Behind The Scenes of Working Out

When I worked in the gym, there were 3 types of people:
1. The Creatures of Habit: those who came in, day in and day out at the same hour everyday and did the same cardio equipment everytime...and didn't look any different from the previous year.
2. The Smart Ones: those who worked out consistenly with a smarter, educated approach to working out (because they sought after the knowledge of wanting to do their bodies right) and actually saw muscle gains or fat loss over time.
3. The Alice in Wonderland people: those who came in, not knowing what to do or how to train. So it didn't matter what they'd do...they'd end up doing a little of this and that sporadically.

In addition to that, I would get ask the same questions over and over:
"What should I eat before I work out?"
"Is cardio better before or right after weight training or a separate time?"
"Doesn't doing cardio and training with weights burn the same type of calories/energy?"
"Am I not burning fat during my workouts?"
"How to I get 'toned' arms?"

So let me break down the mystery of training in the gym...and why some people are stupid. :)

Aerobic training (cardiovascular activity, aerobics) uses the fuel source primarily from fat and small amounts of glucose. The recovery factor is a 1- 3 recover rate. This means that if you workout aerobically for 1 hour, it will take about 3 hours for your body to replenish the fuel source. An example would be in long distance runners: when you first begin training for distance or time you are limited to the amount of fuel your body can store because you have not allowed your body to acclimate to the work load. Beginners who have not trained aerobically will not be able to have the endurance to go beyond what their body can do, but through proper training, their aerobic capacity will increase.

Anaerobic training (football, power lifting and weight training) for strength use ATP stores of energy mostly from glucose (what the body breaks carbohydrates down to) or sugar in the blood system. A pre workout meal should consist of fruit or some kind of quick, attainable source of food, such as apples, pears, melons, bananas, kiwis or rice, broccoli, cabbage, carrots and some nuts. The denser the food the longer it will last in your system. The recovery cycle is a 1 – 1 recovery rate. This means that if it takes 30 seconds to reach failure, then muscles are refueled in the same amount of time. This is why it is so important to continue the failure process and recovery process in a systemic and consistent manor. Once the process begins it should continue until the muscles have reached total failure and the fuel is completely used up. This is usually felt when muscles feel full and tired. This is why most really fit people only should train no more then 45 min per training session. The body can only hold on to a certain amount of fuel at any given time. Over-training usually occurs and progress stops. The more advance the weight trainer, the more fuel the person can store. So a newbie in the weight training experience really only has about 30 minutes or less of fuel. It’s all about adaptation to the amount of fuel you can store, like a small car with a small fuel tank and a large car with a large fuel tank. This is another reason why it is very difficult, if not impossible, to train two people at a time in a strength training program.

Mind to Muscle recruitment process
A muscle bundle is like a cable with a bunch of internal wires. When a muscle bundle is new to a work load it can only fire a small amount of wires (fibers), maybe 25%. After a period of time at this work load, the muscles will start to adapt; this adaptation is the recruitment of more wires or muscle fibers to the brain. The body can only fire about 90%; this is why great athletes are better then good ones. The great athletes are working 90% and the good ones are working maybe 80% or less. World class bodybuilders are using up to 90% which means they are failing 90% to get to 90% growth as opposed to novice bodybuilders only using 50-75% of growth potential. This is the reason for added sets, not necessarily reps because you are trying to increase the body’s ability to fire more fibers in order to fail more fibers. It really doesn’t matter how many reps you do because failure can be reached with 1 rep or 100 reps. Remember, the muscle only knows 3 phases: Atrophy (shrinkage), Hypertrophy (growth), and Sedentary (Not growing and not shrinking) stages. If you are working out and not failing the muscle then you are in sedentary mode. This is usually where most people will waste years of time in the gym looking for what everyone calls “definition.” Definition can only happen when there are a significant amount of muscle gain and a significant amount of fat loss.

Train smarter, people.

Have a healthy day :)
Bethany

PS: Next up - The difference of weight training, strength training, and power lifting.

**Special thanks to Curt Babin: a great friend, mentor, and fellow trainer/colleague for helping me compile this post**