posted
I would disagree TMedina. If he's looking for bulk, I would recommend about 8 reps/set. I think 12 reps will tone you up, but not put on much mass.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Ok, my friend is a wrestler so he knows how to do the weights; he checks my form and spots me on the bench. He just doesn't know how to design a course...
All the others (except the preacher curl) are on a machine, so I don't have to worry so much about self-injury.
You said separate by body groups; again, I don't really know how to do that, would you mind giving an example? Also, do I need more leg exercises?
quote: I'm actually pretty surprised you could even get out of bed by the second day.
It took some serious effort and an angry parent.
quote: Also, I am really tight in the areas I worked the next day. I mean, if I've worked my triceps, I have a hard time fully extending my arm to get a pencil. Should I be stretching before or after? How?
Can anyone help me with this?
Posts: 515 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Stretching should be done when the muscles are warm, so directly after the weights. I stretch each muscle for 20 seconds between sets, so a total of three times.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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And I'm not trying so much to "bulk up" really huge, but just gain muscle tone (and muscle for that matter), and get into fairly decent shape. I'm not shooting for body-building or weight-lifting.
Posts: 515 | Registered: Mar 2004
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BTW, make sure you're eating some protein at every meal. You can't build muscles if you don't feed them. Muscles aren't built of twinkies, or whatever you kids eat these days. Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Going by Dag's recommendations, chest/shoulders/triceps means doing exercises that work out those muscles on that day. Bench press and flys work out chest, military press and shoulder raises work shoulders, tricep pushdowns and french curls work triceps, etc. Always start with the largest muscle group first and work down from there. For instance, if you started on triceps, when you got to bench press, they would be fatigued and you wouldn't be able to lift much and, therefore, not work out your chest like you should.
Looking at your list, I didn't see anything for shoulders there. You must remedy this. If this is a machine your using, I'm sure it has a military press station.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:Also, I am really tight in the areas I worked the next day. I mean, if I've worked my triceps, I have a hard time fully extending my arm to get a pencil.
This is a sign of muscle strain. I know this from experience. Exhibit my left arm That's what can happen. It was very close to a ruptured bicep, which suck ass. And I'm well versed in weight lifting.
Anyway, here's my recommendation to throw in the pot. Three days a week on weights using a split routine (that's what dagonee recommended). You're aiming for six or so different exercises, moving from working large muscle groups to small (like big target area to little target area), one group at a time. Three sets of 8=12 reps work, getting through the first set fine, struggling through the second half of the second, and then on however much you can do on the third. Start at being able to do only eight reps on each set. Once you can do 12 reps on each set without strain, move up the weights. There's a whole bunch of different ideas about rest times between sets. If you're aiming for weight loss/body shape change, I'd say go for keeping your heart rate up and only waiting 15-30 seconds between sets.
Also, you need to warm up your body before lifting, meaning, take a five minute jog on the treadmill or elliptical machine (till you break a sweat). This kicks up your heart rate throughout your routine. Any weights day, you want cardio. So at the end (or beginning, your choice) add 20-30 minutes of cardio on elliptical or treadmill (these are weight bearing and add more benefit than using the bike).
The day after a weight routine, just do cardio either by running 30-45 minutes or elliptical or whatever you prefer. Just get that heart rate up for at LEAST 30 minutes.
No lifting. You build muscle by causing little tears in it when you lift. So your muscle needs a day in between to repair itself and become stronger.
Watching your caloric intake is also important. If you put in as much as you put out, you won't lose weight. Actually, at first, don't look at the scale. Instead, watch how your clothing fits. Muscle weighs more than fat, so at first, you might GAIN weight. But here's the key--metabolism.
For each pound of muscle you put on, you burn an extra 50 calories per day just by existing (resting metabolism). So, the more fit you get, the more your metabolism ramps up. Of you're trying to lose weight, watching what you eat is very important. It's a math game. If you're eating more to compensate for the extra calories you're burning, you won't lose anything, and you'll just get frustrated.
Cardio is what gets the fat off. Weights are what ramp up your metabolism and give you muscle strength and tone. Stretch out AFTER you warm up so you maintain flexibility.
And...give yourself a goal. Find a sport you like and train for it. Something to make the working out interesting. The benefits are noticeable other than just how different your clothing fits or what the scale numbers say.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Dag, Mack - can you give our young weight-lifter more specific examples of body grouping and exercises for them?
Group 1: Bicep/tricep, shoulder Group 2: Back, chest Group 3: Abs, legs
That's the grouping I used - obviously opinions will differ and I think HRE would like to see yours as well to better clarify what we mean by "groups."
Zg - I'll defer to your experienced opinion. Low reps, high weight builds overall strength and power while high reps, low weight builds tone and definition. Better?
Better visual reference: Olympic Weight Lifters look far, far different from the cover models of "Bulging Muscles" magazine.
If you've ever watched the people who dead-lift weight equal to a Volkswagon, they have less definition and tend to resemble small mountains themselves.
-Trevor
Edit: It's not so much "protein based" but rather include protein with each meal. You can use traditional sources like beef, chicken, etc. or you might turn to alternative sources like protein shakes, protein bars and so on.
Your buddy might be able to give you a better idea of protein alternatives to supplement your usual meals.
posted
See, that's the extreme example of people who are "body-building." And he's actually kinda small compared to some of the guys (and girls) you'll see on covers of some of the muscle-oriented magazines.
The other extreme, which I couldn't find a picture of, are the people who look like small mountains and can pick up a Volkswagon.
posted
Hey, you've got to put in plain cardio days in between weight days. Like this:
Day 1: 5 min warm up and stretch Chest: Chest press, chest flye, bench press Shoulders: Shoulder (overhead) press, Smith machine (shrug) Triceps: machine triceps extension, cable triceps pushdown, bench dip Cardio: 20-30 min
Day 2: 30-45 minutes of cardio
Day 3: 5 min warm up and stretch Legs: leg extension, leg curl, leg press, calf extention, squat on smitch machine, abduction, adduction Abs: roman chair, reverse curl, crunches Cardio: 20-30 minutes
Day 4: 30-45 minutes cardio
Day 5: 5 min warm up and stretch Back: lateral pulldown, cable seated low row, cable straight arm pulldown Biceps: preacher curl, dumbbell curl, barbell curl Cardio: 20-30 minutes
quote:shoulder exercise (I looked, and there is no military press tool...what other shoulder options do I have?)
Do you have dumbbells available? There are many shoulder exercises you can do with a set of dumbbells. Actually, you can get a good workout period with just a set of dumbbells. When I finally quit paying money to the gym and decided to work out at home, I got a set of dumbbells before I bought the typical weight set. I highly recommend PowerBlocks . They're stackable dumbbells, so they take up a lot less space than a whole set of them. They look bulky, but it only took 1 day of using them to get used to them.
Trevor, I've always thought of it as 3 options, not 2. Strength and power come from heavy weight/low reps, tone and definition come from low weight/high reps and building mass is the middle road. I used to be very much into building strength, but somewhere along the line, I realized the benefits of looking like you could bench 300 lbs far outweighed the benefits of actually being able to do so. Of course, I don't get the benefits of either anymore.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I can't fault your analysis Zg - I certainly wasn't planning on competing in body builder exhibitions when I was hitting the gym. But if you don't aim for one of the two extremes, you end up with the middle course by default.
Dumb bells versus machines - when I first went to the gym, I spent a month using the machines. When I finally migrated downstairs to the weight room, I never touched a machine again.
In my opinion, you do get a better return on free weights, but it takes a certain comfort level before you start using the free weights. Of course, I used the cable machine for tricep reverse curls but mostly free weights.
Personally, I liked the gym for various reasons, moreso than stocking up weights in my admittedly small apartment. That said, I bought four hex dumb bells and can still hit all my major exercise groups, although you don't have the same number of options to explore.
And all the hot water you want is another added plus.
As Zg mentioned, there are several shoulder exercises you can do with dumb bells.
And take my word for this, start off light until you know what your weight zone is. Shoulder injuries _suck_.
You can peruse exercise books to get an idea of the exercises - just a word of caution. Any time you try a new exercise, do it with the least amount of weight possible until you know what you're doing.
posted
I've had a lot of shoulder problems through the years. I don't even bother with exercises like the military press anymore. I just stick with the dumbbells. It limits me, but I don't have shoulder problems anymore.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
The most important thing is figuring out why you're weight lifting, and then performing actions that correspond do this. If you want to be fit, you SHOULD NOT do cleans. cleans/snatches/jerks are for athletes only, essentially. other than that, everything people say here looks good. Lower reps/set with more weight works fast twitch muscle fiber, more reps/set works slower twitch. The first is for explosion/strength, the second for prolonged muscle use - like distance running. The second will also make you LOOK bigger (generally speaking; there are always exceptions)
also, another tip if you want to LOOK strong, but actually be weaker, is to take a longish (3-5 minute) rest between sets. this increases muscle size but is slower for your muscles to get stronger.
General fitness should be 3 sets of 8-10 reps.
With your legs, you might want to consider adding something for your hamstrings because you have squats (quads) and leg extensions (quads) on there. This will create serious issues with the balance of your strength/flexibilty which WILL lead to injury.
Also, unless you want to look a little funny, you might want to add something for your calves as well, so that you work out the legs completely. There's nothign funnier looking than a gym-rat with chicken legs.
Posts: 348 | Registered: Dec 2000
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I'm in the middle of a bad summer cold with a fever et al. Would working out still be OK at this time for me?
Posts: 515 | Registered: Mar 2004
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working out will delay recovery time, and since you're weaker you won't get much benefit from it. I'd recommend waiting until you are healthy again.
Ham Curls, they're called, for hamstrings. Leg extensions are for quads Posts: 348 | Registered: Dec 2000
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Working out tears down muscle fibers and recovery builds them back up again bigger and stronger than before. Obviously it's the recovery part that matters most. You only work out to set that process in motion, basically.
So it's totally nonsensical to do things that work counter to the very process you're trying to foster. When you're systemically sick, you lose lots of cells all over your body. You have to replace all those, which pretty much coopts the cellular protein making, regeneration mechanism for that. Also the immune system is trying to put out tons of t-cells, b-cells and so on to fight the disease. If you go ahead and work out at times like that, you just tear down more tissues that you really can't replace at the moment. It's doing the opposite of what you want.
My doctor said the rule is this. If you feel badly only from the neck up, then it's fine to run, exercise, work out, or do your normal routine. If you feel bad below the neck, in the rest of your body then don't.
Also drink tons of fluids. This helps clear all the waste products, dead cells, etc from your system and lets your immune system work better. Also sleep a LOT. Sleep is crucial to immune function. Also eat plenty of protein. All the things you are trying to get your body to build are made of protein. If you eat lots of protein you will be sure your body's cellular machinery isn't hung up waiting for building materials. Also eat enough calories overall to provide the energy that fuels the process. Chicken soup actually is excellent food when you are sick.
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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Since yesterday, I haven't felt well enough to crawl out of bed anyways, so I guess working out wasn't an option. Oh well.
I've been visiting some other sites, and some reccomend doing a full body work-out in one session, skipping a day, and repeating for the first 8 weeks, and then dividing the body up. What do you guys think about that?
Posts: 515 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote: It was very close to a ruptured bicep, which suck ass. And I'm well versed in weight lifting.
Good night, woman.
Don't do that.
(Ow!)
On a related tangent, was it here that I read about Belgian Blue cows, the ones with the genetic defect that loses inhibition of muscle growth? If Noemon doesn't know about it, he should. Apparently there are noises about this for (unprincipled?) gene therapy in humans.
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Apparently there are some humans that do that. I vaguely remember reading about it. I wish I could remember where.
And yeah, I'm not planning on rupturing my bicep. Did you SEE that photo? Holy crap. I couldn't fully extend my arm for three days. I had to use my OTHER arm to extend it!
And it hurt like a mofo. Woo buddy, did it hurt.
My physical therapist was Not Pleased.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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You see, I'm thinking I don't want to run up against you in a dark alley, mack. 'Cause I doubt you were really all that mad at that free weight, yet you fwahhh-banged it enough to, like, nearly self-rupture a muscle.
I, uh, like you, mack. You my friend. No angry at me, I give you flowers. *nervous grin
[ August 28, 2004, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
As we've noted before HRE, opinions will differ and there isn't a uniform, "one size fits all" approach to fitness and exercise.
Personally, I put "full body workouts" in the province of professionals who have more time, energy and motivation to put forth than the average person.
posted
Full body workouts work quite well; I've done them before, and am doing them again now. It allows you to do everything at once and get in a full day of rest without just resting certain muscle groups. And for athletes, it allows for full body training in a variety of ways. Again, if you're just doing this to be fit, I'd probably stay away from the full body workouts as they aren't what you are working toward. If you feel like they might work easier on your mind, then by all means do them, but, like everyone has said, there is no one method for everybody. whatever works for you is the way to do it.
Posts: 348 | Registered: Dec 2000
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She's BACK! Falls down and worships the Sara Sasse
Yah, CT, did you see last month's Scientific American about gene doping? 'Twas very interesting and showed those cows.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<CT>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Love you, girl! So glad you're here now! Now the world is right again. Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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