Making – Appliances catalogue

03 Dec

Blog

Chorus Review: Making Space Inaccessible For Everyone

December 3, 2021
Posted by Samson

A cult stronghold in the chorus.

"Chorus' great space combat is marred by a myriad of design decisions, ranging from frustrating to downright annoying."

advantages

Intense space combat
Excellent sound design

disadvantage

Terrible user interface
Irredeemable main character
Incomprehensible dialogue

When I previewed Chorus, I praised the game for its high-intensity space dogfights. Air combat is fun enough, but when you move it into space and add super powers to a player's ship, combat is taken to a whole new level. You can teleport behind your enemies and shoot them down or actually drift in space. Let me repeat the last part; You can drift in space like you were in a Fast and Furious movie.

But space combat and the magical killer powers your ship has are the beginning and the end of Chorus' strengths. The game (one that has clearly been invested a lot of time and money due to its graphics and wonderful sound design) is an ordeal to trudge through if you are not shooting at something. Even then, there are plenty of reasons to be upset about it.

Chorus brings great space battles to the table, but that's not what defines it. Instead, it's the game's myriad problems, all of which were more present on my screen than enemy ships ever were. Terrible user interface, bloated design, an uninteresting story, and a completely irredeemable main character make Chorus drain the fuel from the tank.

Space war criminal simulator

Chorus puts players in the role of Nara who, when you actually control her, is a pirate hunter for a group called Envoy. She is incredibly talented, popular, and leads the group as she fends off a fascist space cult called The Circle, which is slowly spreading across the star system.

However, when she is first introduced, Nara is not with the envoy: she is a warrior for The Circle. Not only is she a warrior, she is also one of their best warriors, someone whom the leaders of the group trust so much that she is tasked with destroying an entire planet that refuses to join the sect. It does so and, by its own estimate, is killing billions. After committing intergalactic genocide, Nara said, "Are we the bad guys?" Moment and get out of the circle, giving up her identity and joining the enclave where she is not known to try to get on with her life.

Nara touches a piece of metal in the chorus. Microsoft

Most of Chorus consists of players fighting the cult as Nara, slowly pushing it back as it destroys its outposts and ships, while helping the resistance movement that has developed against it. It's her way of atonement, and the game often prompts players to sympathize with Nara, showing her in vulnerable moments when she is faced with her own memories. That's a question I just couldn't respect. That Nara, who only realized that the cult to which she belonged (which subjugates groups of people with psychic totems), was bad after blowing up a planet is irretrievable.

It's entirely possible that I'm just too tough, too jaded, or too indifferent, but I couldn't find a single way that Nara could atone for her actions outside of the Circle. Indeed, it was a hesitant decision to actively participate in the resistance. She didn't want to go back to the fighting and violence she knew. If it was up to Nara, she would never have had to face her past, never have to make amends for what she did. She is a selfish, immature character, one who was written into one of the most demanding villain-to-hero stories I've ever seen.

She is a selfish, immature character, one who was written into one of the most demanding villain-to-hero stories I've ever seen.

But in the context of the entire story of Chorus, Nara is only part of the subject (albeit a very big one). The game often introduces new characters and keeps a small number that reappear to move the plot forward. But it's almost impossible to actually connect with these minor characters. In Chorus, the characters rarely get out of their ships, so all of the NPCs you encounter are really just voices in ships, indicated by a small image on the right side of the screen.

Without seeing their faces in motion, these characters are little more than disembodied voices. When one of them died in battle, it just didn't hit me. It was just another ship that exploded. It doesn't help that none of the other characters in the game are very convincing either – the way they're presented has completely alienated them from me.

Attack on a large ship in chorus.

To be fair, that goes with chorus. As I moved through the game's story, I didn't feel connected to her. There were no instances where I rushed to my next story mission in the game's open world because of a sense of urgency. Everything happens slowly and very rarely do the stakes feel as high as they are depicted.

Exciting dogfights

My time, spent tormenting my way through the cutscenes and dialogues of Chorus, has paid off every time I've had the chance to shoot some other ships. The game's take on space combat is superb and I felt like an unstoppable force in every fight. While players encounter battles involving smaller ships the most, the game is only really picking up speed.

These battles are as cinematic as they are thrilling, and put every weapon at their disposal to the test.

During these battles, which I compare to the rebels who fly over the Death Star in Star Wars, players weave their way through laser beams and systematically destroy towers and engines. These battles culminate in battles in a ship, in which players eventually blast its core to pieces and escape before the entire ship explodes. These battles are as cinematic as they are thrilling, and put every weapon at their disposal to the test.

Combat in Chorus is a high-stakes rock-paper-scissors game, except that they are exchanged for chain guns, lasers, and missiles. Each one properly damages a certain type of defense, with guns easily ripping through a ship's hull, lasers quickly destroying shields, and missiles being able to blast away armor from spaceships. Switch between the three. as well as rites, magical abilities that allow Nara to teleport behind enemies or to scan the area, made me type different inputs on my controller every second.

Look at the crack in chorus.

Abandoned accessibility

But the combat and gameplay of Chorus in general are hurt by some questionable choices that not only make the game annoying but also ruin its accessibility. Most obviously, the game's HUD and UI, both apparently made with ants in mind. Enemies in dogfights are represented by small circles that appear on the screen peripherals when they are not in front of the players. Any other objects or targets that you ping with a scan appear the same way, but as triangles.

As a result, chorus can sometimes be completely incomprehensible. Some of the game's missions challenge players to find objects in large 3D rooms, which requires using the ship's ping. But it doesn't differentiate between objects that are part of a mission and other objects in space. They're all labeled with the same little icon, which led to so much confusion for me that I thought the game just didn't come out of what I was looking for. My eyesight is 20/20 so I cannot imagine the experience that someone with a visual impairment might have with chorus.

Chorus can be completely incomprehensible at times.

Similarly, whether you're wearing headphones or not, chorus makes subtitling a necessity rather than an option. While flying through space – which for some reason is almost always a music-free experience – Nara sometimes talks to herself. But whenever she has an inner monologue, she screams, whispers and turns almost every word into an incomprehensible hiss. Fortunately, Chorus can resize its subtitles in its sparse accessibility menu, but the rest of the game text cannot be resized from its hard-to-read size.

Our opinion

Chorus is a frustrating game, not because it's janky or bug-obsessed, but because it could be so much better. A litany of really bizarre design decisions, like an eye-straining user interface and incomprehensible dialogues, ruined the experience for me. If this game was designed with accessibility in mind, it wouldn't feel so annoying. I could stop by Nara, who is without a doubt one of the worst main characters I've seen in a game in a long time. I could praise his fight, which feels absolutely fantastic. But nothing in Chorus outshines its flaws, which work their way into every redeemable moment of the game.

Is there a better alternative?

If you're looking for something that scratches the same ship-based combat itch, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is a fantastic way to jump in the pilot's seat.

How long does it take?

It takes around 10 to 12 hours to hit the chorus, although playing through all of the game's sub-content could easily take an additional five hours.

Should you buy it?

No. Chorus is a prime example of how great gameplay can be ruined with disgusting design choices.

Editor's recommendations

24 Nov

Blog

5 Mistakes You’re Making When Ordering Gym Shirts

November 24, 2021
Posted by Samson

Ordering clothes for your gym should be fun. Cool gear should be a way to bring the community together and pocket some extra cash. But time and again I see gym owners giving up the process or avoiding it because of the stress and confusion that comes with it.

I see this because I run a bespoke clothing store myself. I've seen the mistakes most people make. So here are my recommended strategies to avoid the headache and just focus on what really matters – bringing your community together.

Too many options and styles

Did you know that people actually buy less when they have more options? If you want to know why choosing is demotivating for customers and consumers, read the Columbia Jam Study. Essentially, the study focused on a jam tasting booth set up in a popular grocery chain. On different weekends they tested the following:

On a Saturday the booth had 24 different jams to choose from.
The following Saturday the booth would only have six different jams.

It found that with less choice, the stall sold more jam jars. This has been repeatedly tested with different products in different studies.

So where exactly are the pitfalls when ordering sportswear? For one, customers don't have time to think about which shirt color they want. They just want someone to show them the best option, not all of the options. So, yes, you've probably designed a shirt that will work ten different colors, but that doesn't mean you should use it and have all of those shirts made.

Often people come to us who want every color shirt we offer. We try to talk them out of this, but sometimes people just ignore our advice. Then when they reorder they will tell us: "I sold out color X, but I still have a whole box of color Y left!" In these situations, groupthink or the herd mentality takes over. When five to six people start buying the blue shirt, they all want a blue shirt and you get stuck with the box of red shirts. When in doubt, keep it simple.

Many owners believe that ordering different styles is the golden ticket to selling. But just because a person wants a V-neck doesn't mean you should fit that one person in. Gym owners tend to get out of hand and want six different styles for women. Just offer a women's t-shirt, a women's tank top, a men's t-shirt, and a men's tank top. Keep everything simple.

Too many cooks in the kitchen

You are a busy gym owner. You don't have time to coordinate the clothes ordering, but you know you need one. You instruct the office manager to place the order. In return, he or she asks his friends for help, who in turn ask the rest of the gym for help.

You've essentially turned your chance of winning into a three-ring circus by inviting outsiders to a pseudo-committee decision-making process. Keep the dress code between you and some trusted counselors. Sure, ask for outsider feedback, but if this is for your bottom line and branding then you should have the final say.

No clear branding

Are you the type of owner who just isn't happy with the way your gym is branded? Have tried different logos and fonts and nothing just seems to stick to you? Well the secret is that that's the problem. You need to stick with a logo and branding message.

Think all the big brands you see on a daily basis, from Apple to Rogue Fitness. All of their branding is the same from day one. Apple doesn't bring a new logo to market every year for every new product launch. Successful companies stick to their branding in good times and bad. Find some type of branding that shows what you and your business is about and stick with it.

No pre-order

You chose to order tanks on behalf of women's group training because you think you know their size. Or you “don't have time to pre-order” and just ordered twenty of each size.

Wrong move! This is also due to a chance of winning. Take the time to organize your pre-order carefully and eliminate excess inventory issues.

Delay in sales of shirts

We know you are crammed with time commitments. We also deal with it every day. However, if you delay your clothing order, you could be leaving hundreds of dollars a month on the table. Selling clothing is one of the most passive sources of income you can have in your business.

To conclude, before you get stressed about your next clothing order, take a minute to organize yourself, cut out the noise, and remember the main reasons you wanted shirts in the beginning.

Photo 1 courtesy of Jorge Huerta Photography.

Photos 2 & 3 courtesy ofShutterstock.

30 Oct

Blog

Making Healthy Juices for Everyday Workout

October 30, 2020
Posted by Samson

Health is wealth! We must all have heard about it. Taking care of your body and eating a balanced diet are essential keys to getting on with everyday life. We should eat healthily since childhood. Good food, filled with food, is fuel for your mind and organs. Today's hectic lifestyle often prevents us from leading a healthy lifestyle.

Whenever we hear about a healthy diet, raw and whole vegetables and fruits come to mind. But sometimes it doesn't taste good to eat raw vegetables and fruits, so we make juice out of them. Juice is also a hassle-free food for everyday exercise. Nutritionists emphasize the importance of juices in our daily work. It gives you the right nutrients and makes you fresh along with delicious taste.

The benefit of juice is that it gives you a calculated diet and taste that might not have been possible if we had taken fruits or vegetables whole. Now the only problem is finding a suitable juicer that will provide a solution to your problems. Worry less because this article is all about the juicersplusblenders.com recommended juicers. Go through it quickly for a stress-free lifestyle and workout.

What is a juicer?

A question in general, it is an electronic device that extracts juice from vegetables, fruits and coffee beans. The juicer can be used at home and in the office. It's the most convenient and timeless way to extract on a busy day. It comes with motor and different types of blades for extracting and collecting juices.

Who should buy a juicer?

Anyone can buy a juicer to make a juice. Those who don't like vegetables as they are can make their juice with the help of a juicer and add something good that might taste better. The people who have less time to consume all of the nutrients can get a juicer.

What types of juicers are there on the market?

There are many juicers available, depending on the type of engine. There is:

Centrifugal juicer

The main feature of such a juicer is its high speed. The units are 1000-15000 RPM. It also has different speed levels. One thing that makes it dominant is that the juice preparation can be done in no time. Such juicers have different price ranges, so they are affordable for everyone.

Chew the juicer

A low speed juicer that does not operate at higher speeds (no more than 150 RPM). It's a type of juicer that chops the fruits and vegetables to deliver the juice. The special thing about it is that the juices can be stored for days.

Two gear juicer (trituration)

It has two blades which makes it beneficial by increasing yield, versatility, and keeping all nutrient levels exceptionally high.

Electric citrus press

They specialize in processing citrus fruits such as oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruits and others. These can be both manual and electric.

Manual juicer

Manual juicers do not have a motor and juice is extracted by the hands and approaches various techniques. Apply force and squeeze the juice out of fruit or vegetables They are very convenient and easy to use.

How much time does a juicer take?

A timeless extraction of juices can only be done using juicers. It takes barely two minutes to prepare a juice that has the properties of an entire food. Eating and then digesting can take a few minutes. One benefit that we see medically is that juices digest quickly. And that can only be done with the help of juicer.

Conclusion

In the end, it is concluded that the description above talks about the best juicers available on the market and their characteristics.

16 Jun

Blog

Grand Opening: Getting Back to Making Gains

June 16, 2020
Posted by Samson

The prospect of training in the gym again has become a reality for more and more people. Or maybe you will be back in a few weeks and consider how you can train and how you can optimize it in the future.

One thing that I think is important is that you shouldn't just go back in and continue where you left off. This can lead to frustration, disappointment and injury.

It would be even worse to go back and release the pent-up energy and excitement you have with a brutal training flash. From an objective point of view, that's probably pretty obvious But most of us strive to maintain an objective approach to training.

The change in your body is often controlled by strong emotions. Many of us went to the gym to:

Engage with inner demons
Build armor to protect us from childhood bullying
Other very emotional incentives

If there are emotions, the logic goes out the window. Do not do it Let the emotional desire to destroy yourself with insane workouts win. Doing this will most likely require you to take more time out of the gym due to burnout or injury.

Your return to the gym

If this bulleted list is not in the way, you should see some general trends and signposts as you approach your return to the gym.

I will cover each item in detail to give you a complete overview and to help you make your exact workout plan for opening the gym doors. I will also outline a sample program to illustrate how these principles can be implemented.

Get things in perspective

In my opinion, Even a genetically talented lifter takes at least five years to build a really impressive physique. For mere mortals, it's more of a decade plus.

The benefits of exercise last a lifetime. Although progress can be slow as you approach 15, 20, 25, or more years of exercise, there is still a good reason to exercise.

Today is a clear and visible reminder of the importance that exercise and nutrition can have for resistance to viruses. Given that you should consider training as a multi-year, probably multi-year effort, these past three months are just a drop in the bucket.

With crossed fingers, scientists, doctors, nurses and powers can take control of the pandemic and produce vaccines. Chances are that this will be a one-off event. It can be helpful if you recognize and use the resulting opportunities.

First of all, let me give you some positive news from scientific research about being released from training. This research will help confirm my advice, but hopefully it will reassure you that you haven't lost all of your lock gains and that any loss of strength or size is temporary and can be recovered quickly.

As I described in my article at the beginning of the lockdown, several studies have analyzed the effect of withdrawal on muscle mass and strength level. Several studies have shown that no muscle or strength loss occurs during three weeks of training. But what about three months?

Well, Blazevich et al., 2007 found that after three months of exercise, there was no significant difference in the reduction in muscle mass. The participants lost muscle, but not much. They also suffered some loss of strength. This loss of strength corresponded approximately to the five-week training.

The good news is that this can be quickly regained as an integral part of a skill's strength. For example, a study by Staron et al., 1991 found that participants regained strength only 30 weeks after 30 weeks of discharge.

Reduce fear

Remember that you've probably been injured or busy before and haven't lost all of your winnings.

The world never went under.
Your muscles didn't fall off.
Their value to humanity has not evaporated.
You didn't wake up and you look like your 11 year old me.

Instead, no one has likely noticed a difference in your body, and you rediscovered your best strength and muscle values remarkably quickly when you got back to the gym. The same thing will happen now.

In short, both muscle mass and strength are quite resistant to decay, even if you do nothing. So I firmly believe that if you haven't done any exercises during a lockdown, You can get back to your baseline before locking relatively quickly, and very soon exceed these values.

That is when you have not done any training. If you've been able to do some weight, light weight, or resistance band workouts, the news is even better.

I summarize if you were able to do a few workouts a week and work with sets of 30 or fewer reps just before failure. Then there is a possibility that you have not lost any muscles. Any force you have lost is just the technical ability to handle and coordinate heavy loads and will return.

Panic over

Hopefully this will reduce the fear of all your difficulties before the lock is released. Once you know that you are not starting from scratch and have not lost too much ground, then; You can resist the urge to go inside with blazing weapons, hoping to get years of hard work back in a few weeks.

You just don't have to. What took years to build does not take weeks to destroy when it comes to size and strength.

With this in mind, I think it is important to meet your expectations. I'm not suggesting that you go back to the gym and hit the same numbers, do the same reps, or do the same volume as before the lockdown.

Strength is an ability

To master a skill well, you need to practice. To display this ability, you need to practice it frequently. Unfortunately, many of us haven't touched a barbell in the past few months.

As a result, squats, deadlifts and bench presses are not at their highest levels when you finally hold the bar in your hands again. These elevators are likely to feel a bit rusty. You won't feel in the groove like before. Don't worry – this is normal for any skill. I can think of many examples, but here is one from my youth.

As a child, I loved playing tennis in summer. Growing up in the UK, summer is not long and is often interrupted by gray skies and heavy rainfall. Therefore, the time window for playing was relatively small.

Every year I improved steadily throughout the summer, only to return the following year and feel like I was back at zero. Certainly much worse than where I left off. This is because I have not trained.

However, the rate of improvement in the first few weeks was dramatic. Relearning these movement patterns and skills was much faster and easier than the first time.

At the end of summer I was noticeably better than at the end of the previous summer, but this progress had not been linear. Each year:

The starting point was lower than my best one so far.
Then there was a quick climb up to my position.
Then a gradual improvement beyond how good I was last year.

The same applies to you and your lifting.

This ability factor is most evident in the more complex exercises in your program. Squats take longer to get back into the groove than squats that take a little longer than leg presses. Leg extensions, however, will probably feel normal again after just a few warm-up exercises.

The higher the ability component of a lift, the greater the waste you see in session 1. The good news is that this ability will be available again quickly.

Pull-ups can mean a greater drop in performance than pulldowns on your first session, as more stabilization and coordination are required. If you did not have access to a pull-up bar, it can be expected that it has rusted somewhat.

The low hanging fruit

A chance created by blocking is the ability to do more with less. If you are not in the gym, you will be sensitized again to the attraction of lifting.

Many of us never take time off or even have a delay occasionally. If you do the same thing continuously, adaptive resistance can be used. This is a by-product of the Repeat Combat Effect. Basically, the more you do something, the less adjustment you get back.

This is why progress slows down as we become more advanced and better educated. Going from good to great is much more difficult than going from good to good, which is more difficult than going from terrible to good.

When you return to the gym, you should do just enough to make progress. If you haven't done anything, just doing something is enough. What is an overload after a three-month break is much less than when you worked at full throttle for years.

For this reason, a larger time window has opened for overloading the training.

The gap between your initial minimum effective dose (MED) and the maximum achievable volume is now significantly larger than before the block. By gradually closing this gap, you can extend the length of a valid training block.

More effective training = more profits

Because of this increased susceptibility to the training stimulus, you should pick the low-hanging fruit. The threshold for winnings is now lower than it was before the ban.

This creates the potential to make new profits in the future. It also minimizes the risk of injury. By keeping the recovery capacity in reserve, you have a longer runway for effective training. This means that if you're smart, your profits can go up and go on in the long run.

Common sense

The problem with common sense is that it is not that common.

So far I've made a lot of points about:

Loss of size and strength
Recover lost profits
The bar is lower.
Build up gradually

All of this should make it fairly obvious that a gradual introduction to training with a methodical and gradual increase in workload will best serve you.

However, many of you will not be able to resist the temptation to do too much. Remember that blocking has created an opportunity for you in many ways. Don't waste it.

Do not put yourself down

If you work too hard too early, make adjustments. Chances are that this is the longest time you have been away from a serious workout since you started your serious workout.

So this is a completely new situation for you. When something is new, it is unrealistic to expect perfection. If you get carried away and do too much, don't beat yourself up. Learn the lesson. Course correct on the trip.

It is better to start too easily and leave room for progress than to be excessive and regress.

It is pretty obvious. If you went too hard too early, don't be stubborn. It is a mistake to let your pride get in the way. Admit your mistake and withdraw.

Come back in a routine

While it's tempting to sketch out a super complex routine six days a week from the comfort of your sofa, the reality of sticking to this plan may not be that easy. Before you optimize your time in the gym, you should primarily go to the gym.

It's an important first step to simply re-anchor the habit of training in the gym. If you scheduled the workout at 6 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, repeat this.

Or if early morning workouts are a thing of the past with your new home work schedule, choose another appropriate time for the workout. Make training a priority again by planning it in your diary. Identify potential barriers to training. Pick a time that removes these barriers and the ring fence at that time. For example:

I usually prefer to train in the afternoon when life is normal. However, while working from home, I found that my motivation was lower and my energy was exhausted by trying to help the children do homeschooling. As a result, early morning training effectively helped me get a high quality, focused session.
If you are still working from home after the lockout and gyms are open, You may find that pulling off the sofa for an evening workout is much more difficult than leaving the office and going to the gym. In this case, the best option may be to do the training first.
On the other hand, When you first have the energy of a sloth in the morningIf you have to press Snooze five times and need three double espressos to feel human, it doesn't make sense to schedule an early morning workout.

There is no right or wrong here. Just find out what works for you and how to get your ass back to the gym.

Creating bad habits is too easy. Starting healthy can be a lot more difficult. If you've started developing serious Netflix addiction at night (I know I've seen it since the last dance), planning your workouts for the evening may not be a good idea.

The reputation of the sofa, the remote control and a tub of ice cream could win. Choose the path of least resistance when it comes to planning workouts – prepare for successs.

The DOMS will be epic

Let me make one thing clear: getting sore after training is not a good indicator of effectiveness. Under no circumstances should you chase or use sore muscles to determine the benefits of one workout over another.

DOMS is a natural result of hard training. If you train hard, muscle damage and disorders occur. Lifting weights hard often leads to DOMS. The best way to get DOMS is to expose the body to a new kind of stimulus – do a new exercise.

Since the incentive is new, the body has not adapted to it and therefore homeostasis is disturbed to a greater extent. Muscle damage and the subsequent repair processes (including DOMS) are started up.

Each time you repeat the same stimulus, the level of disorder is reduced and the DOMS are less severe. This is a long preamble to this main point.

If you haven't been to the gym for three months, you get sore, really sore. Every exercise is new. If you try to do the same workouts that you did before the lockdown, you are likely to be crippled.

It is important to be aware of this. This means that you can reduce your training to minimize the DOMS while accepting that there are DOMS. To give you an example from my personal experience, let me tell you when I did a super light squat workout and was in pain for a week.

The session consisted of 3 sets of 5 squats with 70% of my 1 = repetition max. 3 x 5 with 70% is not a special challenge. Especially when you consider that at the end of my previous training block, I trained legs twice a week and did eight sets of squats per session. The devil is in the details.

This debilitating DOMS was brought back to the gym in my first session after a two and a half week vacation break. What's more, even though I had done a fair amount of footwork before the vacation, I hadn't crouched back. Instead, I had a training block built around front squats and Bulgarian squats to develop a structural balance.

I thought I was very conservative with my 3×5 plan at 70%. The session felt like a no-brainer.

When I woke up the next morning, got out of bed and wiggled like a little giraffe when I tried to go to the bathroom, I realized that I had underestimated things.

A two-week break and six weeks without this particular exercise were enough for a relatively light workout to cause outrageous DOMS.

When returning to training, note the following:

What could you do in the lock?
What is your goal?
How can you bridge the gap between what you did and what you need to achieve your goal?

When choosing your starting point, use what you did so as not to base it on what you did. Then use common sense to close that gap. There is no point in planning your workout the way you did before locking it. It makes a lot more sense to plan your workout so that it systematically returns to what you did before the lockout.

Hopefully you can take things to the next level and analyze what you did before locking to find bugs, uncover the unnecessary or sub-optimal, and remove or replace them to refine your approach. This way you can achieve your goals more efficiently.

Do not use previous maxes

Use the early stages of your return to the gym to learn the perfect technique. Your weights don't matter much at this point. Having only weights in hand is an incentive enough at first. You shouldn't be bound to hit certain numbers so you can focus on:

Think of this as a priming phase. Use the quality of your technique and the execution of elevators as a method to overload and gradually build up the volume tolerance.

Treat each rep as an opportunity to grow and try to maximize muscle tension. You then created the platform to make progress with the volume.

It's a bad idea to try to base your training weights on the percentages of previous maximums. As I said, your technique is probably wrong. What was 70% of your 1 RM might feel more like 85% at your first session.

This, of course, limits the repetitions that you can get, or requires that you train very close not to hit the repetitions you have planned. The fatigue generated will go through the roof.

While your intensity thresholds are now lower and your strength is slightly lower, You are not a beginner again. You can probably handle much heavier loads than a beginner, so you can do a lot of muscle damage as a beginner. Leave enough reps in the tank at the beginning. It is a luxury to be able to make progress so far from failure. Enjoy it as long as you can.

Use relative intensity instead of measuring intensity as a percentage of 1 rpm. Relative intensity is a measure of how difficult a sentence is due to its proximity to failure. It is tracked by recording (RIR) at the end of a sentence. With 4 RIR you can gain strength and muscle mass. This is especially true as a beginner.

For a short time you are closer to the beginner phases than for a long time. Take advantage of this. Use RIR as an important metric and progress tool to control your training. Start in the first week by ending the sentences at 4 RIR. Especially with higher quality compound lifts. Over a number of weeks, you can increase your intensity by leaving fewer repetitions in reserve.

With RIR, you can gradually increase the intensity of your training and adapt your training efforts exactly to your body's ability to tolerate training. When you get used to the training again, you need to push the training harder to get an effective workout. With RIR you can do this. For example:

Week 1 – 4 RIR
Week 2 – 3 RIR
Week 3 – 2 RIR
Week 4 – 1 RIR
Week 5 – 0 RIR

In reality, once you regain the ability to lift, you can increase the load without increasing your relative intensity.

In the first week, a set of 8 with 200 pounds on squats could be 4 RIR. The following week you find your groove again could mean that 205 lbs is still a 4 RIR. It's possible that you can add 5 pounds a week for several weeks without changing the RIR. This is most likely the case with lifts with higher capabilities. With stupid exercises such as machine-based isolation work, this effect is unlikely to occur.

I would suggest that you start with 4 RIR loads for compound lifts and gradually add the load every week until you are 1 RIR. For insulation elevators, I would start at 3 RIR and add the load until you reach 0 RIR.

Don't think it over – I did that for you. This article is proof of that 🙂

I find a practical example useful to give you a frame of reference for your return to training. Below I sketched a plan based on an avatar. Let's call him Bobby. Bobby is in his early thirties and has been lifting steadily for a decade.

He started strength training to improve athletic performance, but has worked throughout his career as a bodybuilder and CrossFit. For about a year now he has been training four days a week with an upper and lower split and hits each muscle group twice a week.

During the lockdown, he stayed active 3 times a week and trained body weight. He has managed to keep his body weight fairly stable – only gaining 2-3 pounds. He usually does:

5-8 sets per workout (10-16 sets per week) for main muscle groups (chest, back, quads, hamstrings)
3-6 sets per workout (6-12 sets per week) for smaller muscles (biceps, triceps, calves, delts).

To optimize Bobby's return to the gym, I would suggest the following:

week 1

In three training units, you train each muscle group once with your legs, push, pull, split. This allows for a long recovery time for the DOMS, which follows even relatively simple workouts (the legs are exercised first because they are likely to take the longest recovery time).

volume – 50% of normal value per workout (2-4 sets per workout muscle group)
frequency – 3 sessions per week, but 1 x week per muscle group
intensity – 4 RIR for compound elevators, 3 RIR for insulation elevators

E.g .:

Monday – Legs
Wednesday – To press
Friday – Pull

Week 2

In three training sessions, train each muscle group twice with a whole body, a whole push and a whole train.

volume – 50% of normal value per workout, 2-4 sets per workout per muscle group
frequency – 3 sessions per week, but twice per muscle group
intensity – 4 RIR for compound elevators, 2-3 RIR for insulation elevators

E.g .:

Monday – Hole body
Wednesday – Press your upper and lower body
Friday – Pull upper and lower body

*Include quads in Wednesday push and hamstrings in Friday pull session

Weeks 3-6

Exercise each muscle twice with an upper / lower split in four workouts.

volume – 75% of normal per workout, 3-6 sets per workout per muscle group
frequency – 4 sessions per week, but 2 x week per muscle group
intensity – 2-3 RIR for compound lifts, 1-2 RIR for insulation lifts

E.g .:

Monday – Upper, higher
Tuesday – Lower
Thursday – Upper, higher
Friday – Lower

Weeks 6-10

Exercise each muscle twice with an upper / lower split in four workouts.

volume – 90% of normal per workout, 4-7 sets per session for large muscle groups and 2-5 sets per session for small muscles
frequency – 4 sessions per week, but 2 x week per muscle group
intensity – 1-2 RIR for compound elevators, 0-1 RIR for insulation elevators

E.g .:

Monday – Upper, higher
Tuesday – Lower
Thursday – Upper, higher
Friday – Lower

16 Jun

Blog

Grand Opening: Getting Back to Making Gains

June 16, 2020
Posted by Samson

The prospect of training in the gym again has become a reality for more and more people. Or maybe you will be back in a few weeks and consider how you can train and how you can optimize it in the future.

One thing that I think is important is that you shouldn't just go back in and continue where you left off. This can lead to frustration, disappointment and injury.

It would be even worse to go back and release the pent-up energy and excitement you have with a brutal training flash. From an objective point of view, that's probably pretty obvious But most of us strive to maintain an objective approach to training.

The change in your body is often controlled by strong emotions. Many of us went to the gym to:

Engage with inner demons
Build armor to protect us from childhood bullying
Other very emotional incentives

If there are emotions, the logic goes out the window. Do not do it Let the emotional desire to destroy yourself with insane workouts win. Doing this will most likely require you to take more time out of the gym due to burnout or injury.

Your return to the gym

When you are no longer in the way of this bulleted list, you should see some general trends and pointers as you approach your return to the gym.

I will cover each item in detail to give you a complete overview and to help you make your exact workout plan for opening the gym doors. I will also outline a sample program to illustrate how these principles can be implemented.

Get things in perspective

In my opinion, Even a genetically talented lifter takes at least five years to build a really impressive physique. For mere mortals, it's more of a decade plus.

The benefits of exercise last a lifetime. Although progress can be slow as you approach 15, 20, 25, or more years of exercise, there is still a good reason to exercise.

Today is a clear and visible reminder of the importance that exercise and nutrition can have for resistance to viruses. Given that you should consider training as a multi-year, probably multi-year effort, these past three months are just a drop in the bucket.

With crossed fingers, scientists, doctors, nurses and powers can take control of the pandemic and produce vaccines. Chances are that this will be a one-off event. It can be helpful if you recognize and use the resulting opportunities.

First of all, let me give you some positive news from scientific research about being released from training. This research will help confirm my advice, but hopefully it will reassure you that you haven't lost all of your lock gains and that any loss of strength or size is temporary and can be recovered quickly.

As I described in my article at the beginning of the lockdown, several studies have analyzed the effect of withdrawal on muscle mass and strength level. Several studies have shown that no muscle or strength loss occurs during three weeks of training. But what about three months?

Well, Blazevich et al., 2007 found that after three months of exercise, there was no significant difference in the reduction in muscle mass. The participants lost muscle, but not much. They also suffered some loss of strength. This loss of strength corresponded approximately to the five-week training.

The good news is that this can be quickly regained as an integral part of a skill's strength. For example, a 1991 study by Staron et al. Found that participants regained strength only 30 weeks after 30 weeks of discharge.

Reduce fear

Remember that you've probably been injured or busy before and haven't lost all of your winnings.

The world never went under.
Your muscles didn't fall off.
Their value to humanity has not evaporated.
You didn't wake up and you look like your 11 year old me.

Instead, no one has likely noticed a difference in your body, and you rediscovered your best strength and muscles remarkably quickly when you got back to the gym. The same thing will happen now.

In short, both muscle mass and strength are quite resistant to decay, even if you do nothing. So I firmly believe that if you haven't done any exercises during a lockdown, You can get back to your baseline before locking relatively quickly, and very soon exceed these values.

That is when you have not done any training. If you've been able to do some weight, light weight, or resistance band workouts, the news is even better.

I summarize if you were able to do a few workouts a week and work with sets of 30 or fewer reps just before failure. Then there is a possibility that you have not lost any muscles. Any force you have lost is just the technical ability to handle and coordinate heavy loads and will return.

Panic over

Hopefully this will reduce the fear of all your difficulties before the lock is released. Once you know that you are not starting from scratch and have not lost too much ground, then; You can resist the urge to go inside with blazing weapons, hoping to get years of hard work back in a few weeks.

You just don't have to. What took years to build does not take weeks to destroy when it comes to size and strength.

With this in mind, I think it is important to meet your expectations. I'm not suggesting that you go back to the gym and hit the same numbers, do the same reps, or do the same volume as before the lockdown.

Strength is an ability

To master a skill well, you need to practice. To display this ability, you need to practice it frequently. Unfortunately, many of us haven't touched a barbell in the past few months.

As a result, squats, deadlifts and bench presses are not at their highest levels when you finally hold the bar in your hands again. These elevators are likely to feel a bit rusty. You won't feel in the groove like before. Don't worry – this is normal for any skill. I can think of many examples, but here is one from my youth.

As a child, I loved playing tennis in the summer. Growing up in the UK, summer is not long and is often interrupted by gray skies and heavy rainfall. Therefore, the time window for playing was relatively small.

Every year I improved steadily throughout the summer, only to return the following year and feel like I was back at zero. Certainly much worse than where I left off. This is because I have not trained.

However, the rate of improvement in the first few weeks was dramatic. Relearning these movement patterns and skills was much faster and easier than the first time.

At the end of summer I was noticeably better than at the end of the previous summer, but this progress had not been linear. Each year:

The starting point was lower than my best one so far.
Then there was a quick climb up to my position.
Then a gradual improvement beyond how good I was last year.

The same applies to you and your lifting.

This ability factor is most evident in the more complex exercises in your program. Squats take longer to get back into the groove than squats that take a little longer than leg presses. Leg extensions, however, will probably feel normal again after just a few warm-up exercises.

The higher the ability component of a lift, the greater the waste you see in session 1. The good news is that this ability will be available again quickly.

Pull-ups can mean a greater drop in performance than pulldowns on your first session, as more stabilization and coordination are required. If you did not have access to a pull-up bar, it can be expected that it has rusted somewhat.

The low hanging fruit

A chance created by blocking is the ability to do more with less. If you are not in the gym, you will be sensitized again to the attraction of lifting.

Many of us never take time off or even have a delay occasionally. If you do the same thing continuously, adaptive resistance can be used. This is a by-product of the Repeat Combat Effect. Basically, the more you do something, the less adjustment you get back.

This is why progress slows down as we become more advanced and better educated. Going from good to great is much more difficult than going from good to good, which is more difficult than going from terrible to good.

When you return to the gym, you should do just enough to make progress. If you haven't done anything, just doing something is enough. What is an overload after a three-month break is much less than when you worked at full throttle for years.

For this reason, a larger time window has opened for overloading the training.

The gap between your initial minimum effective dose (MED) and the maximum achievable volume is now significantly larger than before the block. By gradually closing this gap, you can extend the length of a valid training block.

More effective training = more profits

Because of this increased susceptibility to the training stimulus, you should pick the low-hanging fruit. The threshold for winnings is now lower than it was before the ban.

This creates the potential to make new profits in the future. It also minimizes the risk of injury. By keeping the recovery capacity in reserve, you have a longer runway for effective training. This means that if you're smart, your profits can go up and go on in the long run.

Common sense

The problem with common sense is that it is not that common.

So far I've made a lot of points about:

Loss of size and strength
Recover lost profits
The bar is lower.
Build up gradually

All of this should make it fairly obvious that a gradual introduction to training with a methodical and gradual increase in workload will best serve you.

However, many of you will not be able to resist the temptation to do too much. Remember that blocking has created an opportunity for you in many ways. Don't waste it.

Do not put yourself down

If you work too hard too early, make adjustments. Chances are that this is the longest time you have been away from a serious workout since you started your serious workout.

So this is a completely new situation for you. When something is new, it is unrealistic to expect perfection. If you get carried away and do too much, don't beat yourself up. Learn the lesson. Course correct on the trip.

It is better to start too easily and leave room for progress than to be excessive and regress.

It is pretty obvious. If you went too hard too early, don't be stubborn. It is a mistake to let your pride get in the way. Admit your mistake and withdraw.

Come back in a routine

While it's tempting to sketch a super complex routine six days a week from the comfort of your sofa, the reality of sticking to this plan may not be that easy. Before you optimize your time in the gym, you should primarily go to the gym.

It's an important first step to simply re-anchor the habit of training in the gym. If you scheduled the workout at 6 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, repeat this.

Or if early morning workouts are a thing of the past with your new home work schedule, choose another appropriate time for the workout. Make training a priority again by planning it in your diary. Identify potential barriers to training. Pick a time that removes these barriers and the ring fence at that time. For example:

I usually prefer to train in the afternoon when life is normal. However, while working from home, I found that my motivation was lower and the energy was exhausted by trying to help the children do homeschooling. As a result, early morning training effectively helped me get a high quality, focused session.
If you are still working from home after the lockout and gyms are open, You may find that pulling off the sofa for an evening workout is much more difficult than leaving the office and going to the gym. In this case, the best option may be to do the training first.
On the other hand, When you first have the energy of a sloth in the morningIf you have to press Snooze five times and need three double espressos to feel human, it doesn't make sense to schedule an early morning workout.