Do you know the difference between physical activity and training? An athlete will never say I’m going to do activities but I’m going to train. Because?
If you are thinking about the intensity, the frequency with which the session takes place or the type of exercises done, you are off track. These are not the variables that distinguish one type of approach from another.
Training is defined as a strategic plan in which physical activity is measured and modulated to achieve specific performance objectives.
We are all aware that moving is good, that walking, climbing stairs, walking the dog and cycling to work are better choices than sitting in front of the television (source).
But none of these activities, however useful on a general health level, represent a workout.
The generic and not precisely dosed movement will not lead you to significantly improve your performance, transform your body and, least of all, win the Olympics!
The lack of clear objectives and scientific planning of sports practice leads many people to not obtain the desired results and to abandon.
There is a branch of sports science called training methodology and the basic rules of this approach should always be kept in mind.
What results do you want to achieve with training
The first fundamental point is to understand what results you want to achieve. Here opens a very wide panorama of possibilities that we can schematically divide into two categories:
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General fitness : in this case the goals are to increase muscle mass, reduce fat, increase endurance and flexibility.
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Specific sports performance : each sport has metabolic and technical characteristics that must be specifically respected if you want to obtain an improvement in performance.
Sometimes compensatory workouts are needed, such as upper body training in a cyclist who trains only the legs for the specific sport.
In any case, there are a number of metabolic characteristics that the body can develop and which are represented in different proportions in the various types of sports:
- Resistance: the ability to produce work for a protracted time. In particular, it depends on the functionality of the mitochondria (the power plants of cells), the heart that pumps blood, oxygen and nutrients to the muscles and the lungs that extract oxygen from the air.
- Strength and power : the ability to produce maximal work in absolute terms in the case of power or work in units of time in the case of power. This basically depends on the muscle mass, the type of fibers prevalent in the muscle (fast or slow) and the speed of contraction which is, in turn, also partly dependent on the efficiency with which the stimulus reaches the muscle, via the nerves.
- Specific technical skills: Strength, power and endurance in sports manifest themselves in different percentages and in the context of specific technical gestures. A cyclist needs great resistance and if he has to make a sprint or a climb also power but he expresses these characteristics on the bike and not, for example, in the water, like a swimmer. taken into account in developing a training program:
- Regularity of the stimulus: to induce a positive adaptation, the body must be exposed on a regular and continuous basis to training.
- Progression : To avoid stalling and continuing to progress, you need to progressively increase your workloads.
- Specificity : The best way to develop a metabolic characteristic is to train it specifically. If we want to develop strength, we need to train strength with specific gestures.
- Intensity / volume ratio : in the methodology of training with intensity, parameters such as speed, power, load lifted are identified and with volume, on the other hand, the duration, the kilometers traveled or the number of series carried out. Intensity and volume must always be inversely proportional to optimize the organism’s response. If the volume increases, the intensity must decrease and vice versa.
- Load / recovery ratio : the adaptation of the body and mind to external stimuli occurs on the basis of a delicate relationship between load, i.e. effort, and rest. They are both fundamental to give life to the supercompensation process, that is to say the positive adaptation of the muscle to the effort.
Building the training schedule yourself (pros and cons)
The training methodology is a complex science and often little known even to a good personal trainer .
Tackling the construction of a training program alone has the advantage of being autonomous but the disadvantage is that, to be able to do it safely and with the certainty of not making mistakes, you need to become an expert .
There is not only the problem of performing the exercises correctly, an aspect that can be easily overcome even on your own, looking carefully at the tutorials or books.
The most complex aspect to manage is the development of a complete board, consistent with the objectives and the ability to make it evolve over time.
For this it is necessary to learn at least the basics of the training methodology in order to be sure to follow scientific principles.
In building an intelligent card we must then take into account the training schedules, the relationship between training and nutrition, the presence of any limitations or traumas that make some exercises impossible to perform.
Also, we need to worry about how to monitor progress, because, over time, the body’s adaptation will make what was difficult at first light and easy.
This aspect, that is the progressive ease with which a given exercise is tackled, is the main means by which to monitor progress and the need to adjust the work program.
Obviously, if you work with a qualified personal trainer, you can access a universe of tests, more or less sophisticated, to define the progress in training and which variables to focus on in adapting the work sheet.
You can even work on the so-called training periodization , that is, on how to build a 1-year macrocycle, a 3-month mesocycle for example and a series of weekly microcycles, each of which is a building block in the creation of the objectives you want to achieve.
Given the considerations made above it becomes really difficult to give generic advice, because they are inevitably superficial.
Here are a couple of simple examples of training plan from which you can possibly take inspiration to develop your own.
Example of a workout schedule for women
3 total body workouts per week in circuit to be repeated 2-4 times with 15-20 repetitions per exercise:
- squat
- abdominal crunches
- 1 ‘minute step maximum speed
- lateral shoulder raises
- peck deck bibs
- alternate 1 leg lunges
- lat machine
- 1 minute step maximum speed
- biceps dumbbell curl
- triceps rope extensions
- 1 ‘minute step maximum speed
Example of a workout schedule for men
3 consecutive workouts and 1 day of rest with splits for different muscle groups.
Day 1:
Shoulders, biceps, triceps:
- 3×10 Shoulder press
- 3x 12 dumbbell lateral raises,
- 3×12 rear deltoid cables / 3×10 dumbbell curls
- 3×12 bench scott
- 3x 12 hammer dumbbells / 3×10 pushups between benches
- 3×12 rope extensions
- 3×12 handlebar extensions
2nd day:
Thighs, calves, cardio, abs:
- 4×10 squats
- 4×20 leg extension
- 4×15 leg curl
- 3×20 standing calf / cardio rhythm variations 20 minutes with 5 warm-ups
- 10 of rhythm variations 1 minute maximum and 1 minute recovery and 5 minutes of cool down (bike or treadmill) / 3×20 leg raises
- 3×20 crunch
- 3×20 side push-ups with handlebar.
Day 3:
Pectorals, dorsals:
- 4×10 incline bench
- 4×12 dips
- 4×12 crosses or cables / 4×10 pull-ups
- 4×12 low pulley
- 4×12 rower 1 arm
Obtaining an athletic body and a more defined muscle mass is possible, but only by following very specific rules, and without improvisation.
The training methodology is a real science, with principles that must be thoroughly understood. Find out now what are the 5 scientific principles to train in the right way …
