Evaluation of training and your bodybuilding results

So, about four months have passed since the start of training by basic complexes. If you have been exercising, strictly adhering to the recommendations we have described, then the results of your efforts should be obvious - an increase in muscle strength and mass. These two indicators are closely related, especially in the early years. Muscle strength proportional to its cross-sectional area. Consequently, by increasing muscle volume, the athlete thereby increases his strength indicators.

1. Training evaluation
2. Training results. Assessing muscle growth
3. Bodybuilding results. Assessing strength gains.

Training evaluation

How to evaluate the results of training? Since muscles grow in mass, the total body weight should also increase. This means that you need to do it regularly weighing. It's better to do this every other day. Then you will be able to judge the effectiveness of your training. If your weight steadily grows by 200-300 grams per week with a constant waist circumference, then you are successfully moving forward.

Why did we mention the waist? You have probably noticed that overweight people suffering from excess fat reserves have a wide, plump waist. Fat accumulates primarily in the abdomen and waist. Therefore, there is a proportionality between the amount of fat in body tissues and waist circumference. It can be expressed quantitatively: an increase in fat tissue by 1 percent leads to an increase in waist circumference by one centimeter.

Thus, when assessing your success, you need to take into account both the increase in total body weight and the change in the “dimensions” of your waist. Let's explain this with an example. Let’s say your weight at the beginning of this training cycle was 60 kilograms, and your waist circumference was 65 cm. After working out for two months, you measured these parameters again, and it turned out that the scales show 62 kilograms, and the centimeter is 66 cm. Thus, the “weight gain” " turned out to be equal to two kilograms, and an extra centimeter of waist is equivalent to one percent of fat, that is, 0.01 x 60 = 600 grams. Hence, net gain in muscle mass is 2-0.6 = 1.4 kilograms.

Training results. Assessing muscle growth

In any case, the net gain in muscle mass can be calculated as follows: formula:

DRm = Rk - Rn - D1 x 0.01Rn

Here: Rn — the athlete’s body weight at the beginning of a particular time interval (for example, before he started working on a new complex); RK - weight at the end of the interval (at the end of the complex, for example, after two months); D1 - measurement of the waist circumference in centimeters, and if the waist increases, then D1 > 0, and if it becomes thinner, then D1 < 0.

There is another interesting pattern that is useful to know about. It concerns the “relationships” of various muscle groups, namely: muscles can grow successfully only if simultaneous development of them all. In other words, unilateral, isolated development of any one muscle group to the detriment of others is impossible and unreasonable. Example: to increase the volume of your biceps by one centimeter, you need to achieve an increase in total body weight by 2.5 kilograms (the same “dry” one discussed above).

Bodybuilding results. Assessing strength gains.

How to measure strength gain? It would seem as simple as shelling pears: take and lift the heaviest weight the athlete is capable of. But such testing must be carried out often enough to constantly monitor your progress. The heaviest weight is the one you can only lift once. Such a test, as experience shows, is accompanied by very large overloads of the nervous system. With frequent testing of maximum strength, inhibitory processes develop in it, forcing a person to stop efforts. As a result, there are overvoltage And overtraining and, as a consequence, the growth of strength indicators stops.

Even experienced athletes lift maximum weights no more than once every one and a half to two months, and only in two to three exercises. And young fans of the “iron game” are not at all recommended to test themselves in this way. They generally cannot do less than five repetitions in any exercise. And to make sure that your strength is constantly growing, there is a simple and effective method called bodybuilding progression. As a matter of fact, you have already worked in a similar way in previous complexes. Now we will detail it and put it on a more “scientific” basis.

After this, you need to increase the weight of the barbell by 3-6 kg and start again with 8 repetitions, and so on, throughout the entire cycle of work on a specific complex. This technique is applied to each exercise, and the weights added will naturally be different for each exercise.

All exercises are performed in three approaches. If in some exercises the work progresses particularly successfully, the number of approaches in them can be increased to four. But it is important to avoid overloading the body. To prevent this from happening, you need to monitor his performance after training. In the arsenal of bodybuilding and fitness there is a simple procedure, which allows you to do this - the so-called orthostatic test. The gist of it is this:

At this stage, you will train in two complexes, alternating them. Namely: having worked one complex in training, in the next lesson you perform the second, then the first again, etc. You can alternate them differently: the first week work on the first complex, the second - on the second, the third - on the first, etc. The total number of trainings per week is 3.

Since the exercises included in the complexes are all different, then load on the same muscles the results are not exactly the same. For example, this is easy to notice when performing such classic biceps exercises as barbell or dumbbell biceps curls and pull-ups on the bar. You will feel a noticeable difference yourself.

Alternating complexes in bodybuilding and fitness, several are achieved at once goals:

1. firstly, the principle of variability (variability) of loads on muscles is implemented, which does not allow them to adapt to the same type of movements;
2. secondly, it is more interesting for the athlete to work with a large “menu” of exercises;
3. thirdly, he learns a creative attitude towards classes, which requires changing exercises, loads, training schemes and other forms of training that have developed and become habitual and therefore less effective.