Information for your workouts
Warm-ups
You can choose to either do a general warm-up for the whole body, or do a specific warm-up for the exercise/muscle group you are training.
General warm-up example
- 20 jumping jacks
- 20 ski jumps
- 10 push-ups
- 20 bodyweight squats
- 2 min jog, spring the last 30 seconds
Specific warm-up example
- 20 reps at 50% working weight
- 15 reps at 75% working weight
- 5 reps at 100% working weight
2-4 Second Rule
The science regarding training your muscles suggests that the optimal workload time is 2-4 seconds in the eccentric phase. You can always aim for 4 seconds at the beginning at each set, but as you start fatiguing, your reps might go down to 2-3 seconds.
Flexing your core
When flexing your core, don’t flex your abs only. You want to flex your whole core – front and back.
The easiest way to do this properly is to imagine that someone is about to punch you in your stomach. The way your body reacts is by flexing for protection. This is how you want to flex your core when doing all exercises.
Eccentric movement
The eccentric movement in any exercise is when the target muscle is lengthened. This is the resistance phase of the exercise – such as going downwards in squats or bench press.
To avoid injuries and improve quality in your reps aim for the “2-4 second rule” in the eccentric phase.
You want to breathe in during the eccentric movement.
Concentric movement
The concentric movement in any exercise is when the target muscle contracts. This is the pushing phase of the exercise.
You can improve explosiveness with faster concentric movements. There is no right answer for how quickly you should do this phase, but you should ALWAYS ensure you are completing each rep without putting yourself at risk for injury.
You want to breath out during the concentric movement.
Some exercises will suggest to breathe out at the halfway point. This is to avoid injuries in exercises such as barbell squats and bench press. By holding your breath and flexing your core you keep oxygen in your body and can flex harder. If you breathe out at the lowest point in squats you risk getting stuck at the bottom position with a heavy workload on your shoulders and will have a hard time breathing properly.