Do you want to optimize your training to the maximum to give the best of you? Follow these tips and you will see how you perform better and face the exercises at the highest level.
Incomplete repetitions, deficient energy levels, longer workouts than desired and poor quality results can make you feel that your time at the gym has been in vain. To make sure that you can optimize your training and give the best of yourself, we give you some tips that will help you improve your performance and devour the weights like a real animal.
Take Low Glycemic Index Carbohydrates Two Hours Before
Proteins are the bricks that build muscle, but quality carbohydrates are essential to give us all the energy we need when facing the irons. The oatmeal is one of the best options that exist, but you can also go for fruit, cooked potato or a couple of slices of whole meal bread.
Drink Coffee Half An Hour Before Training
Since caffeine acts on the feeling of fatigue, it is ideal to improve sports performance, and more in physical exercises that last a certain time. The scientific reports that relate caffeine positively with physical exercise come from the mid-twentieth century. Other studies also associate caffeine with an ergogenic effect, that is, with an improvement in muscle strength.
Avoid Large Amounts Of Fat Before Training
Fats in themselves are not bad, just the opposite. The problem is that they digest very slowly, so it is not advisable to take them two hours before training if you do not want to have flatulence or gastric problems. At the time of exercise, we want all our blood available to flow to our muscles, so it is not recommended to make copious meals before training.
Do Not Forget Your Creatine Supplement
The most common way to consume creatine is in the moment prior to exercise, with food or with a drink, although really when we consume it is not relevant, since creatine acts when the level of saturation in the cells is reached. Therefore, it is not a bad choice to take it after exercise or at any other time of the day. According to a study published in Sports Medicine , the consumption of creatine produces a significant increase in body mass, without reducing the percentage of body fat and does not produce an increase in lean mass greater than that caused by strength training alone .
Do Not Train To Failure on Every Day
If you train to the muscular failure on all the sets, you will finish without strength before concluding your training. A meta analysis published in the Sports Medicine magazine last year carried out a systematic review of eight studies that compared workouts without arriving at failure with training in which muscle failure was reached. The conclusions were that there were no significant differences in muscle strength and development between these two types of methods. According to the authors of the research, “it seems unnecessary to perform a failure training to maximize muscle strength.”
Train With Music
A study conducted in the Weider Research Group found that when trained weightlifters performed a shoulder exercise while listening to music, they were able to complete an average of 1-2 more repetitions. So to add another source of motivation, create a playlist of your favorite songs that boost your adrenaline when it comes to training.
Leave The Cardio For After The Weights
You might have seen some people who went straight to upright exercise bike after entering a gym. Whether our goal is to gain muscle or lose fat, the choice is clear: using weights we will use all our glycogen and we will have greater strength than if we do it the other way around. That is, if we do cardio exercise before the weights, we will arrive at the most tired with less energy, because we will have wasted a large part of our glycogen in cardio. If we do our weight session before, our glycogen will have been emptied to a greater extent, and we will arrive at cardiovascular exercise in an optimal way to burn fat.