Systematic RandomThoughts
March 18th 2007 21:33
Today I offer a few observations about weight training a little too scattered to organize into a coherent essay.
1. It is very easy to be attempting to train the shoulders and to in fact be training the triceps. Overhead press movements are intended to build shoulders. If you place your hands too close together on the bar you will be throwing the burden upon the triceps and the deltoids will be a secondary participant. Further,when the overhead press is extended as far up as possible, the last few inches of extension are predominantly triceps work. Thus the optimal overhead press is one with the hand spaced widely and which stops at the point when the hands begin to form the sides of a triangle. Try it out.
2. The forgotten quad exercise of all time is the front squat. There is nothing more vicious on the front of the leg than this one. Yes, you do have to learn to balance a bar on the shoulders in front of the neck instead of behind it. Yes. it is not easy at first. When you have learned to do it place your heels on a block of wood or an iron plate, go all the way down,and come back up. You will feel this one and you will never have to pile on some ridiculous weight to get super results.
3. The simplistic conventional wisdom that weight training is not aerobic is waisting the time of millions who do some desultory sets of weight training and then labor away on ellipticals etc so that they can get a cardio workout. If you are not panting and unable to move rapidly from movement to movement you do not know how to train for aerobic benefit. Cut the rest periods and try for one set a minute for a half hour. If you are not huffing and puffing, you are babying yourself. If you bring your individual sets to failure and use rest-pause to add reps after you have failed, you will discover that weight training is a cardio workout too.
4. Years ago I got tired of loading plate after plate on the leg press machine. I quit doing leg presses and concentrated on squats. I recently tried the leg press in my gym and was convinced that I had made the correct decision.l was mystified to discover that I could not adjust the back support to bring my torso as close to the foot platform as possible and in this way force my quads down until they touched my chest. The machine permitted only a slight downward thigh movement and reminded me of a sissy squat, where the squatter only descends about six inches before going back up. So, this particular leg machine did not activate my glutes or hamstrings at all. The sqaut is just so much more complete a compound exercise.
5. Training is a hoot after 40 years! Love to let those ingots of impersonal iron challenge me to exert myself. Your servant, as always.
Almost forgot.Don't mix and match equipment on the same movement!
2. The forgotten quad exercise of all time is the front squat. There is nothing more vicious on the front of the leg than this one. Yes, you do have to learn to balance a bar on the shoulders in front of the neck instead of behind it. Yes. it is not easy at first. When you have learned to do it place your heels on a block of wood or an iron plate, go all the way down,and come back up. You will feel this one and you will never have to pile on some ridiculous weight to get super results.
3. The simplistic conventional wisdom that weight training is not aerobic is waisting the time of millions who do some desultory sets of weight training and then labor away on ellipticals etc so that they can get a cardio workout. If you are not panting and unable to move rapidly from movement to movement you do not know how to train for aerobic benefit. Cut the rest periods and try for one set a minute for a half hour. If you are not huffing and puffing, you are babying yourself. If you bring your individual sets to failure and use rest-pause to add reps after you have failed, you will discover that weight training is a cardio workout too.
4. Years ago I got tired of loading plate after plate on the leg press machine. I quit doing leg presses and concentrated on squats. I recently tried the leg press in my gym and was convinced that I had made the correct decision.l was mystified to discover that I could not adjust the back support to bring my torso as close to the foot platform as possible and in this way force my quads down until they touched my chest. The machine permitted only a slight downward thigh movement and reminded me of a sissy squat, where the squatter only descends about six inches before going back up. So, this particular leg machine did not activate my glutes or hamstrings at all. The sqaut is just so much more complete a compound exercise.
5. Training is a hoot after 40 years! Love to let those ingots of impersonal iron challenge me to exert myself. Your servant, as always.
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