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While a lot of people go to the gym in order to look really fit and strong, some people have different goals with going to the gym. People like athletes and strong men don't necessarily go to the gym in order to look good, they do so because they want to increase their performance and become both stronger and faster.
You would think that training in order to look good is almost the same as training in order to become stronger and even though the two do affect each other somehow, there is a great difference between the training regimens they entail.
If you are an athlete and want to become as explosive and strong as possible you have to train in a totally different way than the regular joe pumping his biceps and chest on all days of the week. The first thing you want to get under control is your diet, training sessions geared towards strength building can be extremely grueling and therefore you need food and lots of it. You want to go for a high calorie diet that contains a lot of carbs and protein. This will give you the fuel necessary for your muscles to work at optimum levels.
The next step is to train in the correct way and make sure you are building strength and not just looking strong. When you work towards becoming faster you want to limit the amount of reps you do to a maximum of 8. If you go higher than that you are stimulating your muscles more towards growth and therefore you want to stay right below 8. You want to make sure you lift really heavy as long as you are performing everything with good technique and posture. Go for the large compound exercises that allow you to hit all the large muscle groups simultaneously and hereby stimulate the largest amount of muscle tissue in the shortest amount of time possible.
You also want to make sure you do plyo metric exercises and do a lot of stretching. The next really important step is for you to chart your lifting progress and make sure you are lifting heavier and heavier each single time you hit the gym. For this same reason it is a really good idea to have someone with you in the gym that can help you and push you to your limit.
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