How To Maximise Your Training & Progress

Training effectively is a skill that takes years to master. Like most skills, the most important rule is usually forgotten as it appears too basic. With training, this couldn’t be truer.

- Stephen Box

To build more muscle (muscle hypertrophy) we need to apply and maintain tension on the muscle we wish to grow.

I want to cover some of the basic principles of training that are so often overlooked, as they might be the reason you aren’t seeing the results you would like.

1. Working the desired muscle

If your goal is aesthetic, you want to improve the size, shape and strength of that muscle. To do that you need to ensure you can apply tension directly to the targeted muscle.

It is important to remember that your body will try and find the most efficient way of moving a weight during an exercise. Your body doesn’t particularly have a desire to change or grow, unless you give it a reason to. That’s why you need to ensure that throughout every single rep, you are applying tension to the muscle you want to train.

To give you an example; the shoulder lateral raise is a great exercise for the lateral head of the shoulder when it is performed correctly. However, most people will use a weight that is far too heavy for their shoulders (deltoids) and you then see their traps moving and contracting excessively.

This happens because the traps are larger and stronger, which is why they take over and do the majority of work instead of the shoulders. Sure, you’ll feel great lifting the heavier weight, but your physique may not thank you for it as your traps grow at a faster rate than your deltoids..

The best thing you can do is to leave your ego at the door. Use a weight that your target muscle can work with. A load that doesn’t break your form and one you can maintain a good tempo with, through every rep.