My 3 Personal Pet Hates at the Gym . . .

My 3 Personal pet hates at the gym,

1.)    Weight lifting belts. Why? Well to be honest I dont have a problem with them, as they actually have a purpose however, the majority of gym goers who use them, use them wrong!

The weightlifting belt is in fact only good for one purpose, to STOP the athlete from hyper extending the back when performing a deadlift, russian deadlift, squat etc... and so on. It’s purpose is there as a reminder to the athlete not to hyper-extend. 

So why do gym-users persist on using them in the GYM for things such as free weighted exercises. Inlcine dumbbell press and so on. Its useless?!  Unless. . .

For example the reason strong men use them is becuase their training consists of working consistantly at the 85% + of the their 1RM (rep max) moving such a HEAVY load from one area to the next! Or moving such a HEAVY load in a STRICT MOVEMENT!  This is exceptable.

The other reason i DISAGREE with Weightlifting belts is your back has a muscle called your fascia in which takes up most of the mid-lower back region. This like any other muscle in the body  it needs trraining, YES?  If your wearing a weight Lifting belt you are then placing the load from your back onto the BELT = no training purpose what so ever meaning in the long run if your consistantly training with your belt if you ever FORGET your belt , or chose not to use it YOU will find that

A.) You wont be able to lift the load as you could with the belt, why ? becuase you havent trained it correctly.

B.) You will SERIOUSLY put your back out! 

Lesson learnt here only use your weightlifting belt when either ,

1.) Your about to perform between 2 reps or your 1 rep max’x reminding you to enforce a straight back and to push from your heels!

2.) It’s part of your training, if your a Strongman thats fine or a Powerlifter also, etc...

2.)    Quite a simple one, yet people still dont realise the impact it actually has on their workout! I myself am guilty of this one once in a while, and when I twig on I proper have a go at myself. Number 2 is REST times between SETs, they are their for a reason.

Endurance athletes will use only 30s-1min MAX between sets. As they normally work between 55-75% of their 1RM (repmaxs)

Hypertrophy will only use 1min-2min between sets. As they train between 70% 80% & 90% of their 1RM (repmaxs)

Far too many people end up chit chatting or delaying their results as they arn’t functioning the muscles in the correct manner. Hence they never see the results as quick as they would like.

My advice if your taking your phone into the GYM use the STOPWATCH and STICK TO IT you will soon find out whether you’ve been training correctly or incorrectly.

The results will soon show. If youve been talking or not talking.

Also if your talking too much on a piece of equipment you will soon find out whether your fellow gym goers will get aggravated if your taking too long a machine if your chatting and not working.

3.)    EGO’s now this can be a touchy subject but what i mean by ego’s is whether an individual is training for the CORRECT purposes or TRAINING for the WRONG purposes i.e i can lift more then this guy that guy etc..

Depening on your training you should NEVER feel imtimidtaed of feel demeaning, by others. A great friend and mentor./teacher of mine Chris Ranshaw told me one of my favourite quotes “ We train together, we leave out ego’s at the door, as long as your working to YOUR 100% thats all you need!” . . .  And he’s right forget about others Train the correct way. You should never be hyper-extending trying lift a million Kg’s instead focus on the HYPERTROHPY of the muscles.

Ensure you are getting the correct pump and contraction of the muscle fibres to ensure GROWTH. Instead of trying to move such an enourmous object you will end up putting mucle on in the WRONG places as your body incorporates other MUSCLEs into the contraction to move the weight!

Your body is basicly saying I CAN’T MOVE this so i will bring this muscle into the movement, and so on. YOUR ARE NOT training to TRAIN LIKE STRONGMAN, so DONT DO IT !

I could talk for 1000’s of words on this subject but i’ll leave it at that.

If you’d like to any information on anything just let me know.

JLH-FITNESS.