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Bodybuilding Tips of the Week

A new bodybuilding tip each week!

Each week we provide a short bodybuilding tip or nugget of advice.

26th April 2008 - Use high intensity techniques sparingly

Don't over do it!

When you get really into your weight training if you are like most people you will find your workouts getting more and more intense. In any particular workout you might get someone to help you force out a few additional reps each set. Or you might do some drop sets, where you do a set to failure then immediately drop to a lower weight and do another set (and so on until you are exhausted). Or you might do negatives, where the weight is so heavy you can't even do a rep and you have to get spotters to help you lift it before resisting the weight on its way back down.

There are many ways to increase the intensity of your workout and as I said you will probably find yourself using them more and more as you seek to grow as fast as humanely possibly. The problem with this is that your body sadly has a limited ability to recover from each workout, and the more intense and brutal each workout is the longer it will take you to recover. Despite this, most of us will train with the same frequency as before and so you end up in an over-trained state.

Effectively you'll be training so hard you ruin all your chances of growing! You will actually train TOO hard. Crazy but true. I know it's difficult to reign in your enthusiasm (I was exactly the same!) but you really will grow quicker if you use these advanced high intensity techniques sparingly (and you might be better off using them only on your most stubborn bodyparts too, in order to try and build a more balanced body).