TRAINING TIPS from Sara
How to workout?
Okay, I know know most of you know how to workout but are you maximizing your time in the gym. The point is not to spend your life in the gym. The point is to spend as little time in the gym to be able to LIVE the life you want to live.
Get in. Get out.
Be Effective.
I feel differently than most ( you will find this is a common theme with me, get ready) The gym should not be another thing on your to do list to just check off. I see many people in the gym for years and their body never changes. Something magical does not happen just by walking in the doors of the gym. You must put in the work to see results. Consistently increase intensity, push yourself mentally and physically past what you think is possible and simply do what others do not. Checking in on Facebook doesn’t constitute a good workout. I am here to give you the tips and tricks to be effective, get results and live the life you want to live.
The biggest areas where I see people fail in the gym are:
NOT GOING HARD ENOUGH/GOING TO FAILURE
I see this time and time again. Listen, you cannot build or tone or whatever the fuck you are doing in the gym unless you go to failure. Fail damn it! Remember what we are doing when we workout. We are tearing the muscle. Yep, in case you didn’t know. Well, now you know. And well you can’t tear the muscle if you stop when you feel it “burn”, when it “hurts” or when you start making the ugly face. You GOTTA make the ugly face, and push past the burn. This is why you do all those preliminary reps for to get this exact place….and then you STOP. No no, you must keep going, Don’t worry as much if that’s 10 reps, 20 reps or 200 reps you gotta keep going until you can’t go anymore. And then shazam. You get stronger. People worry too much about how many reps and often stop at the number of reps prescribed when they did not go to their maximum, to failure, to beast mode. Always exhaust the muscle completely.
Increasing Intensity
There are a number of ways to increase intensity in the gym. But continuing to push yourself in different ways can keep things fresh. There is a lot of truth to the saying Go hard or Go Home. Assess how you are feeling, where you could improve your intensity and make small adjustments per workout.
This can be done by:
Increasing weight
Shortening rest periods
Increasing reps
Supersets
Drop Sets
Remain Consistent
Your life is made up of your daily habits. Successful people do not stumble to the top of the mountain or just wake up one day to ripped arms and shredded abs. We often overestimate what we can do in a year but underestimate what we can do in 5 years. Sculpting a physique takes time.
Chest
It all starts with the pushup movement or the chest press. And quite frankly I wish they called the push up the push away. Imagine you are standing with your hand in front of your chest and you are trying to push someone AWAY. You would not wiggle and crink your neck and passively collapse your body the way many people do when they do a push up. Push away, Like you mean it! Using the chest instead of the trap or front delts. Drop your shoulders away from your ears and focus on using those ta-ta’s. All that being said I can always tell when a woman has a man prescribing their workouts because they have one day devoted to chest. We are women. We have a chest. This is not an incredibly important body part for women to totally go bananas or have an entire day devoted to it.
Back
Chest up. Shoulder heads back. As women, we have a helpful tool when working chest called the bra. Imagine you are trying to bust open your bra using the muscles under your bra line. These are your lats. One MUST HAVE when working back are Versa Gripps. They assist in putting the weight into your back instead of your upper and lower arms. Many women can do more in their back but their forearms and biceps fatigue before they even hit their back. Also, many women lack wrist strength and Versa Gripps assist in all ways. If you want bigger wings you must utilize grips to focus more attention on the back instead of the arms. Always keep your spine long and your head in neutral position
Shoulders
Think long neck and sweeping motions. Try to keep your shoulders down. I always envision the movement when making a snow angel. Press outward with the elbow or outer arm. Shoulders are worked best with high volume focusing on each of the areas of the deltoids, posterior (front), anterior (back) and lateral (side). Biggest tip is to keep the shoulders out of your ears.
Arms
I like to superset biceps and triceps to effectively get a good pump. Remember these are small muscle groups that can be neglected if we recruit other bigger muscles. When doing arms be mindful to use the correct weight so the biceps and triceps are what are actually being worked instead of some bigger muscle groups like back and shoulders. Training arms is rather simple and most people do not struggle here.
LEGS
Aww leg day…be prepared. Leg days should be epic. Exhausting. Often when working legs I see people collapse the weight onto their low backs. I know this sounds simple but push with your legs instead of letting the weight collapse on your back. Many of my clients throughout the years struggle with activating their glutes. Right now If I asked you to squeeze your butt, you could, right? Go ahead. Try it. We have to be remember when we do legs we have the power to activate muscle groups more than others using our mind. Form is critical when doing legs. In most exercises the weight should be more on the heel, wiggle the toes to be sure the weight is not too far forward and putting pressure on the knees and quads.
ABS
Abs are one of the easiest areas to neglect and one of the most important for full body strength, aesthetics and general health. I suggest doing abs first, this ensures you have enough time and also it is a great way to warm up the entire body. My biggest general tip is to stay engaged. Often times I see people doing too big of a movement and engaging then disengaging the core. The key is to “stay in the work zone”. Smaller more precise movements are more effective. Feel the burn and keep engaged or “on” for the entire rep.