1 Big Weight Training Mistake That You Might be Making

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer
author - The Truth about Six Pack Abs

This is one of the biggest weight training mistakes I've seen over and over again with so many people over the years... it may seem obvious to some advanced trainees, but for most beginner or intermediate people, I've noticed that they make this mistake in the gym MOST of the time...
And that has to do with sets and reps, and the intensity that they are performed.

Let me explain...
What I've noticed is one of the main reasons for lack of progress in the gym is that most people are not performing their reps and sets to challenge their body enough. I'm not referring to rest period between sets either (although that is definitely part of the equation).
For example, many people see a routine in my program or one of my colleagues programs (or even a magazine)... let's say the routine calls for 4 sets of 6 reps of a given exercise... and they just choose a random weight (or a weight that they "think" they are comfortable with) and do 4 sets of 6 reps.

But THAT'S where the major mistake comes in, because they didn't even train remotely close to muscular failure.  In reality, they could have completed 4 sets of 12 reps or more with the weight they chose to do for 4 sets of 6 reps... and then they wonder why they're not seeing results!

The answer is simple... they're not seeing results because they didn't challenge the body enough and therefore, the body has no reason to need to improve.
The right way to do it is this...  If the routine calls for 4 sets of 6 reps, then you should barely be able to complete the sixth rep. Form should still stay good, but it should be a challenge to complete that 6th rep, and a 7th rep would be pretty much out of the question to complete in good form.

Now THAT'S how you train to challenge your body and force it to adapt to the stressor. And that means you get results and your body CHANGES for the better over time.
Now it's a little more complicated than that, because there are dozens of other factors that come into play that determine whether you will effectively make progressions in the gym, based on sets, reps, intensity level, rest and recovery, nutrition, etc.
And once you get into advanced training, you will literally be exhausted... with your chest heaving for breaths if you hit the rep range on some exercises with the right weight and intensity from just 1 SET.

For example, if I'm using a heavy enough weight, even as little as 4 reps of heavy deadlifts can leave my entire body exhausted and I'll be gasping for air for 30-40 seconds after that set (and I'm in pretty damn good shape too)... and that was just from 4 REPS!
But that is a great example of how hard I challenged my body to do those 4 reps and stay in good form... because I chose a weight that was extremely hard for me to complete 4 reps.
Sounds crazy, because most people only think of "cardio" as something that can make you gasp for air and have your heart beating out of your chest... but training with weights at a high enough intensity and challenging weight using the right exercises is actually creating MORE of a reason for your body to respond and change.

Give me a marathoner and have them do a super high intensity set of clean & presses, or heavy 1-arm snatches (or even 20-rep barbell squats) and that marathoner will be on the floor gasping for air if they worked hard enough on the weight training sets.
If you think this is one of the mistakes you've been making in the gym, jack up that intensity and use heavier weights that actually CHALLENGE YOUR BODY, and you just may start to see some more dramatic results with your body!

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Do Men and Women Really Need to Work Out Differently? Should Men Do Different Exercises than Women?

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author:  The Truth about Six-Pack Abs

This is one of my biggest pet peeves in the fitness industry... So many men and women "think" they need to work out drastically different from one another.
For example, many women think they need to do 20 or 30 reps per set of every exercise with little pink 3 or 5 lb barbie weights, because if they actually lift heavier weights, they falsely believe they will "bulk up".
Also, many men think they need to do 1-rep maxes to build muscle... this is simply not true... overall training volume and a caloric surplus builds more muscle than does 1-rep maxes... although I'm not saying there isn't a time and place for 1-rep maxes.
One of my biggest frustrations over the years when I was training lots of females and I would show them the workout I wanted to take them through... they would say something like...
"I don't want to do those exercises. That looks like a man's workout!"
And they would go back to their little pink 5 lb dumbbells and endless cardio routines and keep getting NO RESULTS at all for months or years.
However, the females I trained that were open-minded enough to trust me that if they used heavier weights they would not "bulk up" (as long as their caloric intake was in the correct range), always got tremendous results.
As a matter of fact, some of the leanest females I've trained over the years were the ones that actually trained with the heaviest weights. I had a few female athletes that could deadlift 175 lbs and they were VERY lean, and NOT overly-muscular. In fact, they had very feminine, but lean bodies.
They lifted HEAVY weights in relation to their size and they NEVER bulked up.
Another example is that almost every female I ever trained thought they couldn't use more than 5 or 8 lb dumbbells for an overhead dumbbell press or a dumbbell chest press.  However, when they were open-minded enough to actually try to train their body under more resistance (and thereby create a REAL stimulis for change), most women were almost always able to press 20 or 30 lb dumbbells instead of the 5's or 8's they were previously using.
So my rant in this article is for us all to please stop with the insanity of thinking that we all need to train so radically different whether we're a man or a woman, but rather realize that we are all HUMAN BEINGS.
I don't care if you're a man or a woman... the laws of exercise physiology will always show that the best exercises are the best exercises despite gender.... variations of squats, lunges, deadlifts, step-ups, presses, and rows are always some of the best exercises for humans, regardless of gender.
And this applies whether your goal is fat loss or muscle building! 
Yes, even if your goal is just fat loss and not muscle building, you still need to train your body under progressively heavier resistance (relative to your current strength) to stimulate your body to actually need to change over time.
*Note - when I say "heavy training", I mean heavy resistance in relation to your individual strength levell For example, a heavy resistance in a particular exercise such as a deadlift or squat may be 300 lbs for one person, and only 70 lbs for another person.  All that matters is if the weight that you use is challenging for you to trigger your body to change and adapt to that stimulus. 
Now I will concede that I use slightly different styles of training whether the goal is fat loss or muscle building (notice I said different "styles", not necessarily different exercises), but the bigger factor is actually your caloric balance...
...Creating a caloric deficit for fat loss or creating a caloric surplus for muscle gain, while still training intensely for either goal.
So I say let's all stop training like men or training like women, and let's all start training like human beings in order to get RESULTS!
If you haven't already done so, you can gain access to my extremely effective training program for HUMANS at this page:
The Truth about Six Pack Abs Trial
And you will see why over 263,000 HUMANS, both men and women, have gotten tremendous results by following this program.

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