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Weight Training Tips

George Moudry, MBA, Ed.D., Exercise Physiologist | Published on 5/5/2021

We all want to stay in shape and enjoy the health benefits, feeling well and strong.

I already talked about the importance of aerobic exercise (cardio): steady rhythmic exercise that elevates heart rate for at least 30 minutes per workout at intensity of “somewhat hard”.

 

Stretch your large muscles, ligaments, and tendons in your joints after exercise, when the body is worm and pliable. Find a good stretching routine that will fit your needs and goals online.

Improving your strength is especially important. Strong muscles will protect your joints, and you will perform your daily tasks with ease. And you will look better!

 

There are many ways to improve strength, and many exercise modalities. All of them involve movements against resistance. These efforts cause muscle damage (it is important not to overdo!), and the muscles, and to some degree also the supporting tissues, such as tendons, ligaments and bones repair themselves during rest and grow stronger.

The most common strength improvement is by weight training. The question is: “Which is the better, training on exercise machines or with free weights or the pulley systems?”

All these modalities will produce results, but all have some advantages and disadvantages:

 

EXERCISE MACHINES ADVANTAGES:

  1. Machines are easier to use – just drop in the pin and you are set to go. No bending for weights or gathering weights, no shuffling benches, no dropping a dumbbell on your foot. No racking up dumbbells, barbells, and plates after your sets.

    You will finish your weight training workout safer and faster.

  2. Machines isolate the exercising muscle and allows you to train it without assistance or interference from other muscles of muscle groups. This can be both, an advantage, and a disadvantage, as we will see.
  3. The biggest advantage of machines is that they provide variable resistance. The machines are made to do that through a system of pullies and cams. This means that during the movement, if your body has a mechanical advantage, the machine adds more resistance at that point, and if the body has a disadvantage, the machine reduces the resistance. Such training will improve strength at all points throughout the range of movement and enhances the range of the movement.

 

EXERCISE MACHINE DISADVANTAGES:

  1. The machines do not simulate body movements and motions too well. Example: when sitting and working on the machine, there is no pressure on the spine, and the knee joints and ankles as it would be during natural movement.
  2. By isolating the selected muscle or muscle group, machines eliminate other muscle groups that would play role in the natural movement or effort. This is particularly true for the muscles and muscle groups in maintaining balance.

 

FREE WEIGHT ADVANTAGES AND DISADAVNTAGES:

  1. They are opposite of the machine advantages and disadvantages: They are cumbersome to use and could cause injury by dropping, tripping over or loose barbell collar. Free weight workouts last longer. If the gym is not well equipped, there is competition for weights.
  2. The biggest advantage of free weight training is that the exercises closely simulate movements, pressures and resistances encountered in real life. And again, exercises with free weights always engage the anti-gravity and balance muscle groups.

 

PULLEYS:

Combine both advantages of machines and free weights. When used correctly pulleys are excellent way to weight train, and particularly if you are interested in POWER, rather

than STRENTH, such as training for a stronger and faster golf swing.

Both pulley systems and water resistance exercises are powerful rehabilitation treatment modes.

 

My recommendation would be to use machines for the following exercises:

 

Abdominal                   Knee extension (Quads)          Fly machine (Pecs)      Rotary torso

Back extension            Knee flexion (Hamstrings)      Bench press                 Back fly (upper back)

Pull down                    Rowing                                    Leg abduction /adduction

 

Use free weights for:

 

Military press              Shrug               Back fly (upper back)              Lunge 

Bicep curl                    Triceps            Toe rises                                                         

Lateral rises                Squats              Rotary torso (with bar)

 

During workout repetitions breathe deeply and rhythmically. Large changes in thoracic and abdominal pressures during deep breathing enhances blood return to the heart, like a pump.

Between sets, take a few steps around, bend, stretch, move. These movements also improve blood return to the heart: it is called the muscle pump.

 

What about isometric exercises – when tension is maintained with no movement, like pressing against the tabletop or a wall, or planking, etc. I am not in favor of those. You certainly will develop great strength in that one position you train in, but not in any other position in the movement range. Same applies for eccentric exercises, occurs when lowering the weight, the muscles lengthen. Again, with eccentric training you will become strong lowering things but not lifting.

 

Remember: Training is specific. That is, you will become good or strong in what you train for specifically. That is why football drills simulate real football game encounters as closely as possible. Same goes for basketball, hockey, all sports. If you are great racquetball player does not mean you will be good tennis player. They are both racquet sports, and similar but different enough that performance does not transfer from one to the other.