Strength training can lead to fit body

Given the stressful lifestyles most people lead nowadays, it is no wonder that many individuals want to have a healthy body that can withstand all the pressures and tensions that come their way. This is the reason why memberships in gyms or fitness centers remain on the rise and the demand for exercise videos continues to grow. Although following a healthy diet is commendable, this is not enough. Your diet must be combined with the appropriate exercise routines in order to have your desired optimum body.
Advertisement

Strength training is very important in order to achieve a healthy body. There are many benefits of this type of training; for starters it can boost your self-confidence. Knowing that you have a strong body makes you feel good about yourself. This feeling is likely to be reflected in your mood and confidence while going about your daily routine. This new-found confidence will be noticed by the people around you. Aside from developing stronger bones and enhancing your stamina, proper strength training will also ensure that you will get a good night's sleep every night. It likewise will minimize the possibility of getting injured or hurt since your body becomes more flexible.

When people decide to lose weight or get into shape, strength training is often overlooked. Most people will combine healthy eating with some cardiovascular training but leave out weight training. If you combine all three elements, weight training, healthy eating, and cardiovascular training, you will have a well-balanced exercise program that is guaranteed to bring you results.

Lifting weights can be intimidating for some people. It is easy to not know where to begin, or to be afraid of getting injured. Before proceeding, seek clearance from your doctor or a health professional. If you are ready to proceed, you have a choice between enrolling in a fitness center or hiring a personal trainer. Do not be afraid to ask for assistance; there are many fitness professionals who are eager to assist and teach you how to properly implement weight training into your fitness routine.

The hardest part of putting together a resistance program is knowing where to start. Cardiovascular training is pretty simple, you hop on a machine, push some buttons and you're off. You can also take a long walk, jog or hike; the point is, it doesn't require a lot of thought.

Weight training is a little different, you actually have to think about and design a workout program that fits you and your goals. There are a ton of workouts out there, but which one is going to be right for you? You may have questions about what exercises to do for which body parts. In the end, though, resistance training does not have to be complex, it can be as simple as relying on your own body weight for strength training by doing push-ups, leg squats, abdominal crunches and pull-ups. Remember, the most important step is to be committed to your routine and continue learning and challenging yourself.

# Andy Salazar is the owner of Empower Fitness in Visalia and a fitness consultant to the Getting Fit team at the Visalia Times-Delta.

Lifting Weights at Home

Exercising at home is the perfect solution for many people. Here are the main reasons why working out at home makes sense:

• You live too far from a gym. Although more than 13,000 fitness centers exist in this country, not everybody lives near one of them. If you don’t live or work within ten minutes of a club, lifting weights at home may be your best option. Or if you can afford it, not only join a club that you can get to on days when you have time, but also invest in some basic weight the drive (preferably choose an active way to get to the gym; that way you’ll already be warmed up).
• Your schedule. If your club doesn’t have childcare or you can’t leave the house for some other reason, buying your own equipment makes sense. The same applies if you work unusual hours and the gym’s schedule doesn’t jive with yours. If your den is equipped with dumbbells and a bench, you can exercise at 6 a.m. on Sunday if you want.
  
• You’re self-conscious. If you can’t bear the thought of exercising in front of other people — or just need a little time to get used to what you look like in a pair of athletic shorts — by all means, work out at home. Videos, DVDs, or personal trainers give you instruction and help keep you motivated. However, don’t let self-consciousness keep you away from a club for too long if you have other compelling reasons to go. For the most part, health club members are too busy looking at themselves in the mirror to notice what you look like.
• You don’t like crowds. Some people simply like to be alone with their dumbbells.

How to Overcome Injuries?

We don’t yet have a cure for the common cold, but we do have a reliable remedy for most minor sprains and strains: RICE, an acronym for Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. RICE is most effective if you begin the process within 48 hours of injuring yourself. RICE includes the following four components:

• Rest: Stop performing activities that aggravate your injury. (Notice that we didn’t say stop all activity — that’s rarely the solution.) Wait until you’ve had two completely pain-free days before doing exercises that involve the injured area.
• Ice: Contrary to popular belief, ice, not heat, helps reduce the pain and swelling of most common injuries. Ice your injury for 15 to 20 minutes, 3 or 4 times a day, for as long as you feel pain. You can apply ice with a store-bought pack, a plastic bag full of ice cubes, and even a package of frozen strawberries. But don’t allow ice to sit directly against the skin. (You may end up with ice burns.) Instead, wrap whatever is holding your ice in a thin towel. Throw out the berries after they’ve been used as an ice pack a few times. The thawing and refreezing renders the berries less tasty than they would’ve been before. Two areas may not respond well to icing: your neck and back. These injured areas may be so sensitive to the cold that you may tense up. If that’s the case, a moist heating pad or wet, warm towel is best for treating the injury and allowing your muscles to relax.
• Compression: Put pressure on the injury to keep the swelling down. Use a damp elastic bandage or buy a special brace or wrap for your knee, elbow, or wrist. Wrap the bandage tightly enough so you feel some tension but not so firmly that you cut off your circulation or feel numb.
• Elevation: Elevating your injured body part drains away fluids and waste products so swelling goes down. If you’ve hurt your ankle, you don’t need to lift it up over your head. You only need to elevate it higher than your hip so gravity assists the blood flow downward. Propping up your ankle on several pillows or books does the trick (pillows will be more comfortable, of course).

Sometimes RICE isn’t enough to treat an injury. If the pain is truly excruciating or is bothersome for more than a few days, your injury probably needs more aggressive treatment and possibly medical attention. If you experience excessive swelling, discoloration, or bleeding, you may need a trip to the emergency room. Use your judgment. If you see a bone fragment sticking out of your ankle, don’t simply stick an ice pack over it.

Exercise Eases Muscle Injury

At first she thought she was feeling routine soreness, something that Donna Grubb-Hewlett was pretty sure she could muscle through. But when she heard a pop in the back of her leg during a February morning warm-up, she knew she had a more serious problem.

"[The soreness] was something I thought I should expect," said Grubb-Hewlett, who is training for her first marathon this summer in San Diego. "But this didn't go away."

Hamstring injuries are among the most common to strike casual athletes and gym regulars — whether it's the sudden tweak that pulls you up short in a softball game or a more profound "Level 3" tear that shreds fiber deep within the muscle and requires months of rehabilitation. In the most serious cases, the muscle and tendon can snap away from the bone and must be surgically reattached.

Hamstrings are complicated muscles — they're sets of three that begin at the hip and extend down the back of the leg to just below the knee — responsible for a lot of the body's motion. They flex the knees and pull the hips forward when you are walking and jogging.

Sprints seem to factor in some hamstring injuries, said John McCarthy, an assistant professor with the University of Alabama-Birmingham's Department of Physical Therapy. Such motions force the hamstrings to contract even as they lengthen with forward momentum, establishing an internal tug of war.

"That is where you get the peak stretch," McCarthy said.

Weakness of the muscle almost certainly is a cause of injury, and some doctors and researchers feel that strength imbalances may also be to blame. In many people, the quadriceps, at the front of the leg, are substantially stronger than the hamstrings, perhaps setting up the back of the leg for injury. Postural problems can also add strain.

Fortunately, a pulled hamstring is not likely to be a career-ender. Many Level 1 tears can be treated at home with ice, a compression bandage, elevation (to keep the swelling down after the injury) and a few days of rest until the pain subsides. After that, a gradual return to stretching and exercise will ensure that the muscle heals properly.

Though Grubb-Hewlett's was considered a Level 1 tear, she is working with a local chiropractor in hopes of recovering more quickly and completing her marathon program with the Washington, D.C., area Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training group.

Her chief recommendation: Swallow your pride and get help early. Though pain will limit what can be done at first, McCarthy said side-to-side exercises such as the "grapevine" — a series of crossover steps popular in aerobics classes — can be done slowly to start the recovery.

Gradually, hamstring stretches and strengthening exercises can be reintroduced: The National Strength and Conditioning Association has prepared a guide to some of them ( www.nsca-lift.org/Perform/articles/060305.pdf).

To target the hamstrings, Frank Holmes, director of the sports medicine program and Georgetown University Hospital, recommends leg curls, which can be done at home by securing a resistance band to a door or piece of furniture, looping it around the ankle, then flexing the knee. (Use a chair or wall for balance.) If you are using a leg-curl machine, he recommends isolating one leg at a time and slowing the "eccentric" phase of the exercise — when the weight is being released — since hamstrings seem to get injured as they are being extended.

For those without access to a gym, bodyweight squats (with knees at shoulder width and weight over your heels, lower yourself until your thighs are parallel to the ground, then come back up) and lunges (step out with one foot, lower the back knee close to the ground, then come up, keeping the front knee over the ankle) will also help.

Common Weight Training Injuries

Accidents happen, even to careful lifters. So, here’s a primer on weight training injuries in case you do run into one.
When you strain or pull a muscle, you actually overstretch or tear the tendon, the tough, cordlike tissue at the end of the muscle where the muscle tapers off and attaches to the bone. A strain can happen when you push up the bar too forcefully during the bench press or stand up too quickly out of the squat. Strains are often accompanied by a sudden, sharp pain and then a persistent ache.
A sprain is something different altogether. This injury happens not to a muscle but to a joint, such as your ankle or wrist. When you sprain a joint, you’ve torn or overstretched a ligament, the connective tissue that attaches one bone to another. You may feel pain and throbbing and notice some swelling and bruising. You can sprain just about any joint in your body; ankles and wrists seem to take the most beating.
Depending on the severity of the injury, the healing process may take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months. If your injury doesn’t appear to be healing, see your doctor. Some of the common injuries caused by lifting weights include the following:

• Torn rotator cuff: The muscles of your rotator cuff are often injured during bench presses and shoulder presses. You may have torn your rotator cuff if

• You feel a persistent ache or a sharp pain deep within your shoulder at a specific point during the exercise.
• You’re unable to raise your arm in front of you and over your head. If you’ve injured your rotator cuff
• Stop performing any exercises that cause you pain or soreness in that area.
• Skip all overhead pressing movements for as long as your healthcare provider recommends that you rest. You shouldn’t exercise while you have any pain.
• Lighten up your load on the bench press to a weight where you don’t feel any pain.
• Limit the distance you move the bar.
• Or skip the exercise altogether.
• Review your form: Make sure that you’re not bouncing the weights up and down or taking the exercise past your natural active range of motion that you can control. The rotator cuff exercises can help prevent injuries to these muscles. These exercises are a must if you lift heavy weights, if you lift regularly two to three times a week, or if you participate in a sport that uses the upper body, such as tennis, rock climbing, or swimming.
• Sore knees: Pinpointing the source of the problem can be difficult with knee injuries because the injury can come in so many varieties and have so many different causes. Often, the injury is caused by something you did outside of the weight room. Still, certain weight training mistakes, are likely culprits. Runners, walkers, and cyclists can ward off many common knee injuries by performing quadriceps exercises.
• If any leg exercise causes you pain, skip it or modify it by following our instructions. Some people try to protect their knees from injury by wrapping them in yards of bandages. We don’t love the idea of knee wraps unless you’re into some serious power lifting. A wrapped knee may mask a problem that needs immediate attention.
• To help protect your knees, make sure that you strengthen both your front and rear thigh muscles — the muscles that support your knee joint. Stretching is also helpful to keep all the muscles that surround the knee loose and limber.
• Sore wrists: Some people injure their wrist muscles by bending their wrists too much when they lift weights. To prevent wrist injuries, do regular wrist curls and reverse wrist curls.
• Lower back pain: If you have a history of back problems, you can just as easily throw out your back reaching for an apple in the fridge as you can pumping iron. But because the weight room constantly challenges your ability to stabilize your spine and maintain good form, it increases the risk of triggering an old injury — or developing a new one. Always take precautions for your lower back when you lift weights. One key preventive measure (that we mention repeatedly throughout this book) is to pull your abdominals inward. By tightening your abs, you create a natural girdle to support and protect your lower back.

Exercises that need spotters

Where you stand when spotting someone can make the difference between being helpful and being useless in an emergency. The following list offers spotting tips for a variety of common exercises:

• Bench press: Stand behind the bench with your hands above or underneath the bar but not touching it. When the lifter needs you, lean in and get a quick grip on the bar.
• Chest fly and dumbbell chest press: For these dumbbell exercises (and versions performed on an incline bench) place your hands close to the person’s wrists, not close to the weights. (You may see people spot underneath the elbows, which isn’t a crime but not as safe, either.) When spotting flat-bench chest exercises, kneel on one knee behind the bench and follow the movement with your hands. For incline exercises, you may find it more comfortable to stand with your knees bent.
• Barbell squat: Stand behind your spottee, and be prepared to assist at the hips or underneath the arms. Your spottee may not want to be spotted at the hips unless you happen to be that person’s significant other. If you’re squatting with a particularly heavy weight, you may want two spotters, one standing on either side of the bar.
• Pull-up and dip: Stand behind your spottee and offer assistance by holding his or her shins or waist and guiding them upward.
• Machine exercises: Spot at the bar or lever of the machine. For example, if you’re spotting someone on the cable row, stand slightly behind and to the side of your spottee. Grasp one of the handles and gently assist it the rest of the way. Never spot machine exercises by placing your hand underneath the weight stack. That’s a good way to get a squashed hand!

Don't be intimidated: Weight training not just for men

For women looking to lose weight, get healthier or feel better about themselves -- both mentally and physically -- adding some weights to your workout routine may be the ticket.

Weights can be intimidating. How do we get started, and how do we avoid getting bigger instead of smaller?

First, strength training will not bulk you up.

“You would have to take testosterone or steroids to get bulky,” said Melissa Rife, a personal trainer. “Actually, the opposite occurs since the muscles get tighter and leaner.”

What weight training will do, she said, is make your body burn more calories, even at rest.

“It increases your metabolism. There’s a better carryover, which means the muscles keep burning calories after you’re done,” she said.

That’s great if you’re trying to lose weight, but there’s even more advantages to adding strength to your routine.

Strong muscles mean better posture, and weight training helps fight osteoporosis by promoting bone growth.

It’s best for beginners to start with very light weights, like one, three, or five pounds, in order to work on proper form.

“One of the biggest mistakes women make is with their form,” said Kim Wagler, who owns a fitness center with her husband, Chad. “They won’t get the benefit (of the weights) because of poor form.”

Rife recommends that beginners start with these basic exercises: Bicep curls, rows, push-ups, squats, lunges, crunches, a tricep exercise, leg raises, calf raises, and shoulder raises.

Start with one or two sets of eight to 10 repetitions, with a minute rest between each set. Work your way up to three sets. If it is too easy, add reps or weight.

“The last couple of reps should feel challenging,” Rife said. “If you’re starting out struggling at the third or fourth rep, that’s when you’ll get hurt.”

Beginners will probably notice muscle soreness the next day or two. Rife said the pain should be gone before you work those muscles again.

“When you start, three times a week is good. The other days, do cardio. Don’t overdo it or you’ll get hurt,” Rife said. “Also, ‘No pain, no gain’ is not the way to approach exercise. Pain is a flag that something is wrong and that activity should be stopped.”

One more important thing to know before you start: You can’t “spot reduce.”

That means, said Wagler, “You have to do a total workout. People think they can do 100 exercises for abs and get flat abs.”

Both recommend that beginners get professional instruction before staring a routine. If that’s not possible, several Web sites offer instruction on exercises.

“The Web site I like to use is www.about.com,” recommends Rife. “Put in strength training in the search block. It has good info and it has pictures of the various exercises. People can also use it to look up other info on various forms of exercise and health. “

Strength-training tips

- Reduce your body fat, increase your lean muscle mass and burn calories more efficiently.

- Develop strong bones. By stressing your bones, strength training increases bone density and reduces the risk of osteoporosis. If you already have osteoporosis, strength training can lessen its impact.

- Control your body fat. As you lose muscle, your body burns calories less efficiently, which can result in weight gain. The more toned your muscles, the easier it is to control your weight.

- Reduce your risk of injury. Building muscle protects your joints from injury. It also helps you maintain flexibility and balance -- and remain independent as you age.

- Boost your stamina. As you grow stronger, you won’t fatigue as easily.

- Improve your sense of well-being. Strength training can boost your self-confidence, improve your body image and reduce the risk of depression.

- Get a better night's sleep. People who strength-train regularly are less likely to struggle with insomnia.

Source: MayoClinic.com

Weight training versus cardio Which one should you do first?

Is it better to start your workouts with cardio or weight training?
It depends on what you're trying to achieve.

Starting with cardio first will prepare the body and warm it up for resistance-training activities. If our primary goal is to work on the cardiovascular system, we can really emphasize that if we start with cardio first.

If we start with weights first, we may have some premature fatigue.

When we start with weight training, the primary benefit is that there is usually some skill component with resistance training. We need to be sharp and ready to handle it, and we will be, if we do resistance training first.

For the average person, after they have appropriately warmed up, probably the best choice would be to do their resistance training first because it involves a skill component. Then follow with an aerobic workout.

Can they do that -- cardio and resistance training combined -- three times a week? Yes, but neither cardio nor resistance training is optimized with concurrent training. It's difficult to do two things well at the same time.

Splitting them up would be more effective. Do cardiovascular training every other day and resistance training on the days in between, if you have the time. But not everybody has five, six or seven days a week to work out.

That's why, looking at the big picture, in our time-strapped, sedentary society, it's probably best to put cardiovascular training first, because we have such a high risk for heart disease in North America.

Cardio helps with that, along with burning calories and fat reduction.

But again, depending on the person, doing cardio first may be less important. Of course, building muscle mass raises your metabolism, so you're continually burning more calories throughout the day.
© The Calgary Herald 2008

The do’s and don’ts of spotting

When the time comes that you’re in the gym and someone calls on you to help them with a few exercises, remember the do’s and don’ts of being a responsible spotter.

• Don’t impose a lift-or-die mentality upon your lifting partner. Just because he may have planned to complete five reps doesn’t mean that you should withhold assistance if he starts struggling after three.
  
• Don’t offer too much help too soon. This eagerness defeats the purpose of spotting, because the person only needs a spotter because they’re trying to test the edge of their limits. If you prevent that person from testing that edge, you’ll annoy the heck out of the person being spotted.
  
• Don’t lean so close to your spottee that you impede or distract his movement. Bench-pressing isn’t enjoyable when someone’s face is directly over yours, and you can see up the person’s nose.
  
• Be a cheerleader! Now put your pom-poms away. You don’t have to jump up and do the splits, but people appreciate support — and may even lift more weight — if you offer enthusiastic encouragement: “You’re almost there!” or “It’s all you! You’ve got it!”

Being the spotter

When people recruit you as a spotter, you have a big responsibility to perform your job correctly. Be realistic. If you weigh 90 pounds soaking wet, don’t attempt to spot someone doing a 350-pound bench press. If you have any doubt you can pull it off, don’t take on the assignment. The moment that the lifter’s arms give out isn’t the moment to realize you’re out of your league. If you do accept the job, pay close attention so you’re ready at the precise moment your partner needs help. Step in to help on these situations:

• The weight stops moving for more than a split second and it’s immediately apparent that the person is no longer in control of the movement.
• The weight begins traveling in the wrong direction.
• The lifter screams, “HELP!”
• Your partner can’t complete a rep.

Briefing your spotter

Your spotter can be your friend or a training partner that you meet at the gym. If you don’t know anyone, you can usually ask a staff person who is working on the weight-training floor. If you work with a personal trainer, she’ll spot you. Regardless of who you choose, prepare your spotter for the mission ahead:

• Explain how many repetitions you’re aiming to complete. Think about how many reps you think that you can do before you’ll need the spotter’s assistance. Be honest! If you think that you may need a spot on the sixth repetition, say so. This way, your spotter can start paying extra close attention around the fourth rep.
• Make it clear to your spotter whether you need help lifting the bar off the rack or getting the dumbbells into position.
  
• Set up a specific plan. Will the spotter help you on the count of three or after the count of three? Tiny misunderstandings can lead to big injuries.
  
• Offer your gratitude both before and after your set. Don’t forget to tell your spotter thank you. An attitude of gratitude makes you a reputable person in the gym.

The Art of Spotting

A spotter is someone who stands close by you when you’re lifting weights. This person is ready to grab your weights in case your muscles give out. The spotter can be your lifting partner that you go to the gym with or a stranger in the gym that you enlist for one or two exercises. Going to the gym with a friend is a good way to hold each other accountable. You can spot each other during lifting, and while you rest in between repetitions, your partner can perform the same exercise. Friends can encourage you in the last few reps, and keep you motivated. Your well-known lifting buddy also knows what you’re capable of and when you’ve had enough. If you’re in the gym lifting weights alone, you may not need a spotter hovering over you for every free weight exercise because you may feel smothered, as if your mom is chaperoning you on a date. But do call on a spotter when you’re alone and doing the following:

• Trying an exercise for the first time. Even if you’re not lifting significant weight, the weights may wobble when you perform a new movement. A spotter gently guides you through the motion until you have the confidence and the muscle memory to do it yourself.
• Attempting a heavier weight than usual. If you’ve never bench-pressed 100 pounds, try the exercise first in the presence of a spotter. The moment the bar comes crashing down on your chest isn’t a good time to find out you weren’t ready for the lift (or the time to try gasping for air to yell for help). Lifting heavy weights without a spotter is a lot like a trapeze artist working without a safety net. You may be fine the first nine times, but the tenth time. . . .
• Wanting to eke out extra reps. Sometimes you’re just not sure whether you have one more repetition in you. If you have a spotter, the repetition is worth trying (there’s no danger in trying). A spotter also can help you with machine exercises and assist you, for instance, on the last few inches of a heavy leg curl or arm curl.

Weight machine safety tips

One of the selling points of weight machines is that they’re safer than free weights. And it’s true — you’re in no danger of being crushed by a 100-pound barbell. The way that machines create a safer environment is that they put your body in the correct position and direct the movement pattern. Still, if you’re not careful, you can injure yourself.

Follow these safety tips to keep yourself (and others) out of harm’s way:

• Custom fit each machine. Some machines require a single adjustment, such as the seat height. Others require two or more adjustments: For instance, with some versions of the leg extension machine exercise, , you have to adjust the back rest as well as the leg bar. Don’t worry; you don’t need a mechanic’s license to adapt these machines to your body. Usually, you just pull a pin out of the hole, lower or raise the seat, and then put the pin back in place. Some machines are so simple to adjust that they don’t even involve a pin. With practice, fitting the machine to your body becomes second nature. Don’t get lazy about making adjustments. Using a weight machine that doesn’t fit your body is like driving a car while sitting in the back seat: uncomfortable, if not downright dangerous. When you strain to reach a handle or sit with your knees digging into your chest, you’re at risk for pulling a muscle or wrenching a joint. After you make an adjustment, jiggle the seat or the backrest to make sure that you’ve locked it securely in place. You don’t want the seat to drop suddenly to the floor with you on it.
• Watch your fingers. Occasionally, a machine’s weight stack gets stuck in midair. Don’t try to rectify the situation yourself by fiddling with the plates. Instead, call a staff member for help. We once saw a gym member try to fix a weight stack himself. The stack came crashing down, sandwiching his fingers between the weight plates. We’ve seen other people get clumps of hair caught in the stacks, and even one guy got his genitals stuck between the weight plates. We don’t know the details and don’t want to, but we did hear the story from a reliable equipment dealer who witnessed the ordeal.
• Buckle up. If a machine has a seat belt, use it. The belts are there for a reason. Use them! The seat belt prevents you from wasting muscle power squirming around to stay in place as you move the bar or lever of the machine. You’re most likely to find seat belts on older models of the inner/outer thigh, pullover, seated leg curl, and triceps dip machines.
• Don’t invent new uses for the machinery. You wouldn’t use your favorite sweater to dust the house, right? You wouldn’t use your television as a step-stool to reach the top cupboard. So don’t use a chest machine to strengthen your legs.

People are constantly inventing new — and unsafe — ways to use weight machines. For example: In order to release the chest bar on the vertical chest press machine, you must use your feet to press down on a bar near the floor. Well, we’ve seen people ignore the chest press altogether and use this floor bar to exercise their thighs or arms. If you dream up new uses for a machine, you may be asking for injuries.

Free weight safety tips

We know a police officer who arched his back so severely over years of bench-pressing that he finally was forced to retire. So keep in mind the following during your free weight workouts:

• Use proper form when you lift a weight off the rack. When you lift a dumbbell or barbell off a rack or when you lift a weight plate off a weight tree, always
• Bend from your knees — not from your hips.
• Get in close to the rack.
• Keep your arms bent.
• Pay attention when carrying weights around.
• Hold heavier weight plates with two hands.
• Keep the plates close to your body when you carry them.
• Watch where you’re going when you carry barbells.
• Making a U-turn while hauling around a 7-foot bar can cause serious destruction.
• Keep your elbows slightly bent when carrying a dumbbell in each hand.
• Use collars. A collar is a clamplike device that you use to secure a weight plate onto a bar. Often, when you perform a barbell exercise, the bar tilts slightly to one side; without a collar, the plates may slide right off and land on somebody’s toes or crash into the mirrors on the wall. We know one woman who was knocked unconscious when a collar flew off a guy’s weight bar and hit her in the head.
• Don’t drop weights on the floor. After you complete a dumbbell exercise on a bench (such as the chest fly or dumbbell chest press):
• Bring the weights to your chest.
• Gently rock yourself up into a sitting position.
• Some people simply let go of the weights, which isn’t only unnerving to the other gym members but also unsafe because they can land anywhere, roll, and create hazards for others. Weights always need to be controlled.
• Safely return weights to the rack. When you finish using dumbbells, barbells, or weight plates, don’t just lean straight over with locked knees and plunk the weights back on the rack.
• Bend your knees.
• Pull your abdominals in.
• Hold the weights close to your body before you release them.

Be careful not to smash your fingers when placing the weights back on the rack. We’ve done that. Ouch!

Resting your muscles

You can lift weights on consecutive days — just don’t exercise the same muscle two days in a row. Forty-eight hours is usually the ideal waiting period before exercising the same muscle group again. Lifting weights tears apart your muscle cells. Your muscles need a day to rest and repair so they come back even stronger.
If you ignore this rule, weight lifting may make you weaker rather than stronger. At the very least, your muscles feel too tired to perform at peak operating levels.

Cooling down

If you’ve done a fairly fast-paced weight workout, complete the workout with five minutes of slow aerobic exercise. The aerobic cool-down gives your pulse, blood pressure, and breathing a chance to slow down before you hit the showers. If you’ve been lifting weights at more of a plodding pace, with plenty of rest between sets, a few minutes of stretching suffices as a cool-down. Ending your workout with an easy set also helps you cool down.

Signs and symptoms of dehydration

Drink at least two 8-ounce glasses of water before starting your weight lifting routine and two–four glasses while working out. In order to move your muscles, you need water. Muscle is considered an active tissue and water is found in the highest concentrations in active tissue. Your muscles are 72 percent water. If your body is only slightly dehydrated, your performance will decline.
Signs and symptoms of dehydration include the following:

• Dry mouth
• Fatigue
• Loss of appetite
• Lightheadedness
• Headache
• Dry cough
• Dark yellow urine

Weight training proper form

In addition to heeding the general safety tips we present here, be sure to follow the specific tips we give you for each exercise. Even subtle form mistakes, such as overarching your back or cocking your wrist the wrong way, can lead to injury.
The main goal is to adjust your body so that when you move you don’t place any undue strain on any of your joints or muscles. It’s important that you understand that form is everything in weight lifting. Poor form ultimately leads to injuries.

Before you start building muscle, you need to establish correct form and balance — and especially before you add more weight. When you start using heavy poundage, bad form ultimately leads to injuries to muscles and joints. Don’t get discouraged because form adjustment is something all weight lifters must do. If you start with bad form, you carry that form forward, until you find out the hard way that you’ve been moving incorrectly. Old habits are hard to break!
Follow these tips:

• Don’t jerk or bounce any weight around.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help while you’re in the gym.
• Ask gym employees for help if you’re having trouble with certain exercises. Staff is usually helpful and answers any questions you may have.
• Follow a beginners’ weight lifting routine consistently for two to three months before moving on to more challenging exercises. Be patient, you’ll eventually start to pile on weight plates; but for now, think form and balance.

You have to train your neuromuscular system before you start increasing muscle tone and size. In other words, you need to improve the connection between your brain and your body so that more muscle fibers will fire with each contraction. This process of developing muscular control simply takes time. Star quarterbacks weren’t born throwing touchdown passes in the Super Bowl. Excellent form took many, many years of disciplined practice and training to develop that level of skill and expertise. Training takes time.

Breathing Properly during Weight Training

Breathing is often the most overlooked and least understood component of weight training. If you’re a competitive lifter, you probably already know that your breathing can either make you or break you come contest time. We’re not suggesting that you’re a competitive or powerlifter, but we also don’t suggest inhaling and exhaling with the gusto of a Lamaze student. Relaxed breathing while exercising is the best technique. Don’t hold your breath either.

Lifting weights temporarily causes your blood pressure to shoot up, which normally isn’t a problem. But when you hold your breath, your blood pressure rises even higher — and then suddenly comes crashing down. Holding your breath creates intra-thoracic pressure — pressure in the chest cavity —that stops the circulation of blood from your muscles, but can increase blood pressure. When you relax, the muscle relaxes, the blood begins to flow again, and your blood pressure drops. This drastic drop may cause you to pass out and drop your weight. And if you have a heart condition, you could be in serious jeopardy.