Get Your Heart Rate Up During Strength Training For A Better Pump
Showing Up at the Gym
If your first stop in your Swartzenager-esque gym strength training regiment is the bench press, and all you are thinking about is whether you can hoist two plates, the same 45 lb plates the guy ahead of you just did, then maybe you should stop and think about your warm up.
Really Warming Up
Warming up is not the same as dropping your sweats, touching your toes, and then putting your gloves on to help manage the callus’. The problem for your body is that it performs very much like an engine and when you load on a bunch of weight, the heart pumps faster to help feed your muscles enough blood and protein to push the weight up. So, if you are beginning a gym strength training workout, you need to make sure the engine is running at its peak performance, but more importantly that the heart and muscles are warm.
If you had the opportunity to play pro football or hockey, then you would probably be accustomed to doing a pre-game workout that might feel like a full cardio workout. Before these athletes hit the field or the ice, they have completed a full session on the bike, run several miles, or skated several laps all before they actually play a down or drop a puck. So their bodies are stretched and warm before they put it through the grueling experience of being smashed and pummeled by 300-plus lb defensemen (a lot fiercer than a bench press).
Getting Your Muscles Ready
Not to leave out the muscles themselves that you are really focusing on. If you go cold to the gym for your strength workout, your muscles are tight from sitting behind a desk pushing that cup of coffee around and that goes for the tendons connecting it all together too. Because muscles, at least the bull on your biceps that you are trying to pump up, are contracting muscles and when you apply resistance you want them perform at maximum contraction. Warming the muscles up through cardio exercise gets them warm, and stretching the connecting tissue will get your ready so you can get the maximum out of lifting. Putting off the warm up can increase your chances of injury too, not only to the muscle you are trying to grow, but other muscles that you use to compensate.
But you walked up to the stairs of the gym and you are sure that was a warm up, right? A typical cardio workout should include some form of light stretching so you can elongate the muscle, which gets your muscles primed for maximizing the lift. Then, you should get on the treadmill or bike for at least 10 minutes where your can get your heart rate up to between 50 and 75% of max; remember that your heart is the engine that’s inside your chassis and it will make your lifting experience the best, and that’s what you are looking for in the gym. You want your gym strength training workout to make you stand out.
If You Dig It, Share It.
I spent a lot of time creating this free resource. If you appreciated it, I would really love it if you can share it with someone.
- Tweet about it.
- Comment Below
- Email this page to a friend.
- Stumble, digg, reddit... this page
- Or link to this page on your blog.
To Your Success,
Wanna Read Some More Great Posts?
|
|
|
|
|
What Do You Think Of This Article?
I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Post your comment below.
