Exercise

Heightened Intensity Workouts

December 10, 2009
By Adam Sinicki

Heightened intensity workouts involve making a work out more intense to build muscles quickly. Essentially this type of work out attacks the muscles to force them to grow and develop faster. Beginners should take this a bit slower than someone more advanced as it could cause damage and pain to the targeted muscles (although a ripped pec like Stallone’s looks pretty awesome it’s also incredibly painful). To make a routine this intense there are several techniques you can use. They are as follows:

Negatives: Negatives involve doing exercises with weights so heavy you can’t lift them. So to get this started use a friend to help you lift the weight and then let go afterwards, to allow you to reap the benefits of the downward motion. You want to lower the weight as slowly and controllably as possible.

Supersets: Supersets are time savers. Rather than resting while you wait for one muscle group to recover, you work a different, preferably complimentary, muscle group. Then you go straight back to the first exercise. For example 1 set of bicep curls, followed by one set of tricep kick-backs, followed by curls etc etc.

Drop Sets: This is a way you can squeeze out more reps. Basically, once you’ve reached exhaustion on a certain exercise, instead of giving up you just lower the load and carry on. Then do it again. Keep going until you’re on a ridiculously light weight.

Pyramid Sets: Pyramid sets are kind of like drop sets. The difference is you start low and then work up to a higher weight and fewer reps. Then you work back down again. Like a pyramid. Magical.

Cheats: Cheats are another way of squeezing out those last few reps. Here, instead of lowering the weight, you start cheating. For example on a bicep curl you might start swinging your arm up to help. This isn’t as good as doing proper reps but if it means you can go for longer that’s still better than nothing. Remember: cheating is a good thing.

Forced Reps: With forced reps you are cheating as well, but here you get a friend to help. Offering just enough support to enable you to finish the repetition.

Hugh Jackman Workout – For Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine Workout. Sylvester Stallone Training – For Sylvester Stallone’s Training Routine

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