This series of articles (March – April 2015) covers the science of muscle development for physique transformation, and the coupling of technology with new training techniques for faster gains. Each article slowly builds upon the information from the previous)
Have you always struggled with your workouts? Technology is now revealing issues with our training that we’ve been missing all along. We’re going to show you how to improve your results.
Let’s get started.
Maximising your training effectiveness
While diet and supplement support is important, understanding how to train according to your body’s natural abilities and “preferences” will help accelerate your results.
It would be obvious to us all if an Olympic athlete appeared in the wrong event – i.e. a marathon runner in the shot-put or vice-versa – yet many people train in a way that is not ideally suited to their genetics – because unlike watching a lightweight person try the shot-put, it is not so easy to “see” inside your muscle system.
Technology is now revealing the issues with our training and the data that we have been missing to date – and the options we have to improve the results. This data is crucial as it is all part of the equation for the muscle LOAD or STRESS that we are trying to create to STIMULATE the muscle to try to ADAPT.
Technology will now reduce the focus on supplements and put it onto whether we are training right in the first place. Good nutrition and supplements will of course still have their place – and in fact will be more important than ever in order to help us recover and rebuild from the extra-tough workouts that technology can guide us to by having our muscles working in their “peak” mode.
While good nutrition and supplements have their place – to help us recover and rebuild from “peak” mode” muscle working sessions – it all comes down to how you’re loading the muscle system being trained.
Technology can now accurately measure, in addition to the weights and reps we currently record, the Time Under Tension (TUT) and the Intensity (amount of work performed in a given period of time).
This is important for anyone struggling to make gains.
Muscle (physically for size and in relation to performance) relies on a range of components that must all work together. You can appreciate not only the complexity of the problem, but also the potential you have for greater gains in future by understanding how muscles work.
Up until now, the focus has been only on fast twitch/slow twitch muscle fibres, but there are many more elements that contribute to the size and performance of a muscle. Just as the engine block of a car is important for performance, it does nothing without the fuel and electrical systems and the way in which they are “tuned”.
The Muscle System
So what dictates the size or volume of the entire muscle?
- Sarcoplasmic reticulum
- Cytoplasm
- Glycogen and water
- ATP
- Creatine phosphate
- Capillaries
- Calcium ions
- Sodium and Potassium
- Water
We should therefore refer always to the muscle system – the entire group of elements that make up the bulk of a “muscle” and its performance. Also, due to the adaptive ability of the elements within a muscle system, we can, if we overload them properly, stimulate them to grow and perform better in the future.
Some elements are used primarily for short-term high output efforts and others are used (and taxed) more for longer-term efforts. By better understanding each of our muscle systems, we can achieve better performance – and size if that is desired.
This means that training a muscle in a “sub-par” manner such that only one or two elements in the system are stressed will limit the adaptive response, or growth, to those elements.
So how do we determine the “optimal” load for each muscle system? We use technology to unlock the mystery.
Using Technology To Train More Effectively
We don’t need to do biopsies to find the answer. In fact, biopsies are very limited in the amount of information that they provide. For peak results, we need to test the entire muscle system performance under various conditions. Take tuning a car for example.
No matter how much a brilliant mechanic were to measure and analyse every aspect of the engine, he/she could not predict the peak power possible – the best approach is to put the car on a dyno-tune and vary the elements that affect the power – and find the combination where they all work together for the best output.
Technology in the gym works the same way.
The quickest, safest, cheapest way to “decode” each of your muscle systems is to test them with the right technology.
Muscles are also adaptive and capable of different performance – so unlike a car engine where the settings will be reasonably constant once set, your body and muscles are constantly changing.
Continually test and adjust muscle stimulation for resultsThe only way to ensure optimal performance is to continually test and adjust the stimulation. The “test unit” also has to be adaptive – using a methodology that “learns” with your muscle system improvements.
This brings us to the technology we’ve been talking about all along.
AMP Your Workout is the only solution that uses the appropriate technology to properly measure your performance in the gym for each exercise and each muscle system (or muscle group systems) and is used every time you train to:
- Set (predict) appropriate targets
- Monitor your training
- Measure your actual performance
- Analyse the results, including your past performance
- Repeat the process from the top next session
We’ll be talking about the process that AMP Your Workout uses to unravel the mysteries of your body and your muscle systems, and to guide you to the ultimate performance and results – but more on this later.
In the meantime, we’ll leave you with our 5 takeaway tips from this article.
AMP Your Workout Smart Tips
- Training methods have not changed much over the years, despite the advances in other areas such as drugs and supplements.
- There is more “to” it than simply weights and reps. Don’t miss out on half the opportunity for loading your muscles.
- A muscle should actually be considered as a muscle system – many elements that create the muscle size, tone performance – it is not just about fast twitch / slow twitch fibres.
- Overloading the muscle system elements is what creates progress – because it is an adaptive system.
- Monitoring the entire system under different conditions is the only way to analyse performance.
- Continued testing under different loads according to past performance, varied according to the system’s response, will lead to understanding the system’s capability and the ability to find the “peak” performance for maximum overload and response (super-compensation) of the entire system.
For more information, visit AMP Your Workout.com. AMP Your Workout provides the latest technology to optimise training and match it to our genetic strengths – for faster results.
