Keir Murray PT

DM me if you're interested in what I may offer to support your health and fitness.

Tracking your progress?

The Lone Piper is.

That can be done with an app or a logbook; it will serve as a reminder of what you did last time with an exercise you did and set you up to know where to go from there.

Where to go from there? That step forward for you could, at this moment, be one of the three approaches to progressive overload as described in the video.

After spending time learning an exercise with correct form, you can still do your reps safely and effectively. The weight selected to do your set should enable you to perform the exercise with proper technique shown/described in the breakdown, especially earlier in the set, as well as causing you to finish strong by staying within the intended rep range where you possibly couldn't do one or more full reps.

Keir Murray PT.
DM me if you're interested in what I offer to help with your health and fitness.

Whom are you trying to fuel?

What's your go-to post-workout refuelling snack?

Is it malt loaf, or something else 😋?

Send me a message to let me know, and I might just swap in something new.

Before a workout, prepare some carbs as a go-to snack so they are ready to eat post-workout.

But wait, isn't it protein I need after a workout? Malt Loaf doesn't contain much protein.

Although it isn't required instantly, yes, you're correct to have your protein after a workout. Now is a good time to include a sugary snack too, particularly simple carbs, since they're important post-workout.

When you exercise, you use a lot of energy moving your body, doing what you're kicking butt at. This energy, before a workout, is stored in muscles but is soon used up.

IMPORTANT! These carbs are no substitute for more nourishing meals that should be prioritised throughout your day, but will quickly start replenishing your energy stores.

Keir Murray PT.
DM me if you're interested in what I may offer for your health and fitness.

Rest (-pause) assured.

This video and post are not encouraging avoidance of particular intensity techniques in the gym. It's intended to have you not feel overwhelmed, but to make you feel that your training doesn't have to be constantly brutal, because intensity techniques do exist, but don't necessarily have to be used, especially in an early venture.

This can be intimidating if you believe your training must involve intensity techniques immediately; then they must be carried out and repeated in a certain manner at some point. They are tools to use, and they are welcome to be tried.

Take into consideration the exercise I'm doing; it is an isolation movement, meaning there is single-joint action and therefore mainly working one muscle. Compound movements, meaning there is multi-joint action and therefore more total muscle involved for that one lift, and now there is more demand systemically, whether an intensity technique is applied or not.

At the beginning of your lifting journey, the entire set(s) of each exercise in a plan should be designated as a straight set (when single or multiple sets of the same exercise are done with identical weight, reps, and RPE, resting in between with no speciality upon ending).

Each set's reps and the control and form of those reps need to be prioritised, and always will be. Straight sets alone could be manipulated to increase the intensity of a lift by adding weight and/or increasing reps, keeping both reps and weight the same while improving form, and, if willing earlier or later, but not a necessity, by introducing other intensity techniques.

Using a Push workout as an example, perhaps sticking to 3-4 sets of 2-3 compound movements, notably as a beginner, then consider using an intensity technique when typically finalising a workout with smaller muscle groups.

The intensity technique featured in the video is a rest-pause set.
Try this next time for a smaller single muscle group, such as the triceps.

Keir Murray PT. DM me if you're interested in what may be on offer for your health and fitness.

How low to go in your Overhead Press?

First off, to begin an Overhead Press, before the bar is lifted from the safeties, grasp the bar with each hand directly shoulder-width apart, then move either hand a hand's width apart from the other to have a grip slightly wider than shoulder width.

From here, when already having a soft bend at the knees, slightly crouch to bring yourself that little bit lower than the bar, and upon driving your feet into the floor, coming back to that same standing position, simultaneously lift the bar off the safeties and use that momentum from having crouched to do your first rep.

The bar would be pressed tall above you, held for a second, and then slowly lowered. If going for reps, how low would you go before pressing this time around without the momentum of the knees?

What better way to feel even stronger than lifting weights above you in an exercise like the Overhead Press, lifting that weight safely by following this handy tip.

When lowering the bar, aim for each forearm to reach a position where it is completely vertical to the ground. For me, and potentially others alike, the bar would stop at a point in line with the chin. Any lower than that height of the chin, and you can risk pressing from an internally rotated position, unnecessarily stressing the body's most mobile joint, which is the shoulder.

When you attempt your last repetition, whether successful or not, finish your set by controlling and holding the bar in the same bottom position, then slightly crouch to bring yourself that little bit lower, and re-rack the bar on the safeties.

Increasing your Range Of Motion (ROM)

A range of motion is the distance from your starting position in an exercise that puts the muscles in a lengthened position before lifting, to the point where you lift the weight while holding a contraction. The weight would be lowered back, completing a rep.

A full ROM would be doing your rep(s) with your targeted muscles in their lengthiest, naturally stretched position, until you reach a maximum contraction after lifting, and then returning to the same starting position the muscles were at.

You may be starting your reps in a given exercise at a position where the targeted muscles aren't at their lengthiest, i.e., you're not currently getting a full range of motion.

Your Preacher Curls, or any exercise for the following matter, can do with fewer reps to make you stronger and, in the future, then increase your rep count.

By increasing the range of motion, you require the muscles used in that lift to apply more force earlier in a set than they would have had you kept your starting point (A) to an end position of a rep (B) shorter. This ensures you do it more intensely, without depriving yourself of true reps, and that "half" or partial reps don't count, all while still building strength.

Now, when you're next at the gym, adjust your starting point (A) in a lift so the muscle is more stretched to begin with, and try to reach the number of reps you'd have wanted to if you hadn't made that change in each rep.

How many do you get? Let this determine your rep range this time around, and the next time you'll do these. For example, you may have been getting around 12-15, but this attempt in a different application is now 7-11. From here, when 3 sets are complete with the same weight at 11, you try to get more reps, or increase the weight and go again between 7 and 11.