On Thursday I decided to change things up and change my reps for my workout.

It was a killer workout. The workout took 35 minutes. And I am still sore today.

The workout I did was a high rep workout where I did the same exercises as usual, mostly, and instead of sticking to 6-12 reps per set I actually pushed my reps to 50-60 per set for only a couple of sets per exercise.

This is a High Rep Workout

• 1 set of 60 reps of incline bench press followed by 12 reps of incline flyes
• 1 set of 30 reps of military press
• 1 set of 25 reps of one armed bent over rows
• 1 set of 50 reps per arm of alternating curls
• 1 set of 25 reps of tricep kickbacks

I went through this set with a longer than regular time between sets, maybe a minute or so, and by the end I was really winded and wiped. I took about a 10 minute break and did it again. Read the rest of this entry »

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I commented on a blog this morning by a fellow blogger that found that he got stronger after not working out for a few days. This is pretty common and I have found this myself in the past.

There are two reasons that you would be stronger after not working out after a few days. First you could be overtraining, which I believe is much more prevelent than we realize, or it could be that after a few days the glycogen levels in your muscles are really back up to a good level.

Overtraining

Overtraining can happen quite easily if you are working a muscle group too often, as you probably realize if you work a muscle group more than a couple of times a week you get really sore because your muscle fibers have not had a chance to heal. Make sure that your rest is good and that you do not directly or even indirectly stress your muscles too often! Also be aware that your muscles really do not increase in strenght durin your workout but instead in the days after as your muscles heal completely.

Glycogen levels

One of the things that you will notice after a few days between workouts is that your muscles get stronger and stronger. At the same time when you workout your muscles seem to get weaker and weaker during your workout. The reason for both of these effects is caused by your glycogen levels in your blood and muscles. As you workout your muscles use glycogen for energy and as it depletes so does your strength. Glycogen is just a derivative of sugar that is found in your muscles. Very soon after your workout it is important to take in a lot of liquid carbs. I used to drink sugar and water mixed together but really it is probably better to drink some kind of a post workout energy drink (not Gatorade) and this will help you quickly raise blood glycogen although it really takes a few days to really bring the level back up to the point where you are stronger.