It doesn’t matter how old you are, weight training has many benefits to the body and to your sex drive. Much more so than pure cardio training. With that said, a lot of people get “stuck in a rut” with their training plan. So, here are my top 70 tips you can apply (not all at once), to give your training a boost!
1- Work within your genetic potential. This takes trial and error to find out what works best for you.
2- Don’t leave out the two king exercises. They are the squat and the deadlift.
3- Try training doing big compound movements in the morning and smaller isolation exercises in the evening (if your lifestyle permits).
4- Take daytime naps if needed- ideal times to take them are at 11am and 3pm.
5- Don’t overdo cardio as it makes it harder for you to build muscle, due to the fact that it puts the body in a breakdown state.
6- Swap between dumbbell and barbell work either from exercise to exercise or workout to workout.
7- Try the 5×5 method (5 sets of 5 repetitions) best used with big compound exercises at 80%+ of your 1 rep max. This method was made famous by the great Reg Park.
8- Have a go at the 20 rep breathing squatting method for a few workouts at around 60-70% of your 1 rep max. Warning! This method is very, very demanding on the body.
9- Keep your PH levels balanced. The more alkaline you are, the better. If you are too acidic you’re in a burn out state. This is not good for building muscle.
10- Read the choosing the right workout for you article by Charles Poliquin.
11- Keep as relaxed as possible, especially in the evenings.
12- Train at the right frequency for you. For example, some individuals make good gains training their chest two times a week, but others may do better training it every 7-10 days. Again, this takes trial and error.
13- Get a massage as regularly as possible. It helps muscle to grow by loosening up the fascia around the muscle.
14- Train according to your muscle fibre make up. For example, if you are a fast twitch dominant person, train mainly with lower reps and heavier weights.
15- Train against your muscle fibre make up (occasionally); this will shock the body into new gains.
16- Keep your workouts between 25-60 minutes (max).
17- Don’t train with low reps too often.
18- Train between 6-12 repetitions most of the time, research shows this is the best rep range for building muscle.
19- Only do between 4-8 exercises per workout.
20- Do mainly standing type exercises for most of your workouts as these recruit more motor units per any given movement.
21- Don’t use machines too often. You will make better gains from using free weights as again, they recruit more motor units in the muscles.
22- If you do use machines it’s best to put them at the end of the workout. There are exceptions to this rule, but free weights are far more challenging to the body, so it’s best to do these type of exercises first and then machine weights second.
23- Keep a log of your workouts, so you know what works best and what doesn’t.
24- Be wary of the methods promoted in bodybuilding magazines. Some of the advice in them is okay, but only a small amount. A lot of the advice is geared towards drug built individuals.
25- Find an idol whose build you would like to copy.
26- Be wary of using commercial bodybuilding products. A lot of the protein powders are rubbish and poisonous.
27- Have planned rest periods ranging from a week up to ten days. You can do this two or three times a year.
28- Get familiar with using a power rack.
29- Get familiar with Stuart McRoberts training philosophy.
30- Make sure your omega 6 to omega 3 levels in your body are balanced. Your body will be able to deal with the catabolic effect from training, and will rebound into an anabolic build up state a lot easier when they are balanced. Use a high quality fish oil to get them balanced.
31- Try using dead-stop lifts. This means not using inertia when moving the weight, which increases motor unit activation.
32- Use variations of the same basic exercise e.g. different foot positions for the squat.
33- Don’t use gloves, straps or belts.
34- Only use chalk for gripping aid.
35- Rely on food to build your body, not supplements. Only use supplements to aid your body or to overcome any imbalances in the body.
36- Work on building a complete body that is well proportioned. Like I said before, anyone with a large upper body and legs like parrot, looks like an idiot.
37- Look at weight training as a continuous journey with many twists in the road. That means finding out what training strategy really works best for you.
38- Always work out in good posture. Remember, every exercise you do is a stress on the nervous system, so junk in (bad exercise form) equals junk out (injuries).
39- Try using high volume work for a while. This means using higher sets and higher reps.
41- Change the angle of the lift. 15 degrees outside of joint range of movement makes the nervous system think it’s a different movement. This means different motor units are recruited which equals more strength and muscle mass.
42- Work on your weakness first, be it an athletic, aesthetic or functional weakness.
43- Have clear, concise goals on what you want to get out of your weight training.
44- Eat clean food as much as possible. Organic food has more calorific value than non-organic food. It’s also more nutritionally dense, which means you can grow and get stronger on organic foods.
45- Have a go at using the trap bar for leg and back work. A very good tool to use!
46- Men: avoid drinking and smoking cannabis too often. This can lower your testosterone levels, which does not help your recovery ability from weight training.
47- Drink plenty of water. Drink half your body weight in ounces if you’re weighing yourself in pounds. In kilos its done like this:
your weight in kg x 0.033 = the amount, in litres, of pure water you should drink a day.
48- Rely on meat for your main source of protein.
49- Eat according to appetite. There’s no need to weigh and count everything. This means getting in touch with listening to your body.
50- Freestyle your workouts now and then if you usually plan your workouts.
51- Vary the speed (tempo) of the lift you are doing.
52- Don’t over do it on the Smith Machine. Use it rarely, if at all. It can put a lot of stress on the joints and does not allow the body to recruit the maximum amount of muscle fibres for any given movement.
53- Use the correct amount of weight for the amount of reps you decide to do. For example, if you’re doing 10-12 reps to build muscle mass and you only get out 5 reps, then the weight you are using is too heavy for your objective. Or if you get to the 12th rep and feel you can get more reps out, then you are using a load which is too light, therefore, not enough loading on the muscle.
54- Have a go at the 10×10 German volume training programme, made popular by Charles Poliquin.
55- Keep totally focused when training. Make every set and rep count (but don’t over do it). To keep yourself focused, say things to yourself like, “If I don’t do 3 sets of 10 reps on all of my exercises, I don’t deserve to use the Jacuzzi and steam room after my workout!”
56- Log your entire workout in a diary, so you can keep improving your workouts. This also helps you to stay focused.
57- Eat regularly, 5 to 6 meals a day is ideal. Same also applies for weight loss. Only the ratios of foods are different.
58- Eat right for your metabolic type- in short, this means listening to your body and eating what your appetite dictates.
59- Use a foam roller and the Thera Cane to mobilize your joints and for self-massage, this can really improve your strength.
60- Strengthen your gastrointestinal track, so you can absorb all the nutrients from your food for maximum results. A good food enzyme supplement can really help!
61- Learn from Eugen Sandow.
62- Workout at the best time of day for you.
63- Strengthen your hydrochloric acid (HCL) levels in your stomach so you can break down your food more effectively and therefore take on the nutrients more effectively.
64- Try doing deadlifts (and any standing exercise) barefoot (or in socks) if you can, or if your gym allows you to. This will recruit more muscle fibres than when wearing trainers.
65- Always do power moves before slower lifts.
66- Always start off with the most complex exercises in any given workout and then descend down to the least complex exercise.
67- Always lift with correct breathing.
68- Have an understanding of periodization.
69- Do high intense lifts / sets before lower intensity lifts.
70- Have a go at wave loading.
I hope this helps, and I know there are many more (natural) ways to improve your body and your sex drive!