Search
Related Links




 

 

Informative Articles

Awesome Ways to Get Outdoors!
Are you looking for fresh ways to spend time with your friends and family? Outdoor activities getting a little boring are they? With your fast paced life gaining speed all the time, it’s easy to stick to what’s familiar; but is that any way to live?...

Can McHale Defrost the Wolves?
Everyone who has visited or lived in the Twin Cities during this time of year knows how ridiculously cold it can get. What almost no one can figure out in Minnesota and around the NBA is the deep freeze the Timberwolves have plunged into. Kevin...

How to choose your wakeboard rope.
A stiffer wakeboard rope is required for wakeboarding than for waterskiing. To help you to perform tricks you get more air when you use a tighter stiffer rope that does not stretch. You will be better able to pull yourself through flips and spins....

Materials for Snake and other Reptile Cages
What kind of materials should you use when constructing a reptile cage? This question was posed to me once by someone wishing to build their own reptile cage. They were particularly asking about pine and cedar as they had heard these were no good....

The Best Golf Exercises Are Very Simple
The best golf exercises are not complicated; you don't need to be a member of a gym; and you don't need thousands of dollars in equipment. Yes…there are new golf fitness machines coming out in the market that look respectable, but they want an arm...

 
How To Be Dense While You Build Muscle The Smart Way

Are you looking for another way to
progress that doesn’t require adding
more weight to the bar? Are you stuck
and stagnate? Well give Density
Training a try. If you don't, I
guarantee you will hit a plateau.

Density, as it pertains to resistanct
training, is the amount of Work
performed per unit time. And yes,
“time” is critical here, because it's
the variable we're going to manipulate
to ensure Progression, and a simple
one at that.

(By the way, Work equals Force X's
Distance, and when we're talking
engines and sports cars, it's called
"Horsepower." I mention this, because
everyone knows that, a bigger engine
with more cylinders produces more
Horsepower, all else equal. Same with
your muscles.)

I won’t go into why Density Training
works, other than to say it
preferentially targets Intermediate
Twitch Muscle Fibers, and also the
nutrient delivery / waste removal
systems associated with these fibers,
which means that these fibers and
these systems will hypertrophy in
response (sorry for the science
speak!). If you’re more curious about
the mechanism than that, you can buy
my Advanced Training & Nutrition
Guide, where I do go into a little
more detail, while at the same time,
keeping it in laymen's terms. For now,
here’s the workout:

Let’s pretend it’s your day to train
biceps. Here’s what you do:

You will perform Standing Curls (I
like doing these with an Elastic Band
rather than a dumbbell).

1) Select a load (or a color with the
bands) such that you think you can
perform about 15 reps on your first
set before reaching failure (where
failure means that your form isn’t
PERFECT anymore, not what you can
cheat up with a backward lean to shame
the tower in Pisa). The exact number
of reps you


get isn’t important
anyway, only that it’s over 8 reps at
least.

2) Do as many reps as you can in good
form, and then write down the load
used (or the color of the elastic
band) and the number of reps.

3) Rest EXACTLY 20 seconds.

4) Do another set of as many reps as
you can. Obviously, you won’t get as
many reps this set as you did on your
first, provided you challenged
yourself on the first set, and
assuming you're not some sort of
genetic Density freak. 5) Rest
EXACTLY 20 seconds. 6) Repeat steps
3-6 using the same load each set until
you get to a total of 50 reps.

7) Once you’ve achieved 50 reps (or
even up to 100 if you’re an advanced
trainee who knows they respond better
to higher volume), you’re done!

8) On your subsequent workout, you’ll
do everything exactly the same,
EXCEPT, you’ll cut your rest periods
by 5 seconds to 15 seconds.

9) Once you’re down to 5 second rest
periods, you can move on to something
different (ideally a routine that
stresses progression by Load or
Acceleration), or you can repeat this
routine for one more cycle using
slightly heavier loads.

This is only one variant of Density
Training you could employ, but it’s
one of the simplest, and that’s why I
like it so much!

The Fitness Sage always favors the
Simple, Balanced, and Profound
approach to building a better body.

About the Author
Jeremy (aka The Fitness Sage) is the author of the upcoming guide: "The Tao of Functional Fitness." He has recently appeared on the "Pat Croce: Moving In" TV show, and has appeared on the cover of Men's Workout Magazine twice. You can learn more about his Profound approach to health and fitness at http://www.JeremyMarkum.com or his members-only site at http://www.JeremyMarkumInnerCircle.com.

Sign up for PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.