Aidan Mackey Health

12/02/2018

The current body of evidence indicates that frequencies of training twice a week promote superior hypertrophic outcomes to once a week even if total volume is the same. - Schoenfeld, 2016. -----------------------------------------------------------
You could try organising your training like this.
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Why no glutes? Why so little arm work?
Remember, this is a basic guideline for people who haven't organised their training before. There will be decent crossover to glutes, biceps and triceps if you use a range of compound movements like squats, deadlifts, pull ups and overhead press. ~10 sets is a guideline. -----------------------------------------------------------
God bless Saint Schoenfeld (and yeah I favoured triceps )

08/02/2018

Hypertrophy is just a sexy name for 'training to get swole'. Sometimes in the pursuit to get swole you can fall victim to Rule 6. Don't be that guy. Be humble.
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These are the basics. Don't worry about advanced techniques or what Veiny Guy is doing with 6 sets of dumbells at his feet and a chain hanging off him until you check these off... for quite some time.
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If you need advice or have questions about getting swole or 'toned' give me a shout or drop a comment below.

20/12/2017

Supplement Series:
Creatine

My evidence based guide

It Figures

18/12/2017

You shouldn't let it all slip over one silly holiday.
It's one day! Think of all the hard work you've put it in all year just to ruin it for one materialistic capitalist ploy.

- lol jk -

If you have good habits built in then it has taken you quite some time practising them. A few days won't break down those habits. Get straight back at it again after you polish off the end of the Bailey's.

If you don't have those good habits built in yet then what are you afraid of? Are you going to stress about making slightly poorer food choices when you have spent this long putting things off? Lol - have a drink and shut up.

If you don't want to feel like an absolute bag of crap you should do these things -

Eat a serving of protein at each meal - it will regulate your hunger so you feel more 'normal' about food rather than just eating sweets til you feel disgusting - and that's not a body composition thing or about trying to stay in shape or any of that really - it's just something that will make you feel human rather than eating the quality street you don't even like just because you can. You know that's​ not right.

Have protein at breakfast - if you are having a fry up just make a few extra eggs, maybe some ham. You could have a protein shake after your fry up instead.
Make sandwiches for you and the gang in the evening with leftover turkey, ham or goose (I suppose if you live in 1850).

Have a glass of water from time to time - each time you go to the kitchen down a glass before you grab the next bottle of white wine from the freezer.

Load up on vegetables at dinner - if nothing else it'll be funny later when the Brussel sprouts make you and your Dad fart uncontrollably - more family bonding.

Sometimes an after dinner walk is nice.
Sometimes after-eights are nicer each to their own. But definitely play the after 8 game - if you don't know what it is message me for the rules -
That's it - let the hair down - if you are cutting over Christmas good luck - I hope its worth it.
I hope you find a new coach soon too :P

Merry Christmas!

Aidan

14/12/2017

Some content you can come to expect from It Figures:

1. Full range of motion
2. Low production value videos
3. Evidence based advice
4. A little bit of skin.
5. Nutrition stuff coming soon.

For now, here's 1, 2 & 4 😋 Do you do single leg work? Bulgarian Split squats are a super exercise for quads and glutes!

Load them up to the weight of around half your barbell squats depending what rep range you want to work in.

Aidan.

07/12/2017

Dog's Dinner Exercises!

1. The Lateral Raise

This must be the most butchered upper body exercise I see in gyms.

I will personally form check anyone doing reps with more than 15kg!

Send me your videos in messenger and I will take a look for you 😋

I use this movement very frequently to build volume in it and with many sets and reps. It is certainly not something I add a substantial load to.

If you are using these with 15kg plus doing the funky chicken and you get a quad pump but your delts aren't growing... Well, it figures.

Aidan.

23/11/2017

Get swole guidelines

[Progression]

The main driver of growth is Volume. What is volume? Volume is the total amount of workload performed within your sessions.
You can calculate volume per session by multiplying your (SETS) x (Reps) x (Load Used) = Volume

Let's say you Bench Press 100kg for 3 sets of 8 repetitions.
Your volume for that exercise is: 2400
So you want to progress this exercise after 2 weeks of hitting the same numbers...

You have a couple of options: You could up the weight to 105kg and do 3 sets of 5... until you are able to get the 3 sets of 8 again... that's a solid plan and it might take a while,
Let's do the maths though...105 x 3 x 5 = 1575
More weight... less volume but somehwere to start from again.

One of the other straightforward options is to add a set:
100Kg x 8 x 4 = 3200.
That's a lot more volume and you havn't tapped into the neural drain that grinding for a fifth rep takes or the potentially magnified injury risk that comes with training closer to failure.

But, hold on. What about adding a little weight and a set and seeing how many reps you can get that way... Hypothetically, you could get 7 reps per set...
102.5kg x 7 x 4 = 2870
That's a nice progression, I think. Best of both worlds.

Each progression has it's place so don't get caught up in adding load week on week at the expense of your volume, think about your goals and your recovery capacities. Adding load is good in the long run but we shouldn't get carried away.

20/11/2017

Get Swole Guidelines

[Things people say but don't understand]

"Listen to your body"

People that I see "listening to their body" when it comes to training are often haphazard in their approach.

The premise is both valid and valuable but what I see is people who say things like "If I'm feeling like a warrior that day I'm going to go slay the dragon bro"

Listening​ to your body is not a matter of killing it if you have a pep in your step, going for max effort personal bests and 1RMs and 'emptying the tank'.

This just shows how disorganised your training is.

Easing up on training after 3 workouts in a row of emptying the tank because now you feel like a pile of crap is not listening to your body. That's called not being a complete du***ss. It's not clever training. You've just done something stupid and now you are paying for it.

Listening to your body is getting a proper night's sleep when your training is getting intense.

It's making sure you get that little bit extra warm up if you don't feel so light on your feet.

It's leaving a rep or two in the tank when life stress leaves you a little lackluster.

It's identifying the external factors that are affecting your ability to produce your best performance and changing them for the better.

20/11/2017

Get Swole Guidelines

[Variation: When and Why]

Heavy barbell/straight bar compound lifts combined with progressive overload are the best way to develop muscle from a beginner all the way to advanced.

The combination of these two are so effective at producing an overload they may be 3/4 of all you will need to do in order to have a pretty well developed physique.

It will probably come at a cost to your joints at some point though even if it is only small, the wear and tear comes with the overload especially if you get very strong.

There are things you can do to minimise damage and play the long game. This post is aimed at exercise selection but there are many variables to look at.

You can make a heavy compound lift a little easier on the joints by swapping it for a look-a-like, whilst using the Principle of Variation.

- Straight bar pull ups become gymnastic ring pull ups.

- Barbell bent rows become EZ bar rows

- Bench press can become dumbell press or cambered bar press.

- Lat pull down with a bar becomes pull down with a rope.

- Military press becomes single arm dumbell press

There are so many options to choose from that do pretty much the same thing.
You can use machines too like leg press and hacksquat.

The barbell is the proverbial meat and potatoes but you could go for some salmon and rice for a few weeks.

4-6 weeks of doing the same exercises calls for changes to some but there might be a time when a complete overhaul is in order, just make sure you have done the hard work consistently, first.

18/11/2017

Get Swole Guidelines

The reason you are not getting more muscular is most probably a fault with your training.

You need to force an adaptation.

1. Plan a workout for each day that you are able to go to the gym. Don't plan a workout for a day that you MIGHT be able to go.

If you can go 3 days a week for sure then make a definitive 3 day plan.

2. Use compound lifts for most of your movements. Compound lifts are ones that use a lot of joints and muscles groups.

Think heavy barbell squats before you think seated leg extension.
Tick all of these boxes.

Squat
Hip hinge
Vertical pull
Horizontal pull
Vertical push
Horizontal push

3. Train each muscle group 2 times a week or more. You can vary the movement between days.

For example when picking your back exercises. Monday - Barbell Bent over Row
Friday - Seated Cable Row

4. Keep the same exercises once you have chosen them.
Get very good at these exercises.
Get very strong at these exercises.
Give yourself at least 4 weeks of the exact same exercises.

5. You have given yourself at least 4 weeks now to get the most out of this plan.
Do you train to failure in the first week?
No.

There is no need to train to failure. You've probably got enough stress to deal with and that only takes more recovery time outside of the gym that you probably don't have.

Train close to failure and think about the extra rep or two in the tank as reserves for next week when you've got 5 sets of heavy ass squats to do. You'll need it.

Which brings me to

6. You can add a set or add load or do both to make progress.
Volume makes you grow
Load makes you strong
You can't have both all the time but you can inch your way closer each week.