Mixing it up!

Lately I've decided to completely mix my training up. Previously I was relying on workouts engineered by myself with a pretty conventional split. So I'd do three sessions and split them into Chest, triceps and shoulders; Back and biceps, and finally Legs. This worked for me for a while; but after a few weeks it became clear to me that I needed to up the intensity and try shaking things up if I wanted to carry on making gains and hitting targets. Otherwise, what's the point in training? So I thought that it would be best to take a leaf out of someone else's book, someone whose training advice I could actually rely on. I did contemplate the Hodge Twins, but had been using their methods for a while and had to try something completely different - enter Fitness Made EZ. I trawled through his YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/glyphmedia) and found his Flexdem workouts. I've been using these workouts for two weeks now, and I'm definitely seeing so many more improvements. My new workout split as a result of this is

Monday - Shoulders
Tuesday - Chest and triceps
Wednesday - Biceps and triceps
Thursday - Back and biceps
Friday - Legs

 In 2 short weeks I've been able to really improve my personal bests and I'm feeling great as a result of the change-up. For example, I've been able to up my bench press from 70kg to 90kg, and my Squats from 130kg to 140kg among other improvements; but they're the most notable. Just a simple shake up of routine and split can affect your progress massively. One thing I really want to point out is EZ's inclusion of a 'burnout set' - its a set at the end of a workout to target the smaller muscle used in your session. For example it would be tricep on a chest day, and bicep on a back day. Honestly, those sets really finish off a workout and leave you feeling pumped. I'm not going to share any real details of them, you have to check out his youtube channel to really understand what I mean. If you don't then you're just depriving yourself of precious training information.

Basically, all I wanted to point you towards in this post are the real benefits of mixing up your training. You can't allow your body to get used to a routine because it will become less and less effective with each session. You've got to be willing to try new things and up the intensity to see real improvements; that all depends on if you're serious about your training or not I suppose. Also, don't be afraid to take advice from different sources (as long as its not completely idiotic). In my experience, the Hodge Twins, Fitness Made EZ, bodybuilding.com etc. have been really useful. I want to point everyone's attention to another brilliant source - JV Fitness & Nutrition. (www.facebook.com/pages/jv-fitness-nutrition). Jason is a fully qualified personal trainer and was one of the first examples that I saw of dedication to fitness and nutrition. Honestly, he will be able to answer any queries at all on the subject of fitness. So please go and like his page on Facebook and see what he's got to say.

Speaking of Facebook, I've also started up a page dedicated to this blog. Its www.facebook.com/TransformItToday - It's just basically to keep people informed of updates on the blog as I won't be posting them on my profile anymore. It would be great if everyone could go ahead and like the page as its lacking at the moment. Hopefully I'll also be training with Grant (@jonesgx on Twitter) in the coming months and getting some training snaps/videos of proper form in exercises and I'm aiming to get them up onto the page. I've had a lot of good feedback from the latest posts, especially the home workout post. So any more feedback is welcome and I'm also happy to advise people on different aspects of training, whether that be nutrition or workouts.With regard to future posts; if anyone has got any suggestions for them then by all means get in touch with me and we'll work something out! So please direct all feedback to either my Twitter - @Wrighty__ , My Facebook page - www.facebook.com/transformittoday , or just leave a comment under this post!
Keep testing the limits,
Alex.