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Holistic Bodybuilding Training

Holistic workout programs

Holistic bodybuilding means planning and working out correctly so that all your muscle fibers that you are trained so they are completely fatigued and activated. But in order to do this we need to understand the different types of muscle fubers that we have.

Most of us know about slow and fast twitch muscle fibers but there are actually seven different types of muscle fibers and they all have varying degrees of recruitment and fatigability. The slower the fiber the lower the threshold for recruitment (the easier it is to activate the fiber), as well as being more fatigue resistant.

This changes as you move up the continuum the fibers recruitment threshold increases, but its fatigue resistance decreases. For example the difference between your eyelid and your calf muscle. Your eyelids move quickly and fast but they fatigue easy.

During the contraction of a muscle the muscle fibers in that muscle are recruited in an orderly manner known in sport science as the "size principal". This basically means that the small slow fibers with their low recruitment threshold are recruited first. As the force increases larger fast fibers are recruited and this will continue until all the force is mopved or held.

The slower the fiber the lower the threshold for recruitment (the easier it is to activate the fiber), as well as being more fatigue resistant. As you move up the continuum the fibers recruitment threshold increases, but its fatigue resistance decreases.

The bottom line is that the heavier the weight the more fast twitch muscles are needed. The higher the load the faster the fibers and the less time is spent actually lifting. The result of doing heavy training is that your slow twitch muscles are not exhausted at all even though your fast twitch have nothing left.

The result of all of this is that most of the time when training heavy we are missing out on potential hypertrophy of slow twitch muscles. If you consider the weight-trainers adage of "unless a fiber is exhausted it has not been trained" then something needs to be done.

This is what holistic training means because the objective is to recruit and exhaust all possible fibers which is where the word holistic comes in. The method is not complicated but gets maximum muscle gains and it obviously includes heavy weights with low reps and light loads with high reps.

You should start off heavy after doing a warm-up and make sure that you are doing low reps like 3 reps with 95% of your maximum load. Make sure your eccentric movement is faster than your concentric about one second down and 3 seconds going up.

The next stage is to target the intermediate muscle fibers by working a heavy weight of less than 95% of your max and do 3 second coming down on the eccentric and a slow 2 to 3 seconds concentric or going up. The overall time under tension to exhaust all intermediate fibers would be around 50 seconds.

Then you are doing the same movement but this time going slower and doing 4 seconds on eccentric and concentric movements. The idea here is to stimulate all the slow twitch fibers that you have left by maintaining the tension as long as you can.

The last set you should start feeling like hell itself as the lactate levels reach an unbearable pain that often separates the men from the boys. Considering this program aims to recruit as many fibers as possible the exercise selection should come from large multi-joint exercises.

For the best holistic workout programs checkout Matrix Mass Training.

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Disclaimer: This information presented is intended to be used for educational purposes only. The statements made have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (U.S.). These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition or disease. Please consult with your own physician or health care practitioner regarding any suggestions and recommendations made.