For Newbies Only:
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 101, repetitions, rest, routine, sets, Weight lifting
Image Credit: Lost Fun Zone
Read part 1 about quitting junk food here.
You’ve probably heard it a thousand times: you are what you eat. So if we’re going out and eating like crap everyday, then what are we? You can think that one over, but in the meantime, Read the rest of this entry »
[repost from Jason]
I could hardly believe what I was reading.
I sat in absolute bewilderment as I read an article in a recent muscle magazine. It explained in detail why you should lift your hips as high as possible off the bench (called bridging) when you bench press.
Was the author seriously recommending this type of thing to people who are trying to improve their workouts? I could hardly believe that any widely distributed magazine would publish this sort of “advice”.
Of course, I don’t think that the muscle magazines are very good reading for most people out there. They focus on what the pros are doing for their workouts instead of telling the readers what will help them the most. I’ll drop by once a month or so and read them just to see what’s out there (and only because I blog about this).
But there it was, right in the magazine. The author was praising the advantages of arching your back as high as possible and shooting your hips into the air on the bench press.
His argument was that arching your back and lifting the hips gives you more power for your bench. More power lets you lift heavier weights, and lifting heavier weights means you’re building strength and muscle.
So how could that be wrong? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bench press, bridging
[repost]
Most people do not realize how powerful water is in the healing process.
No, this is not an article about spa therapy, holistic medicine, or anything like that. This is about using simple methods to build muscle and strength as well as maintaining your overall health.
Your body might be 60% water overall, but your muscles are actually 70-75% water. Each time you work these muscles as you lift weights, small tears and rips form in the fibrous muscle tissues. Your muscles grow when these small tears are repaired. Guess what happens if your muscles aren’t able to heal:
Nothing.
Nothing happens at all. That means no growth, no toning, no strength increases… nothing.
Here’s a quick breakdown of why you need water to heal and how to harness its power to help your muscles after a workout.
Got Water?
Not getting enough water has serious side effects. Even a 1 percent change in your body’s water levels can seriously impair your exercise performance. Even worse, your ability to recover goes down the toilet… and the toilet it goes down is one of those water-saving dry flush things that doesn’t quite get the job done.
Some other reasons you need extra water when you lift weights: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: beverage, dehydration, drink, hydration, muscle, thirst, water
Image credit: oatmeal2000
I can already feel the hate mail coming, but I’m going to say it anyway: you shouldn’t always trust science. Instead, we’re going to talk about a better way of going about things.
First off, I realize that there’s not a crystal ball that magically reveals all Read the rest of this entry »
Getting the right amounts of food is a huge part of the muscle-building and fat-loss equation. You can train as hard as you want enough in the gym, but if you don’t get enough food, you’ll never have the fuel needed to become stronger.
On the other hand, if you Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 101, aerobic, anaerobic, breathing, cardio, Weight lifting
Alright, you may have seen people wearing a belt in the gym and wondered if a weight belt is for you. In general, and for most of you reading this, a weight belt is probably something that should be used sparingly in your workouts, and maybe not at all.
Whether Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: back, deadlift, lower back, squat, weight belt
