While many people will look for the best training programs for resistance training and cardio work outs the fact is that far too many people will continue with the same routine for far too long. One of the most important factors when it comes to obtaining the fastest possible results and continued progress is mixing up your routine from time to time.

Our bodies have a way of adapting to work outs and what we throw at them day in and day out both inside and outside of the gym. Many people will hit a brick wall and wonder why their results have slowed down or come to a grinding halt. In most cases it is the trainee performing the same work out for months on end and expecting the results to continue.

Shocking your body and forcing it to adapt is one of the easiest ways to boost results and keep your body guessing. Your aim should be never to get stale and allow your body to “get used to” a certain routine. If you feel that you are not getting the results like you once did it might be time to look at mixing things up.

With the countless number of exercises both for resistance training and cardio work, there really isn’t any excuse to not constantly reassess your training program. Whether it be taking off a week or increasing your work load, the easiest way to make the change is to change your exercise program. There are no secret exercises or training programs that you need to stick to for life, don’t make the mistake believing that your results are purely based on “perfecting” your training regime.

Whether you are looking to add lean muscle mass or simply burn fat as fast as possible there really isn’t any secrets to obtaining results. The reason why you see so many people with amazing physiques keep their bodies is because they understand exactly what works and what doesn’t. Understanding how your body responds to both diet and training is critical to achieve long term results you can not only maintain but continually improve on.

We are all created differently and genetics can play a huge  role. What you need to understand is that our bodies do not want to grow lean muscle mass and do not want to lose fat easily, both are counter productive to the survival mechanism that we all have. Think about it, fat is used for an reversed energy source and muscle takes a lot of calories and training to grow as well as maintain. Our bodies need to be pushed in order to force them to adapt, there is a threshold you must break through in order to get results that you can be proud of.

Next time you are lifting weights, on the treadmill or eating something you shouldn’t just remember that your body need to be pushed past this threshold in order to get results. This is why you will often see people that have been working out for years but never seem to get any results whatsoever, they fail to cross the magical line every time they set foot into the gym.

What you put in is what you get out. Going through the motions or simply coasting through your work outs will not cut it, always look to push that little bit harder, there is ALWAYS a little bit more you can give! If you feel that you are not getting results anymore and that you have hit a plateau look to mix things up, it may shock you how this small change can kick start your progress.

We all realize just how important it is to have an effective cardiovascular routine, but we all also desire to get the best results. One of the best ways to get all the benefits of your workout is to find out the best time to do it. Your body has a clock in which things like bodily processes and metabolism go by.

For example, your body has been on a fast while you were sleeping. This not taking in any food makes you have a lower level of carbs available for burning, so when you are working out before eating anything after you awake, you will start to burn off fat instead of all carbs. Carbs are the first thing to go when you work out if they are available. A good idea to make them less available and the fat is to do your exercise before you eat after sleeping.

A big factor in the best time to do cardio for maximum results is time that you have on hand. Many people lead such busy lives that it is hard for them to get any more activities in their lives than they already have. This is an age-old excuse for not having an exercise routine. Exercising is very important to ones’ health and should be made a priority. Many times though, it is hard to do as thru the day people tend to bite off more than they can chew so to speak, this leads to them staying at work later or staying up later trying to get everything done. This leads to other things getting pushed aside and left off, one of these things pushed out of the day is often exercise, another is family, but that is for another article. If you start your day with a great cardio routine then you don’t have a chance to push it out of your day. You can reap benefits all day long from this decision.

Another great reason to exercise, especially cardio, early in your day is because exercising gives your metabolism a big boost. When that happens you generally will feel that increase in energy and have the benefit of burning more while you are already burning some from doing your daily activities. On one note however, know that a too strenuous and overdone cardio routine will make you fatigued and put you in the minus column for the day if you have overdone it to the degree of not being able to function properly. You want to keep your cardio at a good pace where your target heart rate is met for twenty to thirty minutes and not be longer or so strained that you are out of breath severely. Overdoing it will only backfire and lead to slower manifesting of the results you desire.

Essentially, the best time to do cardio for maximum results is depending on your lifestyle factors. Make it a point to see what works best for you.

Over doing it is a very common mistake in exercise routines, especially weight training. It is more commonly seen when people set very “now” needed goals for weight loss or muscle building. In such a scenario people have a situation such as a wedding or some event where they want to look their best but they don’t have a lot of time to do it in. Over training can be dangerous to your health as well as making you feel so bad that you just want to quit exercising, that leads to discouragement. Who would want to train and do their exercise routine if it made them feel miserable every time both during the routine and especially after, that is a sure way to set yourself up for failure and to drop out of your goal. So, how do you know that you are over training? Here are a few symptoms of over training that you should be looking for in order to know when to re-evaluate your routine.

Hypoglycemic episodes during workouts – So much strain is put upon the body’s resources that there is a fall in the glucose levels. This can lead to a whole range of symptoms that are very unpleasant. This can also be especially dangerous for people who’s levels of blood glucose are not very stable.

Lower immunity – Over training can cause such stress that the body will become more likely to get sick, if you notice that when you start working out that you get sick very frequently when you weren’t before, you may want to cut back on your routine some. That could be a sign that you are over training and adding undue stress upon your body enabling dangerous micro-organisms to infect easily.

Fatigue – When you cannot seem to finish a workout because of extreme tiredness or you cannot do much else with your day except for the exercise, you are over training. Exercising should do the opposite, you should have energy when working out in a proper routine. The amount of energy consumed during the workout should not be so much that you simply cannot go on with the workout or cannot finish your day.

Severe pain - When you having muscle pains so severe that you have to take medicine to deal with it you might be using too strenuous of a routine. Workouts should leave you with a slight soreness, but when it becomes unbearable then you know it is a symptom of over training and can actually leave you with muscle damage.

Lightheadedness – This could mean a number of things could be occurring, namely lack of oxygen. This can happen when the workout is so intensive that your heart rate becomes too high and you are not getting enough oxygenated blood. Also it could be one of the signs of hypoglycemia caused by excessive exercising.

All in all, you should be having some soreness and perhaps the slight every now and then breathlessness as you adjust to a more intense routine, but they should not be so severe as to be troubling. The rest of the listed symptoms of over training should have no place in a proper exercise routine, you could be doing more harm than good for your body. Exercise should be a pleasant thing, not tortuous.

There is  no shortage of claims out there from people that swear that H.I.T (High Intensity Training) is the best way to train. I have always been a follower of the great body builders through out the years and one that stood out from group thinking mentally was Mike Mentzer. Mike was one of the first body builders to claim that training less not more was the only way to achieve steady process year in year out, his books on High Intensity Training have sold countless copies world wide. Personal I refer to his books as the “bible” and his “heavy duty” principles as pure gold. What I love about Mike is that he isn’t scared to tell it the way it is, while all other bodybuilders were training the same way Mike broke the mould by only spending a fraction of the time in the gym. Dorian Yates, 6 time Mr Olympia winner has credited his success to the advice and principles of “heavy duty” High Intensity training to Mike Menzter.

First thing first I am a strong believer of natural gains and staying away from drugs in order to build muscle and get ripped. The fact is that drugs are not required and should be avoid at all costs. The unfortunate truth when it comes to diet and training is that most guys and even women follow the advice given in magazines that are there promoting supplements and magic pills to get results. Their interests are to promote the latest and greatest supplements, I would strongly advise saying your money and time and stick to the A.B.C techniques to transform your body.

Now that’s out of the way let’s talk a little about H.I.T and my personal experience and results following the principles set out by Mike Menzter.

My Results With H.I.T

Many years ago I was training like almost every other guy in the gym, 4-5 days in the gym with a few days off in between to recover. Looking back I can safely say that those days took a huge physical toll on me as I was constantly tired, sore and always struggling to make consistent gains no matter how good my diet was or how much cardio I added or dropped from my work outs. Without sounding like a big shot I was definitely pleased with the physical transformation I achieved but the time and toll it took really did make me question whether training like everyone else was the answer. Enter Heavy Duty by Mike Menzter.

After reading Heavy Duty it felt as if alarm bells went off in my head, it really did. Mike’s approach made perfect sense to me and I designed my new training routine and program around his principles.

One of the hardest things about H.I.T is NOT going to the gym often! I loved going to the gym after work and catching up with friends and taking my daily frustration out on the weights. Common sense quickly hits you when you realize that all the hours and food your are eating is to provide RESULTS not how many gym sessions you can squeeze into a week.

To this day I am only training twice a week at most, some periods I am only in the gym once a week. I know that might sound hard to believe but there is no reason to be inside a gym 1 second longer than you need to be to stimulate muscle growth. Muscles grows in your down time (rest & eating) not the pumps or endorphines you feel during your training sessions.

I normally spend no more than 20 minutes in the gym per session, once I am in there I stick to business and leave the moment my training session is over.

H.I.T has given me results in both muscle gain and strength like I gained when I first started training and it seems that there is no slowing down. While building muscle and staying lean is a life long journey there is no greater way to get lean muscle while staying to stay lean as there is following the Mike Menzter principles.

When Mike says Heavy Duty he truly means it. The goal is to stimulate hypertrophy and getting the hell out of the gym, this means that you must only do a couple of sets PER body part instead of the 6,8,10+ sets that most trainees do every training session. The reason behind this is that every set you do after stimulating hypertrophy is essentially leading to overtraining and a huge toll on the central nervous system and recovery.

There is no doubt in my mind that a vast majority of trainees are simply overtraining and not allowing enough time for not only their muscles to recover but to allow for muscle growth. Every training session takes an enormous toll on our bodies and most guys are not seeing muscle gains as a result of too many sessions, too many sets and not enough High Intensity to stimulate muscle growth. Without going over the magical line to stimulate muscle growth you will quickly see that your training and diet is all in vain.

I highly recommend you check out Mike Mentzer’s books and see how his principles and philosophies on body building and training can help you get the results you are looking for.