossFit over the past 10-15 years. Also, the participant must feel like they have autonomy, this can come via a number of ways such as having the freedom to train when they want, as well as being able to have a say in what they do during sessions (if they want that).

 

Overall, there’s many factors here to consider, it’s important to manage them all carefully, in order to ensure you are getting the most out of your training.

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Rep Ranges and Goals

Rep Ranges and Goals

1-5 reps for strength

6-7 Strength/Hypertrophy

8-12 for hypertrophy

13-15 Hypertrophy/Endurance

15+ Endurance

 

Research has actually shown that hypertrophy has been shown to be the same at any rep range as long as the muscle is taken close to failure and the load is anything above 30% 1RM

 

This study supports that claim: Fink, J., Kikuchi, N., Yoshida, S., Terada, K., & Nakazato, K. (2016). Impact of high versus low fixed loads and non-linear training loads on muscle hypertrophy, strength and force development. Springerplus, 5(1), 1-8.

 

Experienced endurance runners have actually been shown to increase performance more when spending their S+C sessions completing high load, low rep work compared to low load high reps as the increase in strength helps increase running economy in the latter stages of races

 

Study to support this claim: Ebben, W. P., Kindler, A. G., Chirdon, K. A., Jenkins, N. C., Polichnowski, A. J., & Ng, A. V. (2004). The effect of high-load vs. high-repetition training on endurance performance. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 18(3), 513-517.

 

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The effect of volume on muscle growth

The effect of volume on muscle growth

 

The study: Schoenfeld, B. J., Contreras, B., Krieger, J., Grgic, J., Delcastillo, K., Belliard, R., & Alto, A. (2019). Resistance training volume enhances muscle hypertrophy but not strength in trained men. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 51(1), 94

 

 

  • 45 men with an average lifting experience of 4.4 years of lifting performed the same exercises in the 8-12 rep range, 3x per week for 8 weeks

 

 

  • The men were split into 3 groups. One performed each exercise for 1 set per session, one group for 3 sets per session and 1one group for 5 sets per session

 

 

  • The results found a dose-response-relationship between sets performed and change in muscle thickness (muscle hypertrophy)

 

  • This was still the case with extremely high volumes up to 45 sets.

 

Summary and application:

 

  • In summary, the study supports the idea that higher volume results in increased hypertrophy even up to very high levels of volume (45 sets on a muscle group per week)
  • This information is applicable to the general population who may be experiencing plateaus in their training, which could be down to them not increasing their volume for a prolonged period of time.
  • How can you increase volume without spending vast amounts of time in the gym? Methods include drop sets, rest-pause sets and giant sets.
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Exercise Selection and Goals

One aspect of programme design that many people are confused over is how to decide what exercises to add to their programme. There can be many misconceptions about regarding this, such as ‘machines are less functional than dumbbells’, causing many people to stray from using machines. However, ‘functional’ has become an ambiguous term in fitness, so it’s worth applying its original definition of ‘designed to be practical and useful’. Therefore, if an exercise is practical and useful to that individual then it is, by definition, functional.

 

How do we decide what is practical and useful for an individual? Well, there is several factors to consider. One of which, is their goals, as different goals will require different exercises, we apply the concept of specificity to choose the most optimal exercises. Not to mention a form of assessment and screening of an individual to determine what they a lacking in terms of mobility, strength and stability.

 

Hypertrophy:

 

If someone’s only goal is to build or retain muscle, then exercise selection can make a significant difference to the end result. For an exercise to be effective for this goal, the limiting factor in the exercise has to be the targeted muscle tissue. In other words, the reason you fail to do another rep must be due to fatigue felt in the muscle you are trying to work, and not another reason such as a loss of balance.

 

To achieve this, exercises that have high external stability will deliver better results. Exercises that have high external stability require less stabilisation from the person performing the exercise (internal stability), therefore muscular fatigue is much more likely to be the reason for failure as opposed to a breakdown in technique, thus making it superior for hypertrophy.

 

However, there is a caveat to this- Stability drives output. Therefore, if someone is lacking stability at a joint then this can limit long term hypertrophy of the muscles attached. For instance, someone with average mobility at the hip could get significant results in hamstring hypertrophy using a Barbell Romanian Deadlift or a Squat up to a point. However, form may start to breakdown once using a certain load which would express the underlying lack of stability within the hip.

 

 

Therefore, the use of exercises with a higher internal stability can be implemented in their programme, to improve performance and further drive hypertrophy. To go back to the hamstring hypertrophy example, the person may add a single leg Romanian Deadlift variations and progressions to their programming to help improve stability at the hip and further help increase load and drive hypertrophy when performing Barbell Romanian Deadlifts.

 

Strength:

If the goal is strength, then the focus shifts away from muscle tissue and towards the movement itself. What movements do you want to get stronger in and why? Often this goal is adopted by athletes as their sports will have specific movements to get stronger in, which will help advance them in their sports.

 

The most obvious example would be powerlifting. Powerlifting involves lifting the most amount of weight for 1 rep each of the Bench Press, Deadlift and Back Squat. Therefore, when putting together a powerlifting programme we apply the concept of specificity and base the programme around the 3 main lifts mentioned, accompanied by accessory movements to assist the improvement in performance of the competition lifts. However even with strength if an individual is lacking adequate hip stability and they are aiming to achieve absolute strength on the said lift then spending time on one leg within their program will help further drive the adaptations required to exert force on their lifts.

 

Alternatively, athletes of other sports are going to select resistance exercises which complement the movements that they complete in their sport. For example, many sports involve running. Therefore, for many of these athletes, performing front foot elevated split squats may be beneficial. This is because this exercise shares many similarities to the skill of running. Both are uni-lateral, internally stable skills, involve flexion and extension of the hip and knee as well as plantar flexion and dorsi flexion at the ankle it will also train the athlete to keep their centre of mass balanced as fatigue can kick in during long distances and heel strikes can get heavier towards the latter stages of a race. Building strength in this movement can allow the athlete to apply more force at a given effort when performing the sport.

 

This can aid in the development of running economy- a reduction in the amount of energy expended at a given speed. In terms of transfer to performance, this can help the athlete run faster, for longer without form breaking down and thus reduce the risk of injuries.

 

 

Overall, it is crucial to truly analyse your goals because many people wish to simultaneously achieve improved strength and hypertrophy, which is very achievable for everyone except very advanced lifters. The importance of each goal is going to play a role in which exercises are selected, so it is important to have this established before forming the programme.

 

With anyone we work with here at Soma Fitness, we run them through a full assessment to determine where the starting point of the program is. This is highly beneficial as if you don’t pick certain aspects up and run with a cookie cutter program you will be leaving a lot on the table in terms of the progression of your results. If someone cannot get into certain positions and we then go and load them in those positions, it’s a quick way to set yourself up for injuries which will then hinder your overall progression towards your goals.