We will continue our series of Weight Lifting 101 posts here by introducing some new terms that you will have to become familiar with if you are going to succeed in changing the way you look. As you may have already guessed, working out with free weights is a little bit more complicated than doing steady cardio. It’s not as easy as just hopping on a treadmill for 30 minutes.
Since weight lifting is a form of anaerobic exercise, your muscles will not be able to maintain such a high level of intensity for long periods of time. Instead, you will break your exercises into a series of sets that comprise a certain number of repetitions. Let me explain what this means by defining the terms you’ll need to know. (more…)
Just starting out with weightlifting? Want to get bigger muscles this winter?
Get my full-body lifting routine here: FullBodyAttack!
What’s the difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercises? I’ll make this simple:
Aerobic- In the presence of oxygen
Anaerobic- Without the presence of oxygen
That’s the basic definition of the two general types of exercises. To be a little bit more specific, aerobic exercises are the ones that cause your heart rate to increase for an extended period of time. Think of exercises such as running, swimming, exercise bikes, etc. These types of exercises burn fat or calories to meet their energy needs.
Anaerobic exercises, on the other hand, are high-intensity activities that build up an appreciable oxygen debt. Basically, this means that these exercises are too intense for your body to supply the oxygen that is necessary for long periods of time. Anaerobic exercises burn a type of muscle sugar called glycogen to meet energy requirements.
Exercises Come in All Shades.
Not all exercises are purely aerobic or anaerobic. Power lifters probably do the most anaerobic of all exercises. Their goal is to maximize their strength for just one lift. Power lifting exercises usually involve low numbers of repetitions at very heavy weights. It doesn’t get much more anaerobic than that.
Body builders, on the other hand, tend to focus on sets that fall into the range of anywhere between 5-15 repetitions with some breathing. Their workouts are still very anaerobic. (more…)
Continue reading about Aerobic vs. Anaerobic- Keep Breathing!
This is Part 2 of a two-part series that explains how your muscles grow. If you haven’t already read Part 1, please go back and read it first. In this post, we’ll explain the message presented in Part 1 and what it represents.
In Part 1, a short story was told in which I had you imagine that you were the Greek god, Zeus, up in the clouds. Your goal was to push a small tribe of people into building a stronger building. You couldn’t force them to do it. You could only put them in the right situation that would cause them to grow.
Think about your muscles. They react in a similar way. We can’t just tell them to grow, but instead we can create the proper environment that stimulates their growth. As you may have guessed, the people in this story represent the systems within you that cause you to grow; the building represents your body and your muscles.
Strength Progression
Our muscles do not grow spontaneously. Instead, they grow in response to the stresses we put upon them. That means that if we want to see results, we need to lift weights, and this momentarily weakens our muscles.
Remember the people inside their thatched home? They never tried to make a stronger home until there was a need. Once the wind blew and weakened their home, they immediately went to work rebuilding it.
Your muscles work in a similar way. Lifting weights weakens your muscles and creates a response in them to grow stronger. Notice that the people never came out to rebuild the home while the wind was blowing or while the earthquake was raging. They waited for a calm moment when they could go out and do the repair work. (more…)
Continue reading about Muscle Growth: Playing God With Your Body, Part 2
If you want to build a strong body with a toned figure, it is first essential that you know how your muscles grow. Without a proper knowledge of what your body will respond to, you have little chance of making any long-term gains.
I’m going to use a short story to help you visualize how you will stimulate your muscles to grow. As you read this story, think about your own body and how the principles apply. Envision your own muscles reacting in the same way. We will then decode the message and explain the full metaphor and how it applies to you in Part 2.
Building a Foundation
Imagine that you are a god sitting up in the clouds. Let’s say you are Zeus, the great Greek god of the sky. You look down from your cloud each day and see a small tribe of people living out in the wilderness. You’ve been watching them for a while now and decide that these poor little people need some challenges to grow. Hurting them is not your goal; you really like these people and want to help them become stronger.
The little tribe lives in a thatched house with a straw roof. It looks flimsy, as if it could fall over at any moment. Nobody in the tribe has ever bothered to make it stronger because there has never been a need. It stands there just fine… as long as the wind doesn’t blow.
Well, the people simply are not progressing much by living in an old straw house forever. So you lean over the edge of your cloud and blow a little bit. The straw flies right off the roof and a few holes are even blown right through the walls. (more…)
Continue reading about Muscle Growth: Playing God With Your Body, Part 1
Are you planning to get in shape, but haven’t quite started yet?
If so, I have an assignment for you. Go into your room and take all your clothes off. That’s right, strip down to nothing but your briefs, your boxers, your lingerie, whatever you are wearing underneath.
Go and do it right now! This is your last chance to officially say goodbye to the old you, and you will want a picture as a keepsake. Call it a going away present… You will thank me for this later.
Go ahead and let it all hang out. Take one last look in the mirror at the old you. Soon this person will be gone, and a newer, better version will take its place. The old you is now obsolete. (more…)
Continue reading about It’s Time to Take Your Worst Picture Ever
Weight Lifting 101 is a series of posts for those who are just starting their journey with weight training. If you are thinking about getting started in a gym or training at home, this reading is for you.
For the sake of these postings, I’m going to assume that you have never touched a dumbbell in your entire life. I’m not going to make any guesses about what you do or don’t know, so we will start from the very beginning and build up from the basics. If you are already at the intermediate or advanced levels, stay tuned… more is on the way.
A Time for Change
If you are just getting started, this is a very exciting time! Never again will you experience such a dramatic change in the way you look as in these upcoming months. I say never again because the changes you are about to make should be lifelong changes with principles that you will never abandon.
Thus, you are currently standing at the inflection point in your life. It is this very moment when you can decide to make a change, and the rest of your life can be altered as a result of this decision. Since this is the precise moment that you are changing to a new direction, the following months will show you more results than any other time in your life. After your initial transformation, you will simply continue further and further down this new path that you are starting on today. (more…)
Loading ...