Training

Here's what you need to know...

1. HIIT mobilizes fat so that it enters the bloodstream. Cardio training at a consistent intensity ensures that this fat is burned instead of returning to where it came from. So use both during a training session.
2. To lose fat and maintain or build muscle, you should consume carbohydrates around your training session, but reduce carbohydrate intake at other times.
3. Controlling calories is really controlling energy. For this reason, you should consume carbohydrates and fat in an inversely proportional way.
4. When we diet, we often choose lighter exercises that don't leave us so out of breath. However, if you want to burn more calories, you should choose exercises that work more muscles.
5. Using caffeine before each exercise session will aid lipolysis and you will also burn more calories as you will be more energized.

1 - HIIT followed by cardio training at a constant intensity

HIIT, high intensity interval training, mobilizes a lot of stored fat from the fat stores. It is super effective in this regard, but unfortunately mobilizing fat in the form of free fatty acids into the bloodstream does not mean that this fat will be burned.

That's right, you can mobilize and release a lot of fat through interval training, but afterwards a lot of it can go back to where it was released from!

Consistent intensity cardio is not nearly as effective as HIIT when it comes to mobilizing fat, but it is really effective when it comes to burning the triglycerides that are in the bloodstream as a result of high-intensity intervals. Performing cardio at a consistent intensity after high-intensity interval training is a reassurance that the fat that has been mobilized will be burned.

To put this strategy into practice, you should perform at least 20 minutes of steady-state cardio after your intervals. The duration of the intervals can be anywhere between 10 and 20 minutes.

Here are some examples:

• If you have 30 minutes for your cardio workout, try doing 10 minutes of HIIT followed by 20 minutes of cardio at a steady intensity.
• If you have an hour for your cardio workout, try 20 minutes of HIIT followed by 20 minutes of cardio at a steady intensity.

As for the cardio workout you use, you can let your imagination run wild. For example, try 20 minutes of intervals on the stepper followed by 40 minutes of walking on the treadmill at a gentle incline. If you do your cardio outdoors, then you could try sprints followed by walking or jogging.

2 - Consume carbohydrates only around your workout

When it comes to building a lean and muscular body, it's important to find the right balance between consuming and restricting carbohydrates.

As a general rule, consuming fewer carbs will help you build some fat, partly due to lower average insulin levels. However, if you take it too far, you will end up sacrificing potential gains in muscle, which is also partly based on a reduction in insulin secretion.

When planning your carbohydrate intake, you will of course be looking at the total amount of carbohydrates you consume each day, but you should pay just as much attention to when you consume those carbohydrates.

Timing your carbohydrate consumption around your training window is undoubtedly the best strategy. Consuming carbohydrates before your training session will, in simple terms, provide you with energy for your workout. More specifically, consuming carbohydrates before your workout will ensure that your blood sugar levels are adequate.

To fine-tune your pre-workout carbohydrate intake, make sure you time it correctly to prevent a rapid drop in blood sugar levels. For most people, carbohydrate intake about an hour before exercise works well. Many exercisers can also benefit from consuming carbohydrates with a higher GI 10 to 15 minutes before exercise.

Another viable option is to consume carbohydrates during exercise. Much has been written about consuming fast-digesting carbohydrates (and protein) during exercise - and with good reason. This is an effective anabolic/anti-catabolic strategy.

Regardless of your pre- and intra-workout carbohydrate strategy, you should definitely consume carbohydrates post-workout to aid your recovery. And by drastically reducing (or eliminating) the carbohydrates you consume at other times, you will maximize fat loss.

3 - Consume opposite proportional amounts of carbohydrate and fat

If you consume larger amounts of carbohydrates during a meal, you should keep your fat intake relatively low. And if you consume more fat during a meal, then you should consume less carbohydrates. Of course, you can alternatively consume a moderate amount of both during a meal.

Simply put, both carbohydrates and fat provide energy, but you should not consume too much energy during a meal.

Of course, protein can also provide energy, but protein is mainly used to build things (muscle, hair, skin, etc.). It is typically not used in significant amounts as a source of energy unless carbohydrates and fat are in short supply (fasting or extremely prolonged training).

Former Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates once explained diets for competitive bodybuilders as follows:

"Eat a set amount of protein each day and adjust your carbohydrate and fat intake to build muscle or lose fat."

Well said, Dorian. And as mentioned earlier, the best way to adjust carbohydrate and fat intake is to consume them in inverse proportion to each other. You may think of this as a method of calorie control, but it's really energy control.

As an example, a meal could include 15 grams of fat or about 35 grams of carbohydrates. If you combine carbohydrates and fat, then you could eat 7 grams of fat in conjunction with 18 grams of carbohydrates. Each of these options contains about 135 kcal in the form of energy-providing macronutrients. This is no more than a simple illustration. Adjust the values to your individual needs.

Here's another way to look at things: We know that low-carb, higher-fat diets work well in terms of fat loss. We also know that low-fat, higher-carb diets can work. But you'll never have heard of a high-carb, high-fat diet working - at least when it comes to anything other than getting fat!

Similarly, you won't have heard of a low-protein diet being effective, which is why you should make sure you get enough protein. This will help you build and/or maintain muscle, boost your metabolism through the thermic effect of protein and achieve a feeling of satiety.

In summary, if you make sure you get enough protein and keep your carbohydrates and fats in inverse proportion to each other, you will lay the foundation for effective fat loss.

4 - Choose heavier exercises, you wimp

Whether this happens consciously or subconsciously, we all too often opt for exercises that are lighter and leave us less out of breath, but at the same time burn fewer calories. If you're in a state of calorie deprivation (and therefore a little tired), you're all the more likely to take the easy route.

An obvious example of this would be doing leg extensions instead of squats and a less obvious example would be choosing leg presses instead of squats. We'll try to sugarcoat this by saying that squats and leg presses work the same muscles, but if we're honest, we just want this to be the case because leg presses are less strenuous.

Squats are more strenuous because the back and other muscles are involved in stabilizing the weight and the gluteus are involved in extending the hips, but if you want to burn fat then this is exactly what you want.

Deadlifts are another exercise begging to be replaced with a lighter exercise variation. But say what you will - performing hyperextensions just isn't the same, even if you're holding a 20 kilo weight plate in front of your body.

Do pull-ups instead of Scott curls or concentration curls. These will engage the latissimus, posterior shoulders and other muscles, resulting in more calories burned. Here are some other exercises that will force you to burn extra calories compared to their more isolated counterparts:

• Repositioning and pressing
• Walking lunges
• Kettlebell swings
• Hanging leg raises
• Burpees

As far as burpees go, this is not a "sexy" exercise, but it will get you out of breath, generate an oxygen debt and burn a few calories. They can be used particularly well between sets of other, more traditional exercises with weights.

As for supersets, these are an easy way to generate a higher oxygen debt and burn more fat, which is especially true if you perform two multi-joint exercises such as squats and walking lunges as a superset.

The key is to take an honest look at your exercise choices and see where you could use harder and more strenuous exercises - exercises that use more muscle groups, cause movement across more joints and simply get you more out of breath. By doing this, you will burn more calories and ultimately lose more fat.

5 - Use caffeine before your workout

Without going into a deep biochemistry lesson, it's worth noting that caffeine promotes lipolysis(fat burning) and inhibits glycolysis (carbohydrate burning). Type the word "caffeine" into PubMed and you'll get just under 30,000 hits and a consistent trend in the research is an increase in the amount of free fatty acids in the bloodstream, suggesting that fat is being broken down.

Once the fat has been broken down and released, it's up to you to make sure it's burned (this is the same concept we looked at in relation to HIIT and steady state cardio). This is where training comes into play. It's a good idea to always consume some caffeine before your workout as this makes sense from a physiological/biochemical perspective.

Not only will this aid your lipolysis, but it will also indirectly help you burn fat as you will be more energized and therefore ultimately do more work.

In this context, there is also evidence that yohimbine does much the same thing, but through slightly different mechanisms. For this reason, taking caffeine and yohimbine before a workout could be a lipolytic one-two punch.

By Clay Hyght, DC | 01/09/15

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/5-new-strategies-for-fat-loss

Writing an article aimed at women is new territory for me. I've never seen a need for women to train differently to men before. I write training articles for people - and the last time I checked, women were people too. Every article I've ever written is equally applicable to women and men.

Train like a human being

When it comes to physical training, the biggest mistake trainers make is to train women differently than men. And the biggest trap women fall into is thinking that they need to train differently from men. What happens when an untrained group of men and an untrained group of women do the same training program?

Both groups get stronger

The things that build strength and hypertrophy or speed and explosiveness in a man do the same in women. A woman doing a powerlifting program that consists of squats, deadlifts and bench presses will get stronger from those exercises. If a woman trains the Olympic weightlifting exercises, the same thing will happen: she will become stronger and more explosive.

The only difference is the goal of the individual. Where do you want to be in one month, six months, two years or when you are 40, 50, 60 years old or older? Goals change as a person ages, but the basic goals of staying injury free, maintaining adequate mobility and maintaining basic strength levels should always remain important regardless of age.

If a man or woman plays a particular sport, then the sport will dictate what exercises, what movements and what skills that person needs to train to get better, the method does not change based on gender. Rather than looking for a magical training program designed specifically for women, it's more important to follow a program consistently, put effort into your training, pay attention to proper nutrition and get enough sleep. If you don't apply these elements to your training, you could follow the best program developed by some women's training guru and not get one step closer to your goals. However, if you keep these four points in mind while following a "Strength and Conditioning Program for Men", you will make tremendous progress.

No program is applicable to all women

Every program needs to be tailored to fit exactly where you are as an individual today and right now. Squats strengthen legs and glutes in both men and women, but you may still find it more beneficial as an individual to train with front squats or goblet squats rather than classic squats. It's not really a gender thing, it's a genetics thing. The mass of your body, the length of your legs or the width of your hips all influence how well and how deep you can perform squats.

You can't change how you're built and these inherent physical characteristics will determine how well you respond to certain exercises and movements - especially in more extreme ranges of motion. Some people - men and women - are built to perform squats with massive weights and others are built to push a lot of weight up overhead or easily perform countless pull-ups, while others are not.

Ignorant trainers may believe that all women should be able to perform deep squats with a very wide stance because - in their opinion - women are built to bear children. But this view doesn't take into account a woman's individual bone structure. No matter how hard she tries, her bone structure may not allow her to perform deadlifts or squats with a wide stance.

In both men and women, the muscles are connected to the bones by tendons. The muscles contract and the tendons pull the bones and voilà - things move. However, things like pregnancy and monthly cycles can affect training and women need to understand how their bodies are affected by hormone levels. This element is just as specific to an individual as hip structure.

Your goals aren't that different

What do most women ultimately want to get out of their workouts? They want to feel and look healthier, look good naked, be stronger, look more toned or be more athletic. If you think about it, these are the same things that men want. The funny thing is that if you train hard to become more athletic, you will get all of these things regardless of whether you are a man or a woman as part of the overall package.

There are general things that prove to be true for most men and most women. Most men want bigger muscles, bigger arms and a bigger chest. That's hypertrophy. Most women want a shapely, toned butt and toned arms. This is also hypertrophy. They both want a flat stomach. This can be achieved through the right diet. Many women are led to think that they need "specialized" programs that are different from programs for men to achieve the same results.

For example, let's look at reducing body fat. A healthy diet ultimately boils down to what works best for an individual. Some women respond better to higher amounts of healthy carbohydrates and lower amounts of fat and protein. For other women, the exact opposite is true. Some women do great on a vegan diet, while others do better on a Paleo diet. And now guess what? The same is true for men. If a man or a woman responds better to a vegan diet, then there is no magic formula that is different for a man that a woman should follow. There is no vegan diet for women or a vegan diet for men. There is simply food. Figure out what types of food and what combinations of macronutrients (fat, protein, carbs) work best for you.

The same goes for aerobic exercise. If you follow the Maffetone formula, it doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman. Follow the formula and it will work.

Training for women is a sales tactic

I'm not going to sell you crap like lunges are best for building a woman's butt or that Tae Bo or some spinning class is the ticket. Want a great butt? Search for "The Glute Guy," Bret Contreras, learn how to do hip thrusts (hip lifts) and follow his program. Want to sprint like a world-class athlete? Look for Barry Ross and his sprint training program. Want to do strongman training? Do what Strongmen and Strongwoman competitive athletes do during their training.

The best advice I can give a woman is not to waste time with "women's training programs". These people are trying to sell something. If you follow what the fastest, strongest and most enduring men and women in the world do, you will get stronger and faster. You will get the body you want and achieve the goals you set for yourself.

Kettlebell swinging is the same movement regardless of whether it is performed by a man or a woman. The technique is the same. This exercise builds the same muscles and strength in both genders. How an exercise or training program affects the human body is not determined by gender.

The only thing that changes is what works best for you as an individual. You may be in a different age range, suffer from injuries that others don't have to deal with, suffer from health issues that others don't and have different goals. The only thing that might make the execution of a movement slightly different is your individual physique. However, the technique you use will still be biomechanically correct, even if there is some leeway in everything.

Don't be afraid to train with heavy weights

Look for a program that fits your goals. Try it out and customize it to fit your individual problems, preferences and weaknesses. Optimize your technique, get enough sleep and eat healthy. Don't be afraid to increase the weights on the barbell or use a heavier kettlebell.

Moving more weight with proper technique and the right amount of effort will get you where you want to go faster, safer and better than any program designed by someone trying to sell you the idea that women need to train differently. Be smarter. If you want to make the best gains of your life, find a good and experienced trainer who will guide you, push you, teach you and treat you with respect as an individual.

By Walter J. Dorey

Source: https://breakingmuscle.com/learn/the-truth-about-womens-training

The best advice for women who train with weights

14 experts give their views

From T Nation | 09/27/16

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/the-best-advice-for-women-who-lift

Dr. Sarah Ellis Duvall - Physical Therapist

Understand the goal of each exercise you perform

Ask yourself "What am I exercising? Where should I feel this?". Training the right muscle groups will not only make you stronger faster, but will also help you prevent injury.

Let's say a woman wants to do more pull-ups to improve the strength of her back. When she does this exercise, she feels it in her arms and shoulders instead of feeling it in her back. She is using the wrong muscles, which means she won't achieve her goal with this exercise and risks injury.

In short, you should focus on where you should feel this exercise and make sure you feel it in the right places. If it's a back exercise, then you should make sure you feel it in your back. If it's squats, make sure you feel them in your gluteus (butt muscles) and not just in your quadriceps and hip flexors (front of your legs). When it comes to deadlifts, make sure you feel this exercise in your hamstrings and gluteus (back of the legs) and not just in your lower back. This is key to avoiding tightness and injury while achieving your goals of getting stronger.

- Dr. Sarah Ellis Duvall

Bret Contreras - Strength coach

Don't overdo it

In the 20 years I've been training women, the most common barrier I've noticed is the belief that more training is always better. However, there is an ideal point in terms of total training volume and volume of resistance training that optimizes results.

Training should not be used as a tool to compensate for poor nutritional strategies. Furthermore, trying to excel at strength training, yoga, Pilates, running, plyometric training and HIIT at the same time will turn you into a jack-of-all-trades who isn't really good at anything, which is why it's important to focus on a few things at once when training. Furthermore, additional volume in the gym is only beneficial to the extent that it still allows for adequate recovery between training sessions.

The majority of my clients perform around 50 work sets per week in the gym with little or no cardio and additional training. One week a month is reserved for a de-loading phase. This works because my clients strive for personal bests during the remaining three weeks and maximize workload and effort.

Many women over-train and overdo the volume to the point where it stops them from getting stronger and prevents them from making significant progress in their body development.

- Bret Contreras

Kelli Keyes - Nutrition and strength coach

Training isn't about how much pain you can tolerate - it's about how hard you can train without pain

You've probably heard the saying "No pain, no gain." (No pain, no gains). But it should rather be "pain, less gain". In the world of strength training, the prevailing opinion is that it must hurt to train with heavy weights. I'm not talking about that killer muscle soreness we feel after a hard training session. I'm talking about the "I can't get up from the pain" pain.

If you're training with jokes or through pain, then it doesn't have to be that way and it shouldn't be that way. I know this from my own experience. A few years ago I made the mistake of training through lower back pain. I reached a point where I could no longer train my clients and literally couldn't get out of the car in the morning. Needless to say, I had to stop training for a long time.

For some stupid and unreasonable reason, I had gotten it into my head to just keep going despite the pain and I probably believed that the pain would magically just go away. Unfortunately, I was very wrong. Today I am much wiser and I have learned that training should not hurt in a bad way. And today I can actually move a lot more weight than I could back then.

If the focus of your workouts is to move pain free and feel good, you'll find that the strength will come naturally.

- Kelli Keyes

TC Luoma - T Nation Publisher

Train your abs like a woman, not a man

Now before all the women get up from their chairs, point their fingers at the monitor and condemn me for my alleged sexism, let me qualify this statement.

If you are a female powerlifter, then you should indeed train your abs like a man. If you are the kind of female athlete who uses weights to improve her performance in her sport, then you should train your abs like a man. Or if you're a woman who doesn't care about social conventions or attractiveness to men and just wants to get as strong and impressive as possible, then go ahead - build your abs and train them like a man.

Most women, however, want a waist that is as narrow as possible and will do whatever it takes to achieve that coveted 7 to 10 waist to hip ratio that is so highly prized in Western society. In their efforts, they are obsessed with toning their abs and waist. This becomes particularly problematic when they begin to spend a disproportionate amount of time training their midsection. They often perform hundreds or thousands of repetitions of crunches and side bends.

Furthermore, in order to reach their wasp waist goal faster, they begin to use more and more resistance, forgetting that the abs and other core muscles will grow in response to resistance and training volume just like any other muscle.

Many women, and many men too, are under the delusional assumption that extra reps or extra resistance will somehow slim their waistline and shrink the fat to reveal a great six-pack of toned and defined abs. Why these people think that the muscles of the midsection should behave differently than other skeletal muscles of the body is beyond me.

Many of these ultimately chunky-looking souls will also hang enormous weight on their sides in their misguided attempt to slim their midsection - as if they had to carry buckets of steel rivets to the 33rd floor of the skyscraper where their construction crew works - and perform side bends.

If you train your abs or other core muscles like a man with excessive volume or resistance, you will develop a waist like a man. It will get thicker in all dimensions. You may eventually develop a six-pack (underneath all the fat you haven't shed), but each of the rectus abdominus muscles will be the size of a beer can - which is certainly not what you want.

Remember your goals and train accordingly. You don't want to look like Frank "Cannonball" Richards, who can catch a cannonball with his muscular midsection. So train your abs like a woman. Minimal to moderate resistance. Repetitions in the 15 to 20 range, not the 500 to 1000 range, and train your core for 10 minutes instead of 60.

The rest of your body? That's the area you should train like a man.

- TC Luoma

Abby Keyes - Nutrition and weight training coach

Train to improve your body, not to look like someone else

Training with weights improves your body. It shapes, defines and reveals sexy curves. However, if you approach your workout with the wrong expectations, it can limit your progress. When you train with weights, you develop your muscles and change your body composition based on your genetic predispositions. Training with weights will not change the body type you were born with. You can only develop your body based on your genetics.

I've had this conversation with many clients. I am a slim built woman with narrow hips. I have hard-earned muscles, but looking like a female Hulk is not in my genes. A curvy woman once told me that she wanted to look like me. She had a figure like Jennifer Lopez, whereas I look more like a twelve-year-old boy. No matter how many squats I do, I can't achieve her curves and neither can she train her curves away.

You can't change your genetics, but you can improve what you were born with through continuous training with weights. Training with weights will generate a fit, strong, more resilient version of the body you were given. Combine this training with a diet rich in protein, fresh produce, healthy fats and quality starches to support your changing body and you've pretty much got everything you need to become a better version of yourself.

- Abby Keyes

Bronwen Blunt - Powerlifter, Nutrition & Strength Coach

You should have a new goal every time you go to train - even if it's just a very small one.ven if it's a very small one

If you go to the gym every day and always do the same exercises with the same number of repetitions, the same number of sets and the same weights, then this is not really ideal. If you don't make any progress with your training, then you can't expect miracles to happen in terms of your body development. Even if this means increasing the weights by 1 to 2 pounds each week, it can make a big difference in the long run.

I like to plan 4 week training blocks (both during competition preparation and during the off season). By doing this, I always go to the gym with a plan and try to really challenge myself during each training session.

You should also pay attention to your menstrual cycle, as this can have a significant impact on your training. Listen to your body and pay attention to your diet. This is another reason I plan four week training blocks. I tend to get very tired at this time and my joints also start to ache at this time, which is why I generally train with higher reps during 'that time of the month'. Using a sleep support supplement helps me to get extra sleep. This extra sleep will help you recover better so that you are better prepared mentally and physically for your training.

- Bronwen Blunt

Jade Teta - Integrative medicine practitioner, naturopath, coach

Know the key parameters

Assuming you're interested in changing your body, it's most important that you remember these four key parameters that characterize most effective workouts:

• Breathlessness
• Burning
• Heavy
• Heat

Most female athletes only use one type of workout. They might do only cardio training, only high repetition training, or only strength training and powerlifting training. However, the most effective way to change your body is to ensure that your weight training sessions include all four components mentioned above. To achieve this, you should train at a fast pace and only rest when necessary.

Most people think that rest and work are opposites, when in fact they are synergists. The more you rest, the harder you can work and the more you work, the more rest becomes essential. Rest equals quality work and quality work leads to a need for more rest.

The best way for women to get the most out of their training is to think "push yourself until you can't anymore, rest until you can." In other words, this means that you should push yourself until you can't do it anymore and rest only until you can do it again.

Women should use moderately heavy weights and not take defined breaks between exercises. They should only pause when necessary - during sets or between sets - after which the workout will resume where they left off before the break. This allows for the best breathlessness, burn, heavy training and heat effect.

A little-known hormonal difference between women and men is that men get a higher testosterone production, while women get a stronger growth hormone response. To benefit from this response, intensity is crucial for women. Breathlessness, muscle burning and tension in all muscles of the body intensifies the growth hormone response.

Human growth hormone is the ultimate multitasking hormone for women, helping them burn fat while building muscle. This will create a lean, athletic and feminine body. Here's an example:

Choose 4 full body exercises like:

• Squats
• Bench press
• Rowing bent over
• Push press (standing shoulder press with a slight swing from the legs)

Perform 12 repetitions of each exercise in the form of a cycle and only pause if necessary during a set or between two sets - push yourself until you can do no more, pause until you can continue.

Set the training time at 20 minutes and generate as much volume as your fitness level and physical abilities allow. Use moderately heavy weights for each exercise, which should be in the 15 to 20 RM range. This is the most effective training method for body modification.

- Jade Teta

Charles Staley - Strength coach

Use quantitative measures of progression in your training methods

In general, women are very good at making sure they feel the exercises they perform in the right places (and I wish my male clients were better at this), but they don't appreciate or completely ignore the value of numbers, which is crucial when you consider that progressive overload is the fundamental principle of training with weights.

In the short term, performing a training session after which you feel your muscles have been worked hard is a good strategy. But training (and the results you expect from it) is a process - there needs to be a measurable increase in demand from session to session.

No one gets stronger (or more muscular) just like that. This has to be proactively forced, which is especially true for women who don't have the same hormonal advantages as men. So if you've been doing 4 reps at 65 kilos for the last 8 workouts, make sure you use some combination of more weight, more reps and/or more sets during your next workout.

- Charles Staley

Paul Carter - weight training and bodybuilding coach

Stop being obsessed with the scale

The scale is the driving force behind women choosing the wrong diets, the wrong training plans, doing too much cardio and basically doing the opposite of what is necessary to transform their body into the body they eventually want to achieve.

When I get feedback from my male clients, the first thing they talk about is how loose their pants are or that they can now see a bicep vein. With women, the first feedback I get is something like, "The weight hasn't changed. I feel discouraged." What they don't realize is that during this time their dress size has gone down two sizes.

Women who train with weights have to learn to understand all the different types of feedback that confirm a loss of fat or an increase in muscle, and the scale is a tool that can't tell them if they've gained or lost fat or muscle.

Since men are more visually wired than women, they usually don't care as much about the scale as long as they can look in the mirror and see changes. Many women turn a blind eye to body composition improvements because they are more interested in the arbitrary number on the scale.

You can use the scale, but also use a tape measure. Write down the clothing sizes. Get your body fat measured correctly. Use all of these things when monitoring your progress rather than putting all your eggs in one basket.

- Paul Carter

Michael Warren - weight training coach

Get your backside in shape and train your gluteus!

This tip will help women achieve two of their main goals. When women ask me for advice, they usually ask me these two questions:

• How do I make my butt look better?
• How can I move more weight?

The problem is that even though they know that squats and deadlifts are great glute exercises, they feel these exercises primarily in their thighs and hardly at all in their glutes. This is even more of a concern if a client already has muscular thighs that she considers too bulky.

In fact, scientific research has shown that when performing squats, quadriceps activation accounts for 70% of the exercise and gluteus activation only 20%. Rather than focusing on squats and deadlifts, a better solution to the problem is to incorporate an exercise such as hip thrusts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8nFGuY77CE) into the workout, which activates the gluteus far more (about twice as much) than squats.

Many of my clients have set new personal bests in all their major exercises after incorporating hip thrusts with additional weight into their training program. They achieve more power at the end of the movement in deadlifts, develop better stability in bench presses and have more power at the weakest point of the movement in squats.

Thanks to Hip Thrusts, all my clients were able to move more weight in the three major basic exercises (squats, deadlifts and bench presses). Their maximum weight for one repetition, their maximum weight for three repetitions and their maximum weight for five repetitions increased. And it wasn't just the three big basic exercises. They got stronger with every exercise.

There are many more great isolation exercises for the gluteus such as single-leg hip thrusts, pull-throughs, single-leg back extensions and reverse hyper-extensions.

The gluteus is the most important muscle for general athleticism. It is responsible for hip extension, external rotation of the hip, hip abduction and tilting the pelvis backwards. A strong gluteus is necessary for sprinting, jumping, climbing, throwing, punching, twisting, squats, lunges, bending - basically any athletic movement.

Additionally, by incorporating gluteus dominant exercises, my clients have achieved visible changes in their backside - so noticeable that they have received compliments from friends and colleagues. I even get referrals based on this.

By doing exercises like Hip Thrusts you will not only get stronger, but you will also develop a body that stands out!

- Michael Warren

Eric Bach - Strength coach

Go to the limits.

Squats, deadlifts, rowing and presses are still the best exercises for building a lean and powerful body. But just doing these exercises is not enough - you need to push yourself to your limits, strive to build strength and overload your body.

Always remember that your body doesn't want to change. According to Davis' Law of Soft Tissue Adaptation, if you want to change soft tissue, you must push it beyond its current capacity. This means that increasing the weight of your exercises and increasing the volume of your training are essential if you want to change your body. At a fundamental level, nothing else matters in the gym.

Challenge your body beyond its capabilities or you won't grow and use one of the myriad training programs on this site to do so.

Too many exercisers fall in love with the hottest gadgets, the latest training methods or the hottest exercises. At the end of the day, however, it's more about controlling your training over time and improving yourself. Getting used to the uncomfortable is imperative for long-term progress.

- Eric Bach

Dani Shugart - T Nation Editor

Don't blindly follow every training program

Your body is your laboratory and no expert (no matter how experienced or well trained) can tell you exactly what is going on in your body. Trainers are not doctors.

This advice applies whether you are following an online program or a detailed program from a competition coach or even working with a specialized personal trainer.

If something doesn't feel right and you train at full intensity just to follow the instructions, then you risk injury. If you do this often enough, you can even end up with a chronically weakened immune system. And nothing will set you back more than training around injuries - especially if you are injured or sick for weeks in a row.

This can be a problem for exercisers who want to please others. These people wanted to make their coaches proud. They tend to worry about being perceived as lazy, so they try to push themselves harder, do more reps, move faster, achieve perfect technique and move heavier and heavier weights - even when they are completely exhausted and feel that something is not right. These people will still strive to be passionate and stoic when their body is falling apart.

If you recognize yourself in this, then you should learn to speak up. If you're working with a curmudgeon, realize that YOU are the boss. You know when you have given your all. You are doing this for your own personal satisfaction. You're not like an Olympian. And your job probably doesn't depend on it either. So take some pressure off your shoulders. Being fit and physically competent under a barbell shouldn't be draining. Training should make your life better, not worse.

If you pay someone to train you, then you can easily fire that person. And that trainer will respect you more if you tactfully remind them of this. Don't be his slave. Don't be his trophy. The coach works for YOU. So don't shy away from those difficult conversations and ask for what you need.

There are plenty of excellent coaches out there who will help you improvise in your workouts when necessary. They are the kind of trainers who trust you to give your full effort - no matter what training session you are doing.

If you're already an experienced exerciser, then you probably don't need a militaristic trainer cracking the whip. And really, no one needs a condescending coach.

- Dani Shugart

John Romano - competition coach, physical performance enhancement specialist

Don't train like a guy

This is the part where I feel the wrath of all feminists. What gives me the right to say how women should train? Do I also tell men how they should train? I do indeed, but for different reasons. When I think of how any of us train - men or women - I can't help but think of the image we project.

We train in gyms among the masses of more or less "normal" people who are in the gym for a number of different reasons, none of which have anything to do with the goals of a serious strength athlete. Their opinion still seems to count and that's why there are places like Planet Fitness where serious strength training is frowned upon and it's chic to eat pizza, candy and bagles in a "judgement free zone".

Guys are probably 92% of the reason that serious strength athletes have a bad reputation, but some women - not many, but enough - can reinforce that bad image by mimicking men's training habits too much - usually the bad training habits.

Who cares? Why would any woman just trying to do a 180 kilo squat care what other people think about her? In a perfect world, no one would care. But we don't live in a perfect world. We bodybuilders live in a world where we are constantly misunderstood and maligned, where we are made fun of and where we are seen as freaks.

In the midst of all this, do we really need a 170 cm tall, 80 kilo woman who has squeezed herself into a 50 kilo woman's spandex bodysuit, who has "decorated" her body with all kinds of bandages and tapes and wears a thick weightlifting belt, which prevents her knees, elbows and hips from bending? her elbows and hips to less than one degree and her gait resembles John Wayne, whose skin is covered in talcum powder, sweat and acne, who grunts like a diesel locomotive, emits protein farts, who makes everyone else's eyes water and who turns her surroundings into a mess - just like a guy? What a spectacle - and so unnecessary.

When I think of a famous example of a woman training with weights who exemplifies the truest form of an awe-inspiringly strong woman - completely unlike a man - I immediately think of Dana Lynn Bailey. I remember seeing her compete at the Olympia and Arnold Classics before she became famous and made a name for herself. She moved insane weights - not just for her size and not just for a woman, but weights that many men couldn't handle. But she did it in a completely different way to a man. Dana trains like a woman - a really strong woman - and she became one of the most famous strength athletes as a result. I can't think of a better example for women who train with weights to emulate.

My advice for women who train with weights - and especially women who are just starting out in the sport - is to find a woman whose body, image and personality you admire and train like her. Don't train like a guy.

- John Romano

Christian Thibaudeau - weight training coach

Don't train like a female athlete in the fitness or figure class.

We tend to mimic those whose looks we want to achieve. Some women will see a competitive athlete from the figure or fitness class and assume that they know the secret to getting in shape.

In reality, most of these girls don't look the way they do because of the way they work out, but because their desire to look good is stronger than their need to enjoy life. They are good at following these diets that have more to do with starvation than nutrition and they often resort to chemicals (for fat loss or muscle growth) and jeopardize their long-term health.

I know many who do 90 to 120 minutes of cardio first thing in the morning in addition to 90 to 120 minutes of resistance training later in the day. And while I admire this dedication, very few women can really integrate this into their daily lives. I coach a lot of CrossFit competitors and enthusiasts, and the average CrossFit gal looks a lot leaner and in better shape than the average wannabe figure athlete.

Look at CrossFit gals and other female athletes like track and field athletes and you'll see women who are in better shape than wannabe figure athletes every day of the year - and that's without all those crazy dietary restrictions. In fact, these athletes are often in much better shape than real figure athletes when they're not preparing for a competition. And do you really only want to look good for three months of the year?

I'm not suggesting that all women should take up CrossFit. Yes, it's better than the average figure athlete's workout, but it comes with its own set of problems. Take my wife as an example. She loves CrossFit and since she started, she doesn't want to do any other workout. The problem, however, is that she hasn't been able to train for more than three weeks in a row for the last three years. Injuries keep forcing her to take time off, which isn't exactly good for consistent improvement.

The solution? Train for performance. Use a CrossFit-inspired approach. This could look like this:

• Perform high density workouts (short rest intervals like complexes or circuits).
• Concentrate mainly on the large multi-joint exercises: Squats, front squats, deadlifts, standing barbell shoulder press, push press, etc. Don't be afraid to keep increasing the weights as long as you maintain good form when performing the exercises.
• Learn Olympic weightlifting exercises.
• Work on being able to perform dips and pull-ups without assistance.
• Perform exercises like the farmer's walk, where you carry a weight a certain distance.
• Train with a weight sled if you have the opportunity.
• Use full body workouts or a lower body/upper body split. Forget a split by muscle group.

- Christian Thibaudeau