The Infonian

You might presume Rest Pause Training is the way a few guys at the gym take long rests in between their sets of bicep curls, talking with their buddies way more than they should. The reality of rest pause training is far from using your resting time to catch up on the latest bodybuilding gossip. In fact, the Weider’s Principle of Rest Pause Training entails tricking the target muscle into going way beyond failure with a weight that you would generally be able to lift for only a few reps.

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This trickery is a result of both chemical and psychological reactions. The brief rest periods encourage the muscles rapidly recover by permitting them to refill their stock of phosphocreatine, the same molecule that’s excited when you supplement with creatine. Using this additional shot of energy, the muscle can contract with added power, making bigger force and additional reps. Using this strategy, you WILL get increases in strength and size, along with a bigger ego.

Weider’s Principle of Rest Pause Training is generally used in two ways.

You could train for size by repping to failure, resting for 10-15 seconds, then repeating this until repping to failure once again. Doing this 2-3 times per set causes the muscles to contract overtime and forces the chemical alterations within muscle cells that produce growth.

You can also train for strength by using a weight which allows you to accomplish 3-5 reps, then doing one rep, rack the weight and wait 15 seconds, then do another rep. Repeat this until you complete 4-6 reps overall. This is one rest-pause set for strength.

Instead of keeping the spotlight on either size or strength, we have created for you an alternating rest pause training routine that modifies the two workouts to give you the chance to train for both hypertrophy and strength gains. To simplify this for you, lets look at one-arm and one-leg weightlifting exercises.

Utilizing the dumbbell curl as an instance: Pick a weight that your able to use to finish 6-8 reps. Then complete 3 reps with your right arm, do the same with your left arm. Switch arms again for another 3 reps. Endure in this style, doing 3 rest-pause sets for 3 reps, then two rest-pause sets for 2 reps, finishing off with one rest-pause set for one rep.

After completion, you will have endured 14 reps on each arm with a weight that you could generally complete only 6-8 reps. This method forces not only the target muscle/s to grow but also encourages their pure strength. Studies show that when executing unilateral exercises, your able to lift more than 50% what you could lift with both limbs! If these numbers don’t tell you to incorporate Rest Pause Training into your workout routine, then you might as well be the guy in the intro of this article.

Author: Will Werner

Bicep Workouts

As a beginner, it’s often difficult to get into weight training and working out. Most beginners (including me when I was a beginner) don’t want to approach the big guys and ask them questions about workouts and what they’re doing. In today’s article we’re going to look at the top 10 bicep workout and bicep exercise mistakes. The aim of this article is to help people who are new to bicep workout and bicep training techniques. This will ensure that bicep workout and exercise beginners build the most muscle in the time they spend in the gym.

Bicep workout mistake #1 – Bad technique

I go on and on about this on eBicep.com that bicep exercise technique is very important to build big biceps. If you cheat during by swinging the weight or not lifting the full range of motion you are only cheating yourself. For details on how to do each bicep exercise correctly, see eBicep’s bicep exercises section.

Bicep workout mistake #2 – Too many sets!

There have never been a rule that says more sets = bigger biceps. It’s all about quality or training. You are better off doing 15 sets of quality bicep workout exercises than doing 30 sets of poor form rubbish. You need to concentrate on every rep of every set, watch your bicep muscle as you pull the weight up – focus on it. Just remember, a small amount of quality training will build bigger muscles than a large amount of poor quality training.

Bicep workout mistake #3 – Overtraining

Overtraining so very common, especially in a competitive environment like bodybuilding. As a general rule for all muscle groups (not just biceps): if the muscles you are about to train are still sore from your last workout, don’t train them. Simple as that. As you’ll see from my next point, resting is more important than training.

Bicep workout mistake #4 - Not enough rest

To someone new to working out, this just sounds plain stupid. Buy as experienced muscle builders know, rest is a very important part of building your muscles. When you workout your bicep muscles you’re actually breaking and tearing them (that’s why they “pump up”). And when you rest and sleep your muscle grow and repair. Not enough rest = not enough muscle growth. rest up!

Bicep workout mistake #5 – High reps / light weights

One of the most commonly asked questions in muscle building is, “how many reps should I do to build the most muscle?”. There’s is no straight answer to this because there’s so many variables. There is 1 common rule though, heavier weights/less reps = bigger and stronger muscles. So to get the most out of your bicep workout, drop the reps down to 6-8 on your big bicep exercises and do a few extra sets.

Bicep workout mistake #6 – Same old routine

After a few months of doing the same workout, your muscles will get accustomed to the workout and stop growing. This is called a plateau, and every muscle builder hit’s it at some stage. You need to mix up your bicep workouts every 2-3 months. Change days, change exercises, workout your biceps with a different muscle group. Mix it up, you’ll see and feel the difference!

Bicep workout mistake #7 – Pre-exhausted biceps

It’s important when planning your bicep workout that you don’t work any other body parts that use the biceps before your bicep workout. For example, a big mistake I see all the time is training the back then the biceps. This is not good for your biceps because all the back exercises use biceps as a secondary muscle group. So don’t train your back before your biceps, or vice versa. Train your back and biceps on separate days.

Bicep workout mistake #8 – Wrong exercise order

If you have read our bicep workout page you’ll see that we always do our biggest bicep exercises at the beginning of the workout. These are the heaviest weight movers and need the most energy. So stick to your big exercises like bicep curl at the start of your bicep workout and follow with the smaller exercises.

Bicep workout mistake #9 – Not enough rest between sets

You need to make sure you have adequate rest between sets, other you wont be able to left heavy weights, and you will not be able to grow as much muscle. For the bigger bicep sets a longer rest is OK, take what you need and don’t rush it. If your workout is taking to long, split it over a few days.

Bicep workout mistake #10 – Poor eating

You know the saying, “eat big to get big”, well it’s true. In particular you need to eat as much protein as possible and complex carbohydrates. You need to eat small meals, more often. For more information see our food to eat to build muscle article.

Peter Simpson has been a personal trainer and muscle builder for more than 9 years. For Bicep Workout and Bicep Exercise guides see Peter’s 100% dedicated bicep workout site eBicep.com

Author: Peter Simpson

On Friday afternoon after you leave work, you probably think about going out and having a few drinks with friends to relax and wind down. Even though you may think you deserve to go out and have a few drinks, there are some things that you should certainly keep in mind.

Like any other day, tomorrow is going to be a day for exercise, and since you are exercising on a regular basis, a few drinks of alcohol won’t really hurt anything, right? Before you decide to rush out to the local bar, there are a few things below that you should think about before you make your choice about going out to drink some alcohol.

Research has proven that even small amounts of alcohol with increase muscular endurance and the output of strength, although these types of benefits are very short lived. After 20 minutes or so, the problems will begin to surface. All of the negative side effects associated with alcohol will easily outweigh any possible benefits that it can have. No matter how you look at it, alcohol is a poison that can really harm your body if you aren’t careful.

The negative side of alcohol can reduce your strength, endurance, aerobic capability, recovery time, ability to metabolize fat, and even your muscle growth as well. Alcohol will also have an effect on your nervous system and brain. If you use it long term, you can cause severe deterioration of your central nervous system. Even with short term use, nerve muscle interaction can be reduced which will result in a loss of strength.

Once alcohol reaches the blood cells, it can and probably will damage them. With alcohol users, inflammation of the muscle cells is a very common thing. Over periods of time, some of these cells that have been damaged can die which will result in less functional muscle contractions. Drinking alcohol will also leave you with more soreness of your muscles after you exercise, which means that it will take you a lot longer to recuperate.

Alcohol will also have many different effects on your heart and circulatory system as well. When you drink any type of alcohol, you may begin to see a reduction in your endurance capabilities. Anytime you drink, your heat loss will increase, due to the alcohol simulating your blood vessels to dilate. The loss in heat can cause your muscles to become quite cold, therefore become slower and weaker during your muscle contractions.

Drinking alcohol can also lead to digestive and nutrition problems as well. Alcohol cause a release of insulin that will increase the metabolism of glycogen, which spares fat and makes the loss of fat very hard. Due to alcohol interfering with the absorption of several key nutrients, you can also become anemic and deficient with B type vitamins.

Because your liver is the organ that detoxifies alcohol, the more you drink, the harder your liver has to work. The extra stress alcohol places on your liver can cause serious damage and even destroy some of your liver cells.

Since alcohol is diuretic, drinking large amounts can put a lot of stress on your kidneys as well. During diuretic action, the hormones are secreted. This can lead to heightened water retention and no one who exercises will want this to happen.

Author: Robert Bell