Some people clock in to the gym every day, training for more than an hour at a time, almost never without a break. After 3-6 months of training, I found that my body has not changed, and my muscle mass has not increased. Looking at the figure of the old iron opposite, I suddenly felt that it might be entering a “bottleneck period”.
In fact, this is not a bottleneck period at all, but a problem with your training mode.
So how should I adjust it so that I can quickly improve the muscle gain effect?
1. What is the bottleneck period
The so-called bottleneck period refers to “the training is already in a fairly stable stage, it cannot continue to break through, and it is always stagnant. forward”.
In other words: you have adapted to the current training plan and training mode, and you can easily complete all training and recover. The speed is also very fast, but there is no feeling after the practice, and there will be a sense of boredom.
For example, if you train your back, you do 4 movements each time. At the beginning of training, the back stimulation is obvious. After you get used to it later, you may not find the back hair. Feel the power, the training is over. When you want to add weight, but find that the arm strength is not enough, you can only maintain the status quo.
Being in the bottleneck stage for a long time will directly affect the training state, and even the idea of interrupting the training will occur later, and the training pressure will continue to increase.
2. Most people do not reach the level of the bottleneck period.
If your training is disorganized, often only practice a few movements or have personal preferences, even soy sauce This is not the level of the bottleneck period at all.
Many people go to the gym and just practice all the equipment in it. There is no training plan at all. It depends on the mood of what part you want to practice. I like to make my arms stronger and want my arm circumference to exceed 40CM, so I practice arm movements such as barbell curling and rope pressing every day.
Because leg training is too difficult, I simply gave up training squats and chose relatively easy leg lifts.
In order to break through the weight, only practice high pull-downs each time, and then finish with a few sets of dumbbell movements.
What’s more, go to the gym, train for 10 minutes, rest for 10 minutes or more, it seems that you train for 1 hour, but in fact it only takes 20 minutes Around, I often say that I train every day.
In general: no plan, random training, training with personal preference, this is not a bottleneck period at all, but you are not training hard.
3. How to adjust the muscle-building effect?
①Set a specific training plan
From now on, it is necessary to formulate a specific training plan, using a plan of 4 exercises per week.
Combines pecs and triceps, back and biceps, then shoulders and abs, and finally legs.
This mode is to use the upper body muscles first and then the leg muscles, so that the muscles of the whole body can be exercised.
Each training time should reach 80 minutes, focusing on training the chest muscles, back, shoulders and legs, arranging 5 movements, and setting the time at 65 minutes; while the triceps, The biceps and abs are the second, and 3 movements are arranged, and the set time is 15 minutes.
②Focus on training barbell movements
Fixed equipment is more suitable for beginners, because Its action trajectory is fixed, so the training will be more stable, but the dependence is too strong.
However, dumbbells have a longer stroke and more movement changes, but the weight used will be limited.
Therefore need to focus on barbell movements first, then dumbbell movements, and finally stationary equipment.
For the chest muscles, mainly the barbell bench press; for the back, mainly the barbell row; for the legs, mainly the barbell squat; for the shoulders, mainly the barbell press.
After focusing on these 4 movements, you can strengthen your three abilities of pushing, pulling and squatting, and lay a good foundation for lifting weight later.
③Reduce interval time
According to the theoretical guidance of the textbook, it will tell you each action Take a break of 30 seconds to 1 minute, no longer than 2 minutes.
There is no problem with this statement, but the premise is that your training load and training volume are sufficient. If you use very light weight training or training sets and repetitions are small, rest like this is equal to It’s a waste of time and it cools the body faster.
So when you use low-to-medium weights or small muscle groups, try to shorten the rest time between each exercise, such as 15-20 seconds.
And the interval time between each set should also be shortened, no more than 1 minute at most.
④Increase the number of training sets
When your training ability is limited and cannot When doing incremental sets, only choose a moderate weight.
At this point, you need to increase the number of training sets, and the number of training can be unchanged or slightly reduced, so that you can find the effect of pump exhaustion.
For example, currently you can only do 40KG barbell squats, and you can do 5 sets*12 times in a row.
The weight is still 40KG, now it is changed to 8 sets * 10 times, which is 3 more sets than before, and each set of movements is also reduced by 2 times, but the total training volume has increased. After you do set 6, you will feel a soreness in your legs.
Through these 4 adjustment methods, you can help you find the correct training mode, and you will no longer use the bottleneck period to find reasons.