Walt Alexander
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Walt Alexander

Walt Alexander is the editor-in-chief of Men of Value. Learn more about his vision for the online magazine for American men with the American values—faith, family & freedom—in his Welcome from the Editor.

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FitnessLooking Good

2 Days a Week Strength Training

Training twice a week is something I’ve tried several times and always had success with it. Lots of people have an all or nothing attitude to training. Many people either stop training because they are busy and believe they have to spend loads of time in the gym to achieve any results. They would be better off doing two days consistently as everyone can get to the gym for two sessions a week if it’s a priority for them.

In my first year, I started strength training I only trained twice a week for and had good results. After that year, I could deadlift 180kg easily and gained 12kg in body weight. I have since had several short, but successful spells with twice a week training. I also have a few clients who only train twice a week, and they have all been making good progress

Who could this be a good option for?

Someone with a busy schedule and struggles to make it to the gym more often. #

Someone who simply don’t want to go to the gym more often, but wants to be in shape.

For people who play sports and have other training commitments that are their priority, and only strength train to help improve their performance in their sport, and so can’t spend an excessive amount of time lifting weights.

Someone who recovery issues.

People who have not been able to stick to a routine.

For a short time when life is crazy. The key to making progress is doing this consistently over a long period of time. No matter how busy life is I can always train two days a week and make progress. I can then train

I’m not writing this article expecting people to change their routine if they’re able to do four times a week and are making progress. This is a good option for

How did I set up my training?

There were two ways my assistance work.

Option 1

A – Squat – Bench press – Lower assistance exercises

B – Deadlift – Bench press – Upper body assistance exercises

Option 2

A – Squat – Bench press – 3/4 Assistance exercises

B – Deadlift – Overhead press – 3/4 Assistance exercises

You can use different main exercises. I sometimes used the trap bar deadlift, overhead press, and dips.

Main work progression

I would pick a rep range for each exercise such as 10-5 reps. Work up to a top set of 10. Every session you’ll add weight until you can only do 5 good reps. You’ll then start the cycle again with a weight you can do 8 reps with. This should be more weight than you used at the start of the last cycle.

I do use other rep ranges as well such as 14-8 reps, 12-8 reps, 10-6,12-3 reps etc

An example of what it might look like

Week 1 100kg x 10

Week 2 102.5kg x 10

Week 3 105kg x 10

Week 4 107.5g x 9

Week 5 110kg x 8

Week 6 112.5kg x 8

Week 7 115kg x 8

Week 8 117.5 x 7

Week 9 120kg x 6

Week 10 122.5kg x 6

Week 11 125kg x 5

Week 12 110kg x 10 ( The start of a new cycle)

With the squat and deadlift you’ll do 2-4 back off sets after the top set with 80% of the weight you used for the top set and for the same amount of reps. These sets shouldn’t be to the limit, and the bar speed should be fast for every rep.

So it could look like this

200kg x 9

160kg 3 x 9

Personally, I progress well without doing any back off sets, but some people need more volume.

With the bench press, overhead press, and dips (if used as one of the main movements) you’ll take 90% of the top sets and do 2-4 back off sets for the same amount of reps as the top set.

So it would look like this

100kg x 12

90kg 3 x 12

Assistance exercises would be done for 2-5 sets of 8-15 reps. I would do 3 or 4 assistance exercises a workout. Rest periods would be kept fairly short and often done as supersets so the workout didn’t take too long.

Another way I like to do assistance exercises is the 350 method I got from Paul Carter. With this method, you do 3 sets of as many reps as you can with 2 minutes rest in between. The aim is to get 50 reps over the 3 sets. Once you manage to get 50 reps you can add weight the next time.

100kg x 17

Rest 2 minutes

100kg x 13

Rest 2 minutes

100kg x 8

That gives me 38 reps, so I would keep the same weight until I got it to 50 reps in total.

Upper body assistance exercises

Upper back work (chin-ups, pull up, machine row seal row, t-bar row, dumbbell row, lat pull down etc)

Dips

Close grip bench press

-Dumbbell bench press

Curls
Lower body assistance exercises

Squat variation

Glute ham raise

Romanian deadlift

Leg press

Core work (rollouts, side bends, hyperextensions etc)

Option 2 assistance exercises

Normally the assistance exercises would be

2 upper body pulling exercises

1 upper body pushing exercise

1 lower body exercise

What could a training week strength training week look like?

For option 1, it would like this,

Workout A (squat, bench press and lower body work)

Squats

20kg x 10, 60kg x 8, 80kgx 5, 100kg x 5, 120kg x 5, 140kg x 5

170kg x 8

135kg x 3 x 9

Bench press

20kg x 10, 40kg x 5, 60kg x 5, 80kg x 5,

100kg x 8

90kg 3 x 8

85kg x 10

RDL – 350 method

Glute ham raise – 3 x 12

Wheel rollouts – 3 sets

Face pulls x 200 Done between sets of other exercises

Workout B (trap bar deadlift and press and upper body workout)

Trap bar deadlift (our trap bar weighs 32kg)

72kg x 10, 92kg x 5, 112kg x 5, 142kg x 5, 162kg x 3, 182kg x 3, 202kg x 1

212kg x 8

172kg x 2 x 8

Press

20kg x 10, 30kg x 5, 40kg x 5, 50kg x 5,

65 x 8

60kg x 9

55kg x 4 x 9

Close grip bench press- 3 x 12

Seal row 6 x 15

Lat pull down 3 x 12

Curls – Rest pause set 3 sets with 15 seconds rest between sets

Face pulls x 200 done between sets of other exercises

For option 2 it would look like this.

Workout A (squat, bench press and assistance)

Squats

20kg x 10, 60kg x 8, 80kgx 5, 100kg x 5, 120kg x 5, 140kg x 5

170kg x 8

135kg x 3 x 9

Bench press

20kg x 10, 40kg x 5, 60kg x 5, 80kg x 5,

100 x 8

90kg 4 x 8

Dips 4 x 12

Chin ups 4 x 10

Seal rows 4 x 10

Glute ham raise 4 sets

Workout B (trap bar deadlift and press)

Trap bar deadlift (our trap bar weighs 32kg)

72kg x 10, 92kg x 5, 112kg x 5, 142kg x 5, 162kg x 3, 182kg x 3, 202kg x 1

212kg x 8

172kg x 2 x 8

Press

20kg x 10, 30kg x 5, 40kg x 5, 50kg x 5,

65kg x 8

60kg x 9

55kg x 4 x 9

Romanian deadlift 4 x 10

Close grip bench press 4 x 10

Dumbbell row 4 x 12

Lat pull down 4 x 15

What were the benefits of twice a week training?

The main one was that fitting in the workouts into my life while I had a lot going on was very easy. I tried to keep the same training days that were spread out evenly (Sunday and Wednesday), but with only having two workouts to fit in I could be flexible without it causing any problems. It does take away the excuse of not having time to train as everyone can find the time for two sessions a week.

I found my motivation went up. I was looking forward to each workout and excited about training and that I would try and get a PR. I was itching to get into the gym and made training fun again. I haven’t had a bad workout since I started training twice a week as I always feel recovered, fresh and excited about training when I start the workout.

If you’re going through a stressful time, or not getting much sleep you are likely to find this easier to recover from than if you were training 4+times a week. My joints felt great doing this after doing this.

if strength and building muscle isn’t your main priority it can give you more time to do cardio and mobility work. I did more much-needed mobility work at home while watching TV as I had a little more spare time. Jim Wendler has a template in his books called 2x2x2. With this, you do two strength workouts, two mobility workouts and two conditioning/cardio workouts. This can be a well-balanced way for you to train.

What are the main negatives of just training twice a week?

There is only so much you can do in just two workouts. You can’t spend as much time working on weak points and it can be hard to get a lot of volume in

The workouts have to be really hard, and I had to push close to failure a lot, and I had to cram so much into the sessions. Mentally this was tough.

One of the most frustrating things about being a personal trainer is seeing people throw all their hard work away by stopping training completely, or by taking large breaks so they end up just working to regain what they had done before. I would rather they trained twice a week consistently for a long time, than four times a week and stop once life gets busy. Or just keep two days a week as a short term option for when life gets crazy.

You might surprise yourself with what you can achieve while doing so little. It’ certainly much better than giving up and then having to start from scratch.

https://chrisadams-personaltraining.com/

Chris Adams

Personal trainer at Real World Fitness in Nottingham

Article source: http://articlebiz.com

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Rayner Teo once said that,

Trading the Forex market may be easy, at the same time it can also turn into a nightmare.

Why? 🤔

Because when you are trading the market with a real account and of course which contains your real investment (that maybe you’ve gathered from a lot of sweating and hard work) there are a lot of factors to look out for. Such as,

Often your emotions take over you.

You suffer to make decisions due to psychological effects.

And that’s not even the BIGGER picture.

There is a very specified error that is causing havoc to the online trading industry. I’m sure that you’re aware of my claims. Don’t you?

Let me clarify it to you, “ I’m talking about Forex scammers “. And tell me, “Are you a victim too”? Not gonna lie, it is becoming a WILD DISEASE man!

Various people with low and cheap mentality are doing this sort of disgraceful work and I think all of you guys know the reflexive action of their work.

And let me tell you that I’ll be shedding a light on a few types of scams that are seen quite often these days. My only hope is that you might get the idea of scamming by reading this.

So, that being said, Let’s fight together.

But before all the fuss. You might be wondering how you’re gonna identify a certain appearance whether it is a scam or not. From that perspective metaphorically speaking, there are few certain things that can help you examine the scams.

Here is the ABSOLUTE procedure-

The first thing you wanna look out for is certain commitments like “Guaranteed Profits”.

I mean let’s be honest here, the Foreign exchange market is HUGELY volatile and due to that circumstance, not even the BEST market trader can guarantee 100% profits. So, don’t fall into this wicked trap.

Moving on, the next important thing that you should always remember that scammers don’t oblige with authority.

Feeling a little dizzy? I understand!

In simple words, what I’m trying to say is, it is a wise choice to avoid all the aspects that don’t come up with the regulatory license. There are some unregulated brokers who possess quite a reputation”.

You know what I totally agree with you. That’s the reason I specifically said it is a wise decision to avoid them not to use them. Hope you’ve understood.

Now, let’s get ourselves with some ongoing Forex trading scams.

-Forex Trading Scams Using Robots

-The revolution of technology was meant to be the solution to every problem, Alas! It’s now the center of numerous scamming acts.

Also in the Forex Industry, There is no exception to it. Moving on, the Forex robots were created using algorithms or computer codes whatever you may call them. And there is another important thing that you should know is “Not All Robots Are Scam”.

And, trust me, I mean it!

There are some trading robots that hold quite a reputation due to the feedback of their users. Also, you can get access to an effective trading robot if you do enough digging.

Now you might be wondering, “How the hell I’m gonna find an effective trading robot because almost 80% of them are just myths”. If that is the problem, then I might know the solution.

Forex Scammer Offers Guaranteed Profits

We often encounter several commitments such as a robot providing 100% guaranteed profits. Let just be clear, I’m not saying that this is impossible but from my point of view rather unusual.

And like I’ve mentioned earlier always try to ignore these sorts of appearances. Because from my perspective that’s a wise move otherwise you may end up losing BIG time.

Again, these sorts of greedy offers may tempt your mind but don’t forget to check the statistics. The profits may be fabricated as a delusion. Think about that for a moment!

Don’t fall for their marketing tactics. Scammers will do anything to make you believe that they are not a myth and that’s the primary symptom that will help you to find out whether they are a scammer or not.

So, the moral is: If anyone tries their heart out to convince you then simply just ignore them.

On the other hand, if they show you the statistics of their trading history then you might consider them. Because the numbers don’t lie, do they?

“To get pure trading signals from the experts, we recommend PipsWin.com

Right now they’re offering a lifetime membership of only $200. For more details contact here.”

Signal Seller Scams

Scamming using a trading signal as a metaphor is happening quite often these days. Rather, it has become a daily life schedule for scammers.

And I bet you already know enough regarding the Forex signal providers so I’m not pulling an in-depth conversation regarding it.

But if you’re a freshman then you should know that the Maximum number of signal providers are individual traders and they provide several market predictions.

Again, it’s not an easy task, you’ve to be ABSOLUTELY tremendous with the charts and the timeframes.

Also, a signal provider always stays up to date with the latest economic and political affairs. Speaking of signal providers, there is something that you should know. Which is what?

Now, let’s showcase a few sorts of signal scamming factors. Here are they:

Signal Charges: This signal charge is something that you’ve to pay in order to access the market predictions that a provider supplies you.

And they show you their tremendous results to motivate you with a definite purpose that you may buy them. And often the signal turns out otherwise and you end up losing money.

Broker Related Signals: This sort of scams are quite rare to see but for your kind information you should know that it still exists. Some of you might be wondering, “what the heck is he talking about?”

Well, this the brief explanation: Broker-related or broker-tied signal means you’ve to actually register with a brokerage company in order to get certain market predictions from an individual signal provider.

Sound relatable?

Moving on, in this procedure the signal provider benefits from both ways and which obviously includes you and the brokerage company as they give some percentage to him. And from numerous market geniuses’ point of view, this is actually illegal.

Trading Scams Through Phone Calls

I think many of us are familiar with these sorts of scams. For those who still haven’t faced this, you guys should know that there are few tricky people out there who will sell their service thoroughly by calling you.

They are experts in this field, so they will tell you mind-boggling stories if you invest with them. Some of them might sound like-

-If you invest with us, you’ll be rich in 7 days

-Invest with us and double your money in 3 days

-Invest and become a millionaire in under 30 days.

I mean like seriously! Lol!

For your own safety if you encounter something like this, simply just ignore it. Trust me, it’s for your betterment and you’ll thank me later for this.

So, these are some of the examples of scams that are often happening around us simultaneously.

And also it’s quite sad but true that people are really buying this sort of scams. We all need to avoid it.

But how?

Well, first of all, you’ve to be ABSOLUTELY patient while making the decisions. Don’t rush in anything, it doesn’t end well, and history says it all.

One of the primary things that you should always live by is learning to check the backgrounds. Uncover the truth, it’s a good habit.

Again, if the offer is very tempting then ask yourself a few questions while making a decision. Such as-

-What’ll be your approach when you don’t think the offer is made for you?

-How obligatory the contract is?

-Is the Broker or service provider giving you enough contract info about them?

-Do they have a business address that is verified by other customers?

-Is the company registered by maintaining absolute authority?

-Do they give you their background info and recent performance stats?

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