Saturday, February 25, 2012

Weight Lifting For Rookies


Weight training is a great way to build muscle mass and tone, muscular strength and power, increase bone density, improve balance, lose weight and change your body. Whatever your fitness goals may be, weight training will accelerate your training and get you to be where you want to be sooner and in better shape. Cardio and diet are important too but when it comes to changing and re-shaping your body, weight training wins hands down.

Getting started with weights can be intimidating and is a great time to hire a trainer. A personal trainer will put you on the most appropriate program, one personally tailored to help you achieve your specific goals; if you are looking to lose weight your program will be a lot different from someone who is trying to build muscle mass or train for a specific sport or event. Your program will address appropriate exercise selections, sets and reps, weight used and above all, your form. Form is number one, even more important than how heavy your weight is or how many reps and sets you do because without proper form you have nothing. Correct form will ensure that you are using your muscles properly, safely and effectively.

Here are some of the key components of any weight training program that you should understand before getting started.

Always Warm Up. As with any form of exercise, but crucial to weight lifting, a good warm up is number one. Start with 5 or 10 minutes of light cardio; walking or jogging on the treadmill or elliptical, cycling, rowing or stepping. During or following which preform some dynamic stretches (avoid holding any stretch). Finally, perform warm up sets using light weights. With warm muscles you're much less at risk for injury.

Lift And Lower Your Weights Slowly. Don't use momentum to lift your weights, this puts you at a low risk for results and a high risk for injury. If you have to swing the weights to get them up chances are that you are using too much, and poor form.

Breathe. Your muscles need oxygen. Breathe out on the way up (the hard part) and in on the way down (the part where you are resisting gravity).

Stand Up Straight. Pay attention to your posture. Engage your abdominals in every movement to protect your spine and keep yourself balanced.

Progressive Overload. To see results you have to progressively overload your muscles. The more you do, the more your body is capable of doing and overloading your muscles will ensure that you avoid hitting plateaus. Increase the intensity, change the number of sets or reps, do different exercises and lift heavier weights. You can make changes on a weekly or monthly basis.

Specificity. Train for your goal. If you are looking to lose weight you want to do a higher number of repetitions (10-15). To build muscle mass, use heavy weights and a lower number of reps (less than 5-10).

Rest and Recovery. Rest days are just as important as work days. You have to allow your muscles time to recover, rebuild and repair in order to grow. Make sure you're not working the same muscles two days in a row.

Train don't strain. It is normal and in fact a good sign to experience some muscle soreness after a workout. If that soreness lasts for more than a couple of days or prevents you from doing your day-to-day (like sitting down) chances are good that you pushed yourself a little too hard. The key is to find the balance between training hard enough that you will see gains, but not over-doing it to the point that you put yourself at risk for injury.




Stacy Lynn Zeman

Personal Trainer & Group Fitness Instructor

[http://www.thefitnessclubkelowna.com]




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