A Personal Trainer's Techniques to Use for Your Gym Workouts

With my first two gym workouts both starting with conflict from the dreaded modified human hamster wheel that is the treadmill, it would only make sense that my third workout would start somewhere else in the gym. Indeed, I start my workout at the weights. Well, actually, I pace around the gym swinging my arms around and thinking about where I should start. My arms feel heavy from the first two workouts, so I decide I'll start off with pull-ups, an easy to perform workout that incorporates the entire spectrum of the upper body.

Some of you may have noticed that, during my workouts, I have been focusing a great amount of attention on my upper body with no attention on my lower body. In reality, my treadmill workout was part of my leg workout. Remember, I set the treadmill to its highest incline and walked about a mile. With three straight weight-training sessions of upper body workouts, one may think overtraining would be a concern but, because of the light intensity I was working at, overtraining will not be a problem. Overtraining only applies to hypertrophy (building muscle), and my workouts consisted of lightly weighted range of motion exercises.

The pull-ups went great. From there, I repeated my second gym workout. Everything went great, I can already notice the movements getting easier to perform. An exerciser will have the largest strength gains at the beginning of starting their program. This is not due to hypertrophy (gained muscle) but instead is attributed to neurological training where your brain better understands how to perform the task. Three workouts in, and my brain is figuring it out. I'd imagine that this is happening to me so quickly because my brain has been here and done that before, so the first time exercisers may have to wait a little longer than I did. Even though my brain is getting up to speed, I will not increase my workload too much because my muscles are still not where I want them to be. I do feel better, but I still notice some rust.

I then decided I would add some squats. I decided to lift the naked 45 lb bar 25 times. I felt well worked for a first time low-weighted squat.

Until this point I have also neglected to do any ab exercises. I naturally have very strong abs so I have to perform a massive amount of crunches to feel anything. This severely bores me so I tend to ignore them.

I have perfected the crunch so I get the most out of my time. When performing an average crunch I won't feel anything until I'm nearing the 200 mark. With my crunches, I start to feel it around 60 crunches. I do this by crunching up about 6 inches where I can no longer pull up from my shoulders. This works because it's just your abs lifting you. This feeling will last for about a 3 inch range. I call this range of motion the "sweet spot," and I only perform my crunches in the "sweet spot." I also make sure my back doesn't touch the ground until I'm finished with my set. You should only be moving within the "sweet spot". You will want to start the crunch from the bottom of the sweet spot and only move 3 inches to the top of the sweet spot.

That day I skipped the hamster wheel altogether, and I believe I am better off for it. That's not to say I won't return to conquer my blue whale another day.

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Source: Personal Experience as a Personal Trainer and Fitness Expert.