Should I workout?

[storm]

I want to try to build a little muscle ...but i have a physical high stress job( ups driver), i work 10 hours a day on a very high volume route. Do you think I should work out ? IF so before or after work;(usually after work im exhausted) Should I workout weekends? or is it best to rest overweekend due to work week?

thankyou

[wodgina]

Those UPS trucks look cool.

[HIT_it_RAW]

If you want to gain some muscle; Yes you should.
Limit the volume of your workouts as much as possible to prevent overtraining. One weight training a week should be very doable with your current work shedule. Select 6-9 basic exercises (according to what equipment you have available) and do one set each to utter muscular failure. Growth stimulation is directly proportional to the INTENSITY of your workout. The greater the VOLUME of your workout the more recovery is nessecary. Adaptation (growth) comes after recovery. The ideal workout has the highest possible intensity with the lowest possible volume. Thus 1 set done to failure aim to fail between the 8th and 12th rep. But do not stop regardless of what number of reps you can actually do only terminate the set when movement becomes utterly impossible. Than adjust the weight for your next wo so you will again fail at the apropiate rep count. Move controlled in perfect form do not jerk or throw the weight as this wil produce high impact forces wich causes injury.

Idealy I would say work out on saturday so you have some rest before and after your workout. That would however mean that your saturday night should be spent recouperating from the wo wich is an unexceptable situation for many. If so workout on sunday.

Good luck!

ps feel free to pm me if you have any additional questions regarding exercise.

[HIT_it_RAW]

Those UPS trucks look cool.

Really? I've always felt sorry for those driving them because they look very hard to manouver in heavy traffic/small streets. That's in nl. In the US you have a bit more space of course.

[wodgina]

I'd imagine it's a hard job. Always under pressure, no loading bays, stressful traffic. No Thanks. I've only seen the trucks in movies or TV shows so didn't realise they were that big.

[aLptHW4k4y]

Growth stimulation is directly proportional to the INTENSITY of your workout. The greater the VOLUME of your workout the more recovery is nessecary.

By intensity I understand you mean the weight you lift during a single rep, and by volume the total tonnage you lift?

e.g. lifting 20kg x 10 is higher intensity than lifting 10kg x 20, but it's same volume. You can't say it's directly proportional to the intensity in my opinion. Maximizing both intensity and volume would be optimal for growth stimulation.

[HIT_it_RAW]

intensity is the percentage of momentairy ability. if at any time you could lift 100kg for 10reps but do only 5 intensity is low if you do 9 or 10 your working closely to your maximum ability thus intensity os high. no amount of light (low intensity) work will produce growth stimulation. one has to work very close to max intensity to trigger the body into growth. if intensity is low there is no need for growth because you are actually asking your body to do something it can already do easily.

1 set done to failure (max intensity) will stimulate growth. any aditonal work say a second set wil not produce more growth stimulation since the max stim is already triggered. it wil however drain the recovery system more. thus demanding more recovery before growth can commense.

[aLptHW4k4y]

What you're saying is the maximum of both intensity and volume, isn't it?
If growth would be directly proportional to intensity, it would be best to just lift 1RM once.
Volume is just as important.

[HIT_it_RAW]

if you read my post you would have noticed i recommended 1 set of about 10reps. Not 1rm. there are several reasons for that: 1 intensity is never as high because one can never activate all fibers at once. during the set different fibers take over if you fail at the 10th rep you have exhausted more fibers thus bigger intensity. if you fail after to much reps however, say 30, the fibers are not exhausted but merely worked=low intensity. 2 1rm training very easily produces injurys due to much higher weights. 3 it is very difficult to maintain good form during 1rm training. 4 a cold muscle cannot be worked to max intensity. this is a protection mechanism, your nervous sytem fakes failure to protect the tendons/attachments. after the first several reps of a set however one can work a muscle to the max intensity. 5 a set of several reps as opposed to 1 rep also has cardiovascular and metabolic conditioning benefits.

so no not the maximum of both intensity and volume. Max intensity with minimun volume. the minimun volume does not mean the lowest amount possible it means the lowest amount possible without sacrificing intensity. this happen to be 1 set to utter failure for about 8-12 reps. individual fiber type can strecht these numbers somewhat to 6-8 for fast twitch subjects and 10-15 for slow twitchs but in general and for the largest part of the population 8-12 reps is solid.

[HIT_it_RAW]

what happened to achilles posts?

[aLptHW4k4y]

I'm not sure about it, what about this study: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012033

Conclusions/Significance

These results suggest that low-load high volume resistance exercise is more effective in inducing acute muscle anabolism than high-load low volume or work matched resistance exercise modes.

[achillezzz]

I think you should not workout xDDD 

[HIT_it_RAW]

I'm not sure about it, what about this study: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012033

both the high and the low intensity groups did 4 sets. wich is way to much for the high int group. every increase in intensity should be accompanied by an decrease in volume. They only measured metabolic and hormonal changes direct after training. what those test results tell is that recovery (wrongly interpreted as growth) started faster in the low intensity group which is very logical since they stressed their body way less. in the high int group the system as a whole needs longer to recouperate before anabolism can begin. this is partly because they used a way to high volume for the high int group.

if they truly wanted to test if intensity or volume is more impotant thanthey should have had one group do high int low vol and one group high vol low intense. anyone who has any experience in exercise knows that high int combined with high volume will overwork both the system as a whole and the individual muscle leading to reduced or even reversed progress.

[achillezzz]

Hit it raw is right as usual you see the problem is not with the scientific method the problem is that very few scientists understand it...

[intrigued]

I'm curious, is this once a week ~6-9 exercises to failure something that you suggested because of his job already, or is that kind of a common suggestion?  I have a far more sedentary (desk) job, but am interested in this method.  I'm also trying to pick up walking/running more, but want to add weights to that and am trying figure out the best way to do that.

[Isthmus]

I think you should not workout xDDD 

Lol, beat me to it

[HIT_it_RAW]

I'm curious, is this once a week ~6-9 exercises to failure something that you suggested because of his job already, or is that kind of a common suggestion?  I have a far more sedentary (desk) job, but am interested in this method.  I'm also trying to pick up walking/running more, but want to add weights to that and am trying figure out the best way to do that.

If you have a more sedentary job than you can probably stand more exercise without becoming overtrained. However that is not to say that you actually need more exercise for best results. So you it is kind of a general advice. I would however advice novice lifters to start 2x a week 10-12 basic exercises. Than as one gets stronger (which should happen very fast when just starting weightlifting) reduce to 2x 8 exercises a week than later 3 x 8 per 2 weeks. Then (by now you should at least be twice* as strong as you were when you started) reduce to 1 x 8 per week.

*twice as strong meaning that you can lift twice the weight for the same number of reps not twice the reps for the same weight.

[hilton]

You should take both bench press & arms press with your dumbbells.
Generally take exercise of each part of your body with dumbbell until the muscle of that part get little pain.
Best it that you see any chart of exercises with dumbbell from any book or gym.

[Chris]

I want to try to build a little muscle ...but i have a physical high stress job( ups driver), i work 10 hours a day on a very high volume route. Do you think I should work out ? IF so before or after work;(usually after work im exhausted) Should I workout weekends? or is it best to rest overweekend due to work week?

thankyou

Of course you should work out. You should do it first thing in the morning then, it will give you energy and get the "juices" flowing. Start out 3 days a week, then gradually increase to 4 or 5 depending how your body reacts/feels. Remember if you want to build muscle, you need to push yourself, and intensify your workouts.