The Many Benefits Of Using Resistance Bands In Your Standard Exercise Plan

February 9th, 2016

Free weights with a barbell or lifting with machines? We need to look for security while moving heavy weight and both have their own pros and cons when it comes to lifting. The difference between how to lift with free weights and machines will be explained shortly. There are different types of workouts depending what you are looking for. Are you looking for strength, volume, endurance… are you going to the gym for looks or are you in some sort of athletic team? The exercises, repetitions and days of training will vary depending on this. You need to know your preferences as well as the time you are willing to invest into the gym. When you first enter the gym and get your membership the first thing you look at is how big the guys are. If they are enormous you will likely stay because the gym keeps this kind of lifters happy and you picture yourself being like that in the long term. At first, you think they got like that naturally in a few months. Your brain will not accept they have beenlifting over 10 years for a bunch of hours and taking supplements. If you are reading this, you will most likely be a beginner and even if you are not, I would still recommend you to stay and read about the keys of lifting. It is not all about moving weights far from the ground, it is more about a routine you get your body used to so that you can get better and then keep adding weights. In other words, you evolve. We will find two types of liftings in a regular gym: barbells and machines. The main difference is that the barbell is just a bar in which you put the weights on, while the machines are this big metal blocks in which you move throughout the exercise in a certain posture.   Deeper analysis: Barbell lifting: I call it the old school way, you simply have a bar and you lift it as you wish. You will change in between the series of exercises to get a proportional body figure. The best part of the barbell exercises is that you do not block the body to get just a single muscle going.Since it is free weight you are required you balance it above you at all times and that can get tricky when you are tired or trying to go beyond your maximum capacity. For example, if you want to bench press you will need the bar and all the weight above your eyes, you cannot let the bar go… This is great for getting overall stronger faster since as I said, you work a wide variety of muscle groups. It can get somehow boring in the beginning since everyone will recommend you to start with the bar itself so that you get the form correctly. Do not try to impress anybody by adding weights too early. Learning the proper form in the beginning can get you get started much sooner! Remember to use the muscle group required at all times, just because the bar is light do not lift it with your brute force. You are trying to get the proper and safe form! Machine lifting: The most positive part about the lifting machines is that you do not need to worry about balance which is scary for manybeginners. You will just focus in one muscle part, working that to its maximum and making it big and strong in a short period of time since that muscle does 100% of the work. If we feel that we did not work well some muscle part we can always come back to the appropriate machine and burn it there. Machines give you fast volume since you work in a very precise muscle that needs to do all the work itself. Do not over train any muscle to the point it hurts in a non-flexible motion. Let’s say you are doing a lot of bicep exercise because you feel you need bigger arms. Do not over train, you have plenty of days to do so! If you do lot of one muscle group it may affect your performance in another exercise even if the sore muscle is not involved. Few tips for starters: Always ask for help if you are not sure. Do control your weights. Trust me, you do not want to get stuck under it. Never give up, finish the very last repetition. Do not try to go overweight to impress the guy/girl doing thesame exercise as you. Always keep you form/pose straight.     Most common exercises for each group muscle: Legs: Legs press or incline leg press consists of pushing the weight away from you, letting it come back so that your legs form a 90 degree angle then push again. This is one of the best exercise for quadriceps. Leg curls or seated leg curls is the main exercise you want to look for when you exercise your hamstring. This is a really important muscle for any sport as well as for almost any barbell exercise in the gym. Take care! Barbell seated calf or calf press, both have the same function. It all depends whether you prefer barbells or machines. One of them will most likely be more difficult for you, do not just switch because of this! Use the soleus machine, this can be also used to do the calf press (the previous exercise). With this you would have covered the four biggest muscle groups in your legs! Back: Pull-ups can be worked out by free weight or in the machine which helpsyou a little bit depending on the weight you need help with. Try to keep it 10% of you weight or so. As you get stronger you may want to add weight around your hips or decrease the help in the machine. Mostly focus in the upper back since you are pulling yourself. Decline pullovers can either be done with the barbell or the dumbbells as you feel more comfortable with. This will focus the middle back. Be careful not to go beyond the limit, do not place the weight below the horizontal parallel imaginary line the bench creates. Deadlifts, this famous workout will now be a part of your workout routine. You will most likely want to start this with the barbell so that you do not exercise one arm more than other by pulling all with the same arm and then letting the weaker arm follow. Dumbbell shrugs will come in handy once you get the trick of using this small weights. I would not recommend using the barbell here since you want the weight to be as close to you as possible vertically. We arenot looking for any from or back strength so the barbell is a no-no.   Chest: Barbell bench press what you were looking for in this muscle group. It is the exercise that allows you lift the most as well as one of the chore exercise you will include in your routine. No way to get around this exercise so do not stress if it’s harder than expected. The same version is available with dumbbells. Incline and decline bench press are basically the same thing as the barbell bench press explain above yet these include angles. The weight you will put in this will be less, so be careful when adding weights. Both exercises have a dumbbell version if you feel more comfortable with those. Remember one arm is usually weaker than the other one. Dips are an exercise you will want to include once you have spent a few weeks into the incline, decline and regular bench presses. It works all of the chest as well as your arms and back. Do not forget about the abdominals too! We will talk about those later.  Arms: Diamond push up is the only arm exercise that does not include any type of additional weight besides yours. In case you cannot do them in the beginning go over the regular pushups to get that small boost you need to be able to do these. The standing barbell curl is the most completed one among all since you use both arms equally and you get a perfect symmetry in your body. One arm is usually stronger than the other that is why barbell is recommended for this. Seated concentration curls will be good after the standing barbell or as an alternative to those. Once you get the speed and strength required for the standing barbell you will be able to do these more efficiently. Dips were also reviewed in the chest part. As mentioned before, this requires most if not all of your muscles. Even a 90-degree angle is needed in your legs so do not underestimate this workout. Do as many as possible!   Abdominals: To do a plank, stay in a push-up position yet go down so that you hold the weighton your elbows. Keep the form in a straight line for 30 to 60 seconds. Do 2 to 3 repetitions depending on your abdominal strength. As you get better at this, increase the difficulty level by opening your legs wider. This one will focus your overall abdominals. The side plank is same posture as the regular plank mentioned before but we will focus keeping the form sideways so that all the weight is on top of a single elbow. Keep your abdominals flexed at all times. Not swinging because of lack of balance is more important than flexing. If you want to add difficulty swing your arm below your body and back up so that your back is straight. This one will focus the sides of the abdominals. Reverse crunch is not that difficult yet it burns crazy amount of abdominal grass. You will want your hands next to your body. They will act so that you do not lose balance and roll on the ground. When these get fixed bring your knees to your chin. To increase difficulty, bring the legs straight upward ashigh as possible. Remember never lower the amount of repetitions for being tired. This will the lower abdominals. The Russian twist is the ultimate workout for our last part of the abdominal side. Our so much missed V. For this you will need any type of weight. In case you do not have weights you can use any heavy object around you, even if you put stuff into a show to make it heavy. Everything helps! You will want to do this 3 sets of 30 repetitions. If you are feeling strong, either add more weight or go more sets, no need to go up in repetitions.