TRAIN LIKE A GIRL TO LOOK LIKE A BEAST!

Without a doubt, the most flawed workout routine trophy has to go to the guys. I say this because of how imbalanced and non holistically most guys approach their training plan. What should be a well thought out routine looks more like, well...I think it's best if you imagine a caveman voice here..."must lift weights, cardio bad, stretching for girls". Rarely will you see one of these knuckle draggers warm up, do any sort of cardio, and there isn't a cool down in sight. After all, that stuff is useless right? All you need is to lift heavy weights to get big right? Defiantly not!

Let's dissect this a little...

Why your crap routine won't get you bigger.

1. The warm up

Without a proper warm up, your body isn't ready and optimized to pickup heavy S#?t. Imagine me coming to your cave (you are a caveman) and ripping the woolly mammoth hide off of you as you dream of hunting tera dactyls, throwing a rock into your hands (there are no barbells yet...remember your a caveman)

and expecting you to perform rep after rep of rock military presses. This would suck and I guarantee, you wouldn't be at your best...but that's what you are asking your body to do when you don't properly warm up. You won't be able to consistently add weight or give your working sets total focus. so you don't get bigger or stronger.

2. Stretching

Somewhere along the way some idiot decided that stretching was girly and annoying, and passed this idea to all of his buddies. What does stretching have to do with building muscle? Besides preventing injury...it helps restore tight muscles to their proper length. This is important because of reciprocal inhibition. What the hell is that? Your muscles work together to produce movement in the body. When one muscle is contracting, it causes the opposing muscle to relax (reciprocal imhibition). When a muscle is shortened from over use and a lack of stretching it causes what's know as an altered length tension relationship. Oh man this is getting way too sciencey...calm down, I'll give you a simple illustration. Imagine this conversation between the biceps and triceps:

Biceps- "Hey triceps, would you mind chillin out for awhile? I'm trying to work here".

Triceps- "Sure thing biceps...I'll just go take a nap, let me know when you're done".

Except here's the problem, the Triceps will always think the biceps is still working because the biceps is shortened and in a constant state of semi contraction  due to over use and lack of stretching. This leads to terrible performance and poor strength. 

Now do you see why stretching will make you stronger??

3. Cardio

Yes cardio. Even if your goal is to get huge and as strong as possible...you need to do cardio. Cardio will help you recover quicker from sets, make your body better at using nutrients and help optimize hormones in your body, IF you do the right cardio...get familiar with this acronym HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). HIIT can be performed with any kind of traditional routine, you just have to make a few tweaks. Generally HIIT sessions are no longer than 20 minutes, and are a series of short bursts of maximum effort (maybe 1 min) followed by a short break (something like 30 sec). The work and rest intervals should evolve with your fitness level. Get it? I said evolve and this hole time I've been talking about cavemen...oh never mind...

4. Cool down

Ok Grug (your name is Grug because you're a caveman remember? And besides I can't call you Steve...that's a ridiculous name for a caveman) you're all done with your last set, drop the rocks (weights) and wander back to your cave right? No way man...I just spent several minutes telling you all about shortening muscles from over work and lack of stretch remember? You just spent an hour pounding your muscles into submission, now it's time to get everybody (muscles) back where they belong at their proper length. Optimally you would spend 30min or so just stretching and foam rolling but most people don't have the time for that. Here is what I normally do...After I workout I spend about 5 min cooling down and another 5 min stretching and foam rolling.  Then I take 30 min before bed to really get some time in stretching and foam rolling. Now I'm not going to get into how to stretch or foam roll...that's a hole other article by it self and there are plenty of videos out there at your finger tips. I would suggest checking out Elliott Hulse he has what seems like an endless supply of you tube videos. 

Here is an overview of what your program would look like.

• Warm up about ten to fifteen min, including stretching.

• Now it's time to lift weights

• Cool down 10-15 min, include stretching and foam rolling

• I prefer to do cardio separate from my weight lifting because that way, I can give it 100% effort. 

• 30 min before bed stretch and foam roll. Do this every night if possible. 

So the reason you need to lift like a girl to become a beast? Because girls more commonly incorporate warm ups, cardio, stretching, and cool downs as part of their routine. And if you apply these same methods with a solid weight program, you will separate  yourself from all the other guys at your gym that look the same as the day they walked in.