More is not better, more intense is.

Do what it takes to be the best you can possibly be as an athlete. Plug into these tips to give yourself the edge!

Muscles don't grow during a workout. They grow between the workouts - if you allow them to rest that is. All too often, the over-enthusiastice trainer works out longer and more often under the impression that more is better. Over training is the arch-nemesis of the strength trainer. Training by itself does not necessarily translate into growth; training plus recuperation does.

Proper recuperation includes two separate components; specific recuperation and systemic recuperation. Specific recuperation refers to hom much time you allow between training a particular body part. The rage these days seems to be training every day and hitting each muscle group once per week. This is not a bad idea, but if you are training six or seven days per week, you are defeating the purpose of one body part a week training. Individual muscle groups need to rest between training sessions, but so does the entire body.

Systematic recuperation means allowing your entire body to recuperate by not training too many days in a row. If you train too frequently, this places excessive demands on your nervous system. Two or three days of weight training in a row is the most you should ever do. If you are a "hard-gainer" than every other day routine might be even better. A two on, one off schedule where you work each muscle every five to seven days is extremely effective.  This allows individual muscles and your entire body sufficient recuperation for maximal growth.

Progressive Resistance the Key to Gaining Mass

There are many factors involved in building a muscular physique, but in the long run the only thing that really matters is that you progressively overload your muscles. There are many ways to overload a muscle such as:

• Decreasing rest intervals
• Increasing volume
• Slowing rep speed
• Increasing time under tension
• Doing more repetitions
• Using stricter form
• Adding more weight to the bar

The more weight you can lift in strict form, the bigger the muscle will get, the stronger you will become, period.  Constantly adding weight at every session can seem like an insurmountable task at times, but the best way to achieve this goal is to make tiny, incremental increases consistently over time. Don't attempt large jumps in weight loads too quickly. Aim for adding just 2.5 pounds to 5 pounds with every workout on the basic exercises.

You may not always be able to increase the weight, but you must make progress in some form at every single workout or you are wasting your time. Keep your workouts brief in duration and high in intensity.

The definition of intensity is the degree of momentary muscular effort that you exert during a set. In other words, intensity is how hard you workout. Most athletes simply do not train hard. Most likely this lack of intensity is due to the volume being too high.

The harder you train, the less sets you will be able to do - and need to do. As a general rule, it is most effective to keep your workouts brief and intense (under 60 minutes).  More is not better, harder is better. Always train to the point of failure, or just short of failure.