More reps, or more weight? Which is better?

The answer to all such questions is usually "it depends".

Today however, I thought I'd have a crack at this bench press challenge which is a part of a training system or "gym sport" that is becoming popular in the UK. The creator of this is a bloke I know from my professional network.

Now... the idea is a bit different to conventional weight training in that it is all against the clock, and the idea is to get as many reps out within the time limit as possible. And of course you would make progress by increasing the amount of reps you can do at the same weight within the same time limit.

So here's a video of me having a crack at the bench press portion, recorded at Doherty's Gym where I operate as a Personal Trainer, in Brunswick. That's 50kg for 3 minutes, as many reps as possible.



I will say this; it was harder than I expected. I mean... I knew I could pump out 40 reps at 50kg as a nice warm up, but I really expected I'd be able to pump out another 40 after a short 15 - 30 second rest. I figured I'd get 100 reps or at least 90... and I pulled up a little short of that.

So a bit short of what I hoped for, but still a respectable total especially first time out. I wanted to test a theory that when you train heavy with conventional rep ranges, you'll be able to match it with most people doing ultra high reps with less resistance. That is, you'll be able to match the people who only train that way, even though it's not the way you normally train. Am I making sense here? Good.

Here's what I think. The point of training is to produce an adaptation, and therefore you should always choose the training strategy most suited to producing that desired adaptation or outcome. When we choose resistance training, it is usually with the desired outcome of becoming stronger and improving body composition. That is; adding muscle at the expense of body fat stores.

In my opinion, the best way to do so is by progressively increasing the amount of weight we can move through traditional rep ranges. Now, when we train with the same amount of weight but with a focus on pumping out more reps within a time limit... there is still an adaptation but it is not about increasing strength or muscle mass. Simply put, you're training to get better at training. I'd also argue that technique is compromised in these circumstances as can be seen in my video above... if you've ever seen one of my other bench press videos with a heavier load for say 10 or 12 reps, my technique and tempo is pretty good if I do say so myself.

SO, what's better? Well it always depends on your goal. But decide upon your goal first, and then choose the approach that is most conducive to reaching it.

With all that being said, this was a hell of a nice warm up before getting down to the serious business of going as heavy as possible for 10 - 12 reps.

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Winning the battle against modern technolgy

This isn't really an educational or motivational entry as much as it's just a normal sort of "about my day" type of entry.

I will tell you this though, I am planning on stepping things the hell up in the months ahead and into the new year. Business stuff, I mean. It's been a good year with a pretty stable number of clients on the local roster, plus... I have actually lost count of the amount of online people. I want to step both up and get to capacity levels.

So to that end I've been trying to study up a little on marketing stuff like a real business person which is a story in itself because... gawd... so much of stuff you're supposed to do "if you really want to be successful" will actually get you banned from facebook if they catch you out, I mean assuming it didn't make your skin crawl a little on ethical / respect for people's privacy type of grounds in the first place.

Anyway. Getting an ad approved on facebook without breaking the rules is surprisingly difficult but I eventually figured out that having the word "bullshit" in your page title is kind of a deal breaker. So battle #1 was putting in a request to have my page name changed. Hopefully that works out quickly and I'll run my ad all next week or as soon as I can get it done.

There's a lot of great content on my facebook but this is the particular post I'm going to use as an ad.

Post by DHPT: Lose Weight, No Bullshit.

So that's one down. Hopefully.

The other one I got sorted today which was soooo complicated was getting my youtube and my google plus business page connected. For some reason they were on different email accounts and you'd think it would be easy enough to fix that but I can tell you it bloody well was not. Eventually managed to sort it though and now all is well. Next job is to put together a channel trailer video for youtube.

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October Promo For Personal Training And Online Coaching

Brand new promo video for October and the rest of Spring 2013.



Obviously this is all about Personal Training In Brunswick but for people around the world there's also my Online Coaching service which typically means the DHPT Via Email product featuring my Progressive Power, Precision & Pump training program.

Lately though, I've had a lot of success providing Custom Flexible Dieting Guidelines to people who have their own routine consisting of a wide variety of activities and exercise choices. Typically I've been getting people to drastically increase their total intake, with some attention to the ratio of protein, carbohydrates and fats. To be honest, even I am a little amazed and just how tremendous the results have been, with a lot of VERY happy people checking in on my facebook.

Go check ALL of that out!

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A summary of what you might have missed if you're not following me on facebook

First off, over on wordpress I did a little review of The New Atkins Diet products, and in particular a price comparison between the New Atkins weight loss shakes and your choice of any Whey Protein Isolate you might buy from a decent gym or supplement store.

Now as the name implies, a WPI is just protein. Usually something like 98% protein with a couple of calories per serve coming from the flavouring, which depending on the brand can be quite delicious. The Atkins products... sorry, it's "the NEW Atkins" because I guess they've conceded that the "old" Atkins diet everyone was on back when I still worked in I.T backfired horrendously and now 10 or 15 years later even more people are even more obese than they were ever before. But I digress... the Atkins brand shakes are actually around 50% fat, and more than twice as expensive as a real protein shake.

Now in saying that... it's not to say "fat is bad" or "fat makes you fat". However, they're marketing these things on the basis that they're low carb, and therefore if you buy it you'll lose weight. Absolute nonsense. As I've said elsewhere, the use of a protein shake is to boost your total calories or to help better balance your macronutrient ratios to amounts more suitable for achieving and maintaining your healthy goal weight. Clearly this does not work so well when the shake is as much fat as protein, and it's certainly not helpful if the idea is to have the shake instead of eating a normal meal so that you can restrict to a misguided calorie target that falls far short of what you require for good health and great results from training.

For some reason this is what the diet industry and elements of the fitness industry promotes... this idea of restricting to "very low calorie diets. That used to mean 1200 calories... but that stopped working and now there's a few new ones at 800 calories, 600 calories, and so on. It is MADNESS. In fact if you interviewed someone killing themselves via an eating disorder you'd probably hear all the same ideas about weight loss as these products support. AKA, if you want to lose weight, eat as little as possible. If that doesn't work, eat even less. If you eat actual meals like a normal person, you'll get fat. You need to starve to get thin.

It is outrageous. Most of all it is not true, either. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As I explained in a post on my main business site for Personal Training In Brunswick,  if you want to get into great shape you need to train for the shape you want to be in. You also need to fuel accordingly to maintain your goal body type at goal weight. You simply cannot expect to be happy, healthy or see optimal results from training by starving on some ridiculous diet.

Now back to facebook, you can see the proof of what I'm talking about here in a post where a heap of us all talk about how you can Lose Weight By Eating More, Not Less. You should check that out and hear it from actual clients, real people out in the real world. Not just marketers.

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Eat More To Lose Weight

If you aint following me, DaveHPT on Facebook you're missing out big time.

Last week I posted a photo a happy client snapped while out at a cafe for breakfast, with a bit of commentary from me explaining that if you want to be healthy and happy AND see great results from training, you need to be fuelled right. If you just want to be "about normal size", you need eat an "about normal" amount. Now, to get to about normal size and be in extra great shape, we need a strategic training program to encourage the body to take all of that fuel and put it to good use.

In order to lose weight we do need to be in a calorific deficit. That is, we need to be consuming less than we would require to maintain our current weight. However, we still need to be adequately fuelled in order to facilitate great results from training. This is where many people go wrong, as their calorie goal may be based on creating a deficit below what would be expected to maintain weight with an inactive lifestyle... either that, or even worse, the plan is simply to eat as little as possible.

Well... you can go read the facebook post in question and what you'll see underneath is just some of the people who've taken my advice and increased their daily intake to an amount more suitable to fuel, recover and adapt favourably to their exercise routine. What people soon realise is that with a more suitable target range of calories, there is much more room for more of the foods they like to eat, and this includes some purely for indulgence.

Now, what happens when people are eating hundreds of calories more per day, from the foods that they like to eat instead of following some restrictive list of what's "good" and what's "bad", including ice cream, pizza or whatever else they feel like... and they actually get BETTER results than they did before? Better performance at training or in sport, and in the changes in body composition they've been trying to create?

I'll tell you what happens; they get happy. Very, very happy.

So if you want to be as happy as all the people talking on my facebook page, head over here to watch a little video about my Custom Flexible Dieting Guidelines, and hit the "buy now" button.

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