Weight Training Tips and Articles

Proper Squat Form

  The squat is quite possibly the most important weight training exercise you can do to build overall muscle strength and size throughout your body. While squats are considered by many to be a great exercise for the quadriceps and hamstrings, they’ll also help you gain mucscle just about everywhere else as well. When you squat you’ll get a big testosterone boost that will help you gain more overall muscle size. If you do high rep squats you’ll be forced to breathe heavily, which will increase your lung capacity and help your upper body look bigger. Doing squats while you weight train will also affect the muscles of the lower and upper back.

  To avoid injury and get the most out of them, it’s important to learn proper squat form. You’ll want the barbell you’re squatting to be placed on your trapezius muscles - not on the back of your neck. It may take some experimentation to find the best spot to place the barbell when you squat and when you do you may not even need to put a pad on the bar - especially if you have developed traps.

  When it comes to squatting you need to arch your lower back, not bend it, as you lower into a squat rep. Get your behind as far behind you as possible and stop when your upper thighs are parellel to the floor. Then use the muscles of the quadriceps, hamstrings, and hips to squat the weight up. You can squat deeper if you want, but this depends a lot on how flexible your ankles and other lower body joints are.

  Where you place your feet when you squat depends on how tall you are and whether you’re weight training in more of a bodybuilding style or more of a powerlifting style. Either way, you need to concentrate on using your hips and not your knees as you lower into a squat rep. Putting to much stress on your knees when you squat isn’t good for them.

  Once you get your squat form down you should be able to build a lot of size and power from it and get the gains in overall muscularity you’re looking for.

High Rep Squats

  How much intensity you train with is one of the most important factors in how much muscle size and strength you gain from weight training. If you just go through the motions without pushing yourself to lift more weight or do more reps per set than you did at your last workout you’ll maintain what you have, but won’t gain more size and strength. Beginner weight trainers especially need to do intense workouts and hit every muscle group regularly.

  One of the most intense weight training workouts you can do is one involving high rep squats. If you’ve hit a plateau in your leg workouts or just want to try something that’ll boost your weight training intensity, a couple of sets of high rep squats may be right up your alley. 1 or 2 sets of squats for 25 to 50 reps will give you a great boost in testosterone and help you build more muscle in the quadriceps and hamtrings. In fact, after doing a couple of sets of high rep squats you may not need to do much more for your legs during that training session. Use a weight you know you can handle for a good 20 to 25 reps and once you hit that many reps rest and breathe between reps to crank out as many more reps as you can. You’ll be surprised at how much you may be able to do. This will cause you to breathe a lot and your hands may even get a bit numb from all of the blood rushing to your legs.

  Another great trick you can do with high rep squats is to do a set of dumbbell pullovers immediately after your squat set. Since you’ll be breathing so hard from the squats doing a set of pullovers will help stretch the rib cage out and help give you a larger upper body appearance.

  If you decide to try high rep squat sets during your leg and hamstring workouts you’ll likely need up to 10 minutes of rest after completing a set or superset with pullovers. If you don’t give yourself enough rest you could end up vomiting. Yes, that’s how intense high rep squats can be if you go all out.

Leg Weight Training Workouts

  There are many weight trainers out there who focus primarily on training their upper bodies and neglect leg weight training. However, for overall muscular development you must train your legs if you follow a weight training routine. If you do weight training workouts for your legs you should even gain more muscle strength and size in your upper body. For overall leg development you need to focus on training all of the major muscle groups of the legs - the quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves.

  The quadriceps are the muscles that make up the front of the upper legs from the groin area to the knees. The best quadriceps weight training exercise is the squat. In fact, the squat may be the best overall weight training exercise you can do. As long as you don’t have knee or lower back problems you should always start your leg workout with squats. If you have problems squatting you should do hack squats on a hack squat machine. Leg presses are also good for the quadriceps but won’t build your leg muscles as fast as squats. After you do your major quadricep exercises you should do a few sets of lunges. You can do lunges with either a barbell or dumbbells. They’re great for building the muscles just above the knees. Finsh your quadriceps weight training workout with some sets of leg extensions.

  The hamstrings are the muscles on the back of the thighs. They will get some work from your quadricep exercises but you still need to do some direct training for them to keep a balance between the muscles in front and behind the legs. Stiff-legged deadlifts are a great weight training exercise for the hamstrings. Good mornings are an exercise you don’t see performed often, but they are also great for building the hamstring muscles. Finish your hamstring workout with leg curls.

  The calves are the muscles of the lower legs below the knees. Calf training can be done on a standing calf machine, a seated calf machine, or a leg press machine. Keep your reps high when you train your calf muscles and try to get a nice stretch and contraction on every rep possible before finishing a set with some bouncing reps. If you run or jog you’ll help build your calves as well.

  If you follow a weight training split routine you should give your leg training its own workout. This way you’ll be less likely to not train them and you’ll be able to hit them with a lot of intensity.