Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
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Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
1–10 of 96 posts
Re: Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
#2Great article, agree with pretty much everything.
The one advantage of machines over free weights is that the machine will enforce your form. If you are able to maintain form with free weights, the effort exerted to do so is an added bonus, but if you aren't, it's not good. I started with machines, and every couple workouts replaced a machine exercise with a free weight exercise. This helped me get started, and let me concentrate on the form on one new exercise at a time.
Re: Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
#3Great article, agree with pretty much everything. The one advantage of machines over free weights is that the machine will enforce your form. If you are able to maintain form with free weights, the effort exerted to do so is an added bonus, but if you aren't, it's not good. I started with machines, and every couple workouts replaced a machine exercise with a free weight exercise. This helped me get started, and let m…
That's also why they're "bad" though, when you let the machine handle your form you aren't getting the full benefit of the exercise.
Re: Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
#4Great article, agree with pretty much everything. The one advantage of machines over free weights is that the machine will enforce your form. If you are able to maintain form with free weights, the effort exerted to do so is an added bonus, but if you aren't, it's not good. I started with machines, and every couple workouts replaced a machine exercise with a free weight exercise. This helped me get started, and let m…
That's also why they're "bad" though, when you let the machine handle your form you aren't getting the full benefit of the exercise.
Exactly. Good form on free weights > Using a machine > Bad form on free weights. For me, introducing free weights gradually let me concentrate on the form for each one as I first did it.
Re: Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
#5This is a great article, makes me want to get off my bum and do some exercise :) One thing I'd like to know is, for women, yoga and pilates and all that seems to be quite fashionable these days, but they don't tend to be either cardio or weightlifting -- what sort of effect do they have on the body?
Re: Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's also why they're "bad" though, when you let the machine handle your form you aren't getting the full benefit of the exercise.
Exactly. Good form on free weights > Using a machine > Bad form on free weights. For me, introducing free weights gradually let me concentrate on the form for each one as I first did it.
I think it's also important to make a distinction about the weight difference between machine and free weight exercises. It's not a 1:1 ratio. It's easy to grunt it out when you don't have to worry about a large, blunt object falling on your face.
Re: Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
#7I can swear by this - I've lost almost forty pounds since New Year's by cutting out the danishes, making my own lunches, and going to the gym regularly for weight lifting and cardio.
The only thing I'd add - working out is time-consuming, and getting started at a gym is both hard and intimidating. Gyms themselves are counting on you to stop going - that's how they make their money. If you're having trouble getting started, consider saving up your money and getting a personal trainer for a few months. The personal trainer will teach you how to use the equipment properly, get you more comfortable around the gym, and, most importantly, will be so godawful expensive you won't shrug it off and not bother to go to the sessions - the pain of wasting all that money will be too much.
Yes, I know this is silly - but I was getting chunkier and chunkier over the past couple of years and for me that was the only thing that worked. Personal willpower just wasn't getting it done.
Re: Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
#8This is a great article, makes me want to get off my bum and do some exercise :) One thing I'd like to know is, for women, yoga and pilates and all that seems to be quite fashionable these days, but they don't tend to be either cardio or weightlifting -- what sort of effect do they have on the body?
It actually takes a significant amount of "functional" strength to do even just basic Yoga poses. The common myth is that Yoga is all about flexibility, but in fact a lot of the time "inflexibility" is actually just weak core strength.
Having a good core is one of the easiest ways to maintain your health as you get older too and if you're active you will feel a great benefit having that balance and strength. Until I tried Snowboarding I had no idea my core was as weak as it was.
The test I always like to give myself is being able to put my socks on in the morning whilst standing up, without wobbling all over the place or leaning on anything :)
Re: Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
#9I agree with the author's recommendation to focus mainly on compound movements (squats, deadlifts, military presses, etc.) I stopped training arms directly and still packed on substantial muscle mass just by training back, chest and shoulders. I'd also point out that in my experience, training legs accounts for 50% of upper body growth due to the specific hormones released.
Re: Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
#10This is a great article, makes me want to get off my bum and do some exercise :) One thing I'd like to know is, for women, yoga and pilates and all that seems to be quite fashionable these days, but they don't tend to be either cardio or weightlifting -- what sort of effect do they have on the body?
It actually takes a significant amount of "functional" strength to do even just basic Yoga poses. The common myth is that Yoga is all about flexibility, but in fact a lot of the time "inflexibility" is actually just weak core strength. Having a good core is one of the easiest ways to maintain your health as you get older too and if you're active you will feel a great benefit having that balance and strength. Until I…
Thanks! I've done some yoga in the past, and it can be quite tricky to do, but apart from the breathing and stretching it did I was never quite sure whether it was as good for me as, say, a run/cycle.
Since I don't have access to a gym with weights and only a small set of dumbbells I'm not sure how much of the weight training side of this I can do, but I might try the running thing and perhaps some simpler weights that I can do with dumbbells. Maybe pick up a yoga class again too :)