I read this book recently about how to workout better and smarter. It was great. I learned all these cool things, and I want to talk about them.

For those of you who know me well enough, you know I'm in pretty good shape and exercise regularly. If you know me better, you may also know that I've been in pretty much the same shape for years now. Even though I knew this, I hadn't really pursued means of figuring out why and how to change it, I was just happy enough. Well, now I know.

If you're not a person who works out at all, and you just start suddenly, you'll gain muscle quick. So you get excited, jump on the whole '3 times a week' idea and start training like a madman. Like 90% of people out there, including me, you'll soon be overtraining. '3 times a week' is an absolute myth, in regards to weight training anyway. Aerobic stuff, sure, that's fine, but muscles, no way.

Simply, the stronger you get, the LESS you must train. If you do it right (I'll get to that in a sec). You see, you're muscles get stronger if you train right, and the stronger you get, the heavier weights you must lift, therefore you will have increased stress on your body. Your muscles aren't the only part of your body that needs to recover, your organs and everything else need to also - they don't grow and get strong like your muscles (well, a little, but not comparitively). Pro weight lifters lift twice a month. That's it. You need to recover 100% before you even workout again, or it's all for naught.

But that's not the great thing I learned, that's just one of the benefits of doing what I am going to explain now. The key to building muscle is High Intensity Training. This book I read explains how to measure it in regards to weight, reps, and time to do your exercise. A simple calcuation on those figured gives you a number called your Power Factor. If this number goes up every time you workout, you are making progress. The faster you workout, plus the higher your weight, and higher your amount of reps, the higher your Power Factor is. Pretty simple to understand really. It sounds very simple, and most people would assume that many people already do this, but the catch is that most do not keep track of their time. They'll take long breaks, grab a drink of water in between sets, etc. That throws it all off. To keep your muscles at their peak performance and make the workout 'High Intensity' you gotta track the time.

In addition to that, I learned that the common full-range motion method of exercising is vastly inefficient to 2 other methods. While it doesn't matter what you do when you start lifting (cause you'll put on mucle regardless) after you hit a plateau, you should REALLY switch to one of these two methods.

The first is Strong Range Partials. Basically, you only life the weight in the strongest range of the movement, but increase the weight 50-100% of what you normally do. Studies have proven this to build muscle MUCH faster with MUCH less time consuming workout (only 2-3 sets per MUSCLE!). The downside to this is that you either need a Smith Machine for safety, or a spot to help you, all the time, othewise you will NEVER get the weight up to your strongest range. The other option here, however (since the calculation involves reps and time, too), is to incrase your reps or decrease time or both. Although increasing them is less favorable than increasing weight, if you're in a situation where you can't find a Smith Machine or a spot, like me, this is what you have to try.

The other method is Static Contraction Training. Basically, you just move the weight to the end of the lift and hold it. The amount of weight you use should be so heavy that you can only hold it for 5-10 seconds. Next time you do the workout, adjust the weight so that you can do it only for 5-10 seconds again, because you WILL get stronger. Once again, this includes really heavy weight and needs a spot or a Smith Machine again, can't sub for reps or time here so you got no choice.

The only difference between the two in effectiveness is that Static Contraction is WAY faster. The workout are much shorter, which lead many people to believe that they need to workout more, so for you gym junkies who LIKE to workout, I recommend Strong Range Partials. That's what I am going to start with.

The best thing, too, is right off the start you get a two workouts a week plan, Workout A and Workout B, and these men have idenfitied the best exercises for each workout, as well as which body parts in which order. You START only twice a week! I think that's awesome. After a few weeks of tracking your improvements, they will slow down, which means you need to workout less frequently. Supposedly, in a few months, even I could be working out only twice a month.

To be honest, I've heard about people who don't workout a lot and are huge, but I never really saw it or knew the knowledge behind it which makes it sensible, but now I think I do.

I took all the calculations in the book, as well as the workout plan, and even made a really nice spreadsheet to track my growth, as well as printouts to take to the gym and record my exercises. All I need to get now is a stop watch.

I could say more, but if you are interested I can just email the book to you. It's an e-book. Or you can e-mule it like I did; Training Smart, by Pete Sisco.

I'm really pumped, I can't wait to start this new training. I've been in the same shape for so long. Although, I'm not sure my apt complex gym is what I really need. I mean, as it is, I'm already throwing up the entire rack for the chest machine. I hate these little pathetic machines that only go up to like 250, it's SO retarded. I may have to join a real gym.

Anyway, hope you found this interesting. Maybe after I start I'll post my progress - considering I can make good enough progress with my gym here.

Oh, and big ups to Amanda and Imran for their food ideas. I just cooked for the past few hours now and my fridge is full of foods based loosely on your suggestions, with a little personal twist. I've never made so much rice!

Peas out.