 So you're thinking of starting to lift weights...
So you're thinking of starting to lift weights, well let me run through a few types of lifting:
Read this thread through, then go to google to find some more information on something specific.
Powerlifting
Powerlifting is a strength sport, consisting of three events: the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. The maximum weight lifted in each event is totalled for a final score; lifters compete in bodyweight classes. Powerlifting is of relatively modern origin, with the first formal competitions occurring in the mid 1960s. It is open to both men and women.
In contrast to classical Olympic weightlifting events, where an athlete raises a barbell from the floor to over his head, powerlifting movements are shorter and less technically oriented. While both disciplines demand high levels of force production, powerlifting focuses more directly on limit strength, whereas Olympic weightlifting depends more on the ability to exert force rapidly. The two sports are largely separated by geography - Olympic weightlifting is more popular in Europe and Asia (Russia, Turkey, Iran, China, and others), while powerlifting is more popular in North America. However, support for powerlifting is growing outside North America.
* In the squat, the athlete stands under a racked barbell which is loaded with weight. Grabbing the bar from behind, the bar is put onto the top of the back, resting on the trapezius. The athlete walks clear of the rack (unless competing in a federation using a "monolift", a device which supports the bar in place until the lifter is ready), and squats down until the upper leg at the hip joint is lower than the top of the knee. Although the bottom position is sometimes described as having the thigh "below parallel" to the floor, the top of the leg may not necessarily appear to be beneath parallel. The lifter then stands up again, and carefully returns the weight to the rack. Disqualification results from the bar making any downward movement after the lifter has started upwards, if the spotters touch the bar in any way, if the upper legs do not break parallel, or if the lifter makes no effort to rerack the weight under his own power.
* In the bench press, the athlete lies on a bench. A loaded barbell rests on stands built into the bench above the eye level of the lifter when lying supine on the bench. The athlete removes the bar from the supports with the aid of a "liftoff man", lowers it to the chest or upper abdomen and then presses it up to the full extension of the arms and carefully returns the weight to the rack. Disqualification results if the bar is placed too low on the body (varies by federation), if the bar does not rest on the chest before being lifted upward (in some federations, an explicit "press" command is given, and the athlete cannot lift upwards until it is given), if the bar fails to touch the chest, if the bar hits the uprights of the rack on the ascent, or if the bar makes any downward motion during the ascent. In addition, the lift is nullified if the feet move during the lift, if the buttocks lift off the bench, or if the body makes any extraneous movement during the lift.
* In the deadlift, a loaded barbell is placed on the floor. The athlete squats down and lifts the bar until the legs and back are straight, and the shoulders pulled back with chest proud. The bar is then returned to the floor in a controlled manner. In competition, the top of the movement is finished by 'locking out', which means to straighten the back and lock the knees into a balanced position. Disqualification results from the athlete failing to stand completely upright, for using the thighs to assist the lift (hitching).
There have been many controversies in the sport of powerlifting, creating division into the different organizations and limiting the sports mainstream involvement as a widespread standardized sport or being an Olympic event. One of the greatest controversies is over the use of assistance clothing/gear. Many purists believe that assistance equipment reduces powerlifting as a pure limit strength sport. Another is over the growing use of performance enhancing illegal drugs. In addition to these larger problems are small issues with technique such as how long the bar should pause at the bottom of the bench press.
United States Federations
* 100% Raw Powerlifting
* Amateur Athletic Union Powerlifting (AAU)
* American Drug-Free Powerlifting Federation (ADFPF)
* American Powerlifting Association (APA)
* American Powerlifting Committee (APC)
* American Powerlifting Federation (APF)
* Anti Drug Athletes United (ADAU)
* International Powerlifting Association (IPA)
* National Alliance of Powerlifters (NAP)
* Natural Athlete Strength Association (NASA)
* Son Light Power (SLP)
* United States Powerlifting Federation (USPF)
* USA Powerlifting (USAPL)
* World Association of Benchers and Deadlifters (WABDL)
* World Natural Powerlifting Federation (WNPF)
Canadian Federations
* Canadian Powerlifting Council (CPC)
* Canadian Powerlifting Union (CPU)
Australian Federations
* Powerlifting Australia Inc. (PA)
International Federations
* Global Powerlifting Committee (GPC)
* International Powerlifting Federation (IPF)
* World Drug-Free Powerlifting Federation (WDFPF)
* World Powerlifting Association (WPA)
* World Powerlifting Congress (WPC)
* World Powerlifting Organization (WPO)
Weightlifting
Weightlifting is a sport where competitors attempt to lift heavy weights mounted on steel bars, the execution of which is a combination of power and technique. The term weightlifting is often incorrectly used to refer to weight training. There are two different weightlifting events�the "snatch", in which competitors must lift the barbell above their head in one steady movement, and the "clean and jerk" where competitors first "clean" the barbell from the floor to an intermediate position squatting with the barbell resting in front of the neck on the clavicle and deltoid muscles, then stand straight while continuing to rest the barbell, then "jerking" the barbell to a position above their head. In both cases, for a successful lift, competitors must hold the bar steady above their heads, with arms and legs straight and motionless. A third lift, the "clean and press" or simply "press", was practiced in the Olympics until 1972. The clean and press differs from the clean and jerk, in that the weight is pressed directly up from the chest in slow controlled motion rather than being jerked. The event was eliminated due to the difficulty in judging whether the lift was performed correctly. Competitors compete in one of eight (seven for women) divisions determined by their body mass. The men's classes are 56 kg, 62 kg, 69 kg, 77 kg, 85 kg, 94 kg, 105 kg and 105+ kg. The women's classes are 48 kg, 53 kg, 58 kg, 63 kg, 69 kg, 75 kg, and 75+ kg. In each weight division, competitors compete in both the snatch and clean and jerk, and prizes are usually given for the heaviest weights lifted in the snatch, clean and jerk, and the two combined.
Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding is the process of developing muscle fibers through the combination of weight training, increased caloric intake, and rest. Someone who engages in this activity is referred to as a bodybuilder. As a sport, called competitive bodybuilding, bodybuilders display their physiques to a panel of judges, who assign points based on their aesthetic appearance. Bodybuilding (the art of displaying the muscles of the physical body) did not really exist prior to the late 19th century, when it was promoted by a man from Prussia named Eugen Sandow, who is now generally referred to as "The Father of Modern Bodybuilding". Sandow organised the first bodybuilding contest on September 14, 1901 called the "Great Competition" and held in the Royal Albert Hall, London, UK. Judged by himself, Sir Charles Lawes, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the contest was a huge success and was sold out and hundreds of physical culture enthusiasts were turned away. The trophy presented to the winner was a bronze statue of Sandow himself sculpted by Frederick Pomeroy. The winner was William L. Murray of Nottingham, England. The most presigious bodybuilding contest today is the Mr. Olympia, and since 1977, the winner has been presented with the same bronze statue of Sandow he himself presented to the winner at the first contest. In the 1970s, bodybuilding had major publicity thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger and the 1977 film Pumping Iron. By this time the IFBB dominated the sport and the AAU took a back seat. This period also saw the rise of anabolic steroids both in bodybuilding and many other sports. To combat this, and to be allowed to be an IOC member, the IFBB introduced strict doping tests for both steroids and other banned substances.
In the early 2000's, the IFBB was attempting to make bodybuilding an Olympic sport. It obtained full IOC membership in 2000 and was attempting to get approved as a demonstration event at the Olympics which would hopefully lead to it being added as a full contest. This did not happen. Olympic recognition for bodybuilding remains controversial since some argue that bodybuilding is not a sport because the actual contest does not involve athletic effort.
Weight Training
Weight training is a form of exercise for developing the strength and size of skeletal muscles. It is a common type of resistance training, which is one form of strength training. Properly performed, weight training can provide significant functional benefits and improvement in overall health and well-being. In one common training method, the technique involves lifting progressively increasing amounts of weight, and uses a variety of exercises and types of equipment to target specific muscle groups. Weight training is primarily an anaerobic activity, although some proponents have adapted it to provide the benefits of aerobic exercise. Weight training differs from bodybuilding, weightlifting, and powerlifting, which are sports rather than forms of exercise. Weight training, however, is often part of their training regimen.
Is weight training the same as bodybuilding?
Although weight training is similar to bodybuilding, they have quite different goals. Bodybuilders compete in bodybuilding competitions, so they train to maximize their muscular size and develop extremely low levels of body fat. In contrast, most weight trainers train to improve their strength and endurance while not giving special attention to reducing body fat below normal. Weight trainers tend to focus on compound exercises to build basic strength, whereas bodybuilders often use isolation exercises to visually separate their muscles, and to improve muscular symmetry. Pre-contest training for bodybuilders is different again, in that they attempt to retain as much muscular tissue as possible while undergoing severe dieting.
However, the bodybuilding community has been the source of many of weight training's principles, techniques, vocabulary, and customs.
Are light, high-repetition exercises effective for toning muscles?
Some weight trainers perform light, high-repetition exercises in an attempt to "tone" their muscles without increasing their size. This comes from misunderstanding the meaning of the word "tone." What most people refer to as a toned physique is one that combines reasonable muscular size with moderate levels of body fat. Muscle tone is a physiologic term that refers to the constant, low-frequency contractions that occur in all muscles all the time, even at "rest", which prepare them for future activity. This continuous slight tension in torso muscles contributes to maintaining good posture. High-repetition exercises should increase muscle size, but will not improve the latter type of muscle "tone". Even performed as aerobic exercises they will have limited benefit, since aerobic exercise is most effective when it engages the whole body.
Is weight training safe for children?
Orthopedic specialists used to recommend that children avoid weight training because the growth plates on their bones might be at risk, but recent studies have shown that this concern is unfounded. The very rare reports of growth plate fractures in children who trained with weights occurred as a result of inadequate supervision, improper form or excess weight. "Growth plate injuries have not occurred in any youth strength training study that followed established training guidelines." The National Strength and Conditioning Association also confirms that "a properly designed and supervised resistance training program is safe for children."
Young children must be supervised around weight training equipment. Like adults, they may be injured if a weight is dropped, or if they perform an exercise incorrectly. But, as children, they may also forget to follow the safety guidelines, or be tempted to act irresponsibly.
Isotonic, Isometric and Plyometric exercises
These terms combine the prefix "iso" (meaning "same") with "tonic" (strength) and "metric" (distance). In "isotonic" exercises the force applied to the muscle does not change, and in "isometric" exercises the length of the muscle does not change.
Weight training is primarily an isotonic form of exercise, because the muscles are used to push or pull weighted objects. Any object can be used for weight training, but dumbbells, barbells and other specialised equipment are normally used because they can be adjusted to specific weights, and are easily gripped. However, some exercises are not strictly isotonic because the force on the muscle varies as the joint moves through its range of motion, even though the force of the exercise remains constant.
Some forms of weight training use isometric contractions to further stress the muscles after or during a period of isotonic exercise. In this case the muscles flex and hold a stationary position, and no movement of a load takes place.
Another form of training that often uses weights has a different goal. Plyometric exercises exploit the stretch-shortening cycle of muscles to enhance the myotatic (stretch) reflex. This involves rapid alternation of lengthening and shortening of muscle fibers against a resistance. The resistance involved is often a weighted object such as a medicine ball, but can also be the body itself as in jumping exercises. Plyometrics is used to develop explosive speed, and focuses on power instead of maximal strength, and may be used to improve the effectiveness of a boxer's punch, for example, or to increase the vertical jumping ability of a basketball player.
Isolation exercises vs compound exercises
An isolation exercise is one where the movement is restricted to one joint and one muscle group. For example, the leg extension is an isolation exercise for the quadriceps. The other muscle groups are only minimally involved�they just help the individual maintain a stable posture�and movement occurs only around the knee joint.
Compound exercises work several muscle groups at once, and include movement around two or more joints. For example, in the leg press movement occurs around the hip, knee and ankle joints. This exercise is primarily used to develop the quadriceps, but it also involves the hamstrings, glutes and calves.
Compound exercises are generally similar to the ways that people naturally push, pull and lift objects, whereas isolation exercises often feel a little unnatural.
Each type of exercise has its uses. Compound exercises build the basic strength that is needed to perform everyday pushing, pulling and lifting activities. Isolation exercises are useful for "rounding out" a routine, by directly exercising muscle groups that cannot be fully exercised in the compound exercises.
Free weights vs exercise machines
Free weights are dumbbells and barbells. Unlike exercise machines, they do not constrain users to specific, fixed movements, and therefore require more effort from the individual's stabilizer muscles. It is often argued that free weight exercises are superior for precisely this reason. As exercise machines can go some way toward preventing poor form, they are somewhat safer than free weights for novice trainees. Moreover, since users need not concentrate so much on maintaining good form, they can focus more on the effort they are putting into the exercise. However, most athletes, bodybuilders and serious fitness enthusiasts prefer to use compound free weight exercises to gain functional strength.
Some free weight exercises can be performed while sitting or lying on a Swiss ball. This makes it more difficult to maintain good form, which helps to exercise the deep torso muscles that are important for maintaining a good posture.
There are a number of exercise machines that are commonly found in neighbourhood gyms. The Smith machine is a barbell that is constrained to move only vertically upwards and downwards. The cable machine consists of two weight stacks separated by 2.5 metres, with cables running through adjustable pulleys (that can be fixed at any height) to various types of handles. There are also exercise-specific machines such as the leg press. A multigym includes a variety of exercise-specific mechanisms in one apparatus.
One limitation of many free weight exercises and exercise machines is that the muscle is working maximally against gravity during only a small portion of the lift. Some exercise-specific machines feature an oval cam (first introduced by Nautilus) which varies the resistance so that the resistance, and the muscle force required, remains constant throughout the full range of motion of the exercise.
Aerobic exercise vs anaerobic exercise
Strength training exercise is primarily anaerobic. Even training with a lower intensity (training loads of ~20-RM) anaerobic glycolysis is still the major source of power, although aerobic metabolism makes a small contribution. Weight training is commonly perceived as anaerobic exercise, because one of the more common goals is to increase strength by lifting heavy weights. Other goals such as rehabilitation, weight loss, body shaping, and bodybuilding often use lower weights, adding aerobic character to the exercise.
Except in the extremes, a muscle will fire fibers of both the aerobic or anaerobic types on any given exercise, in varying ratio depending on the load on the intensity of the contraction. This is known as the energy system continuum. At higher loads, the muscle will recruit all muscle fibres possible, both anaerobic ("fast-twitch") and aerobic ("slow-twitch"), in order to generate the most force. However, at maximum load, the anaerobic processes contract so forcefully that the aerobic fibers are completely shut out, and all work is done by the anaerobic processes. Because the anaerobic muscle fiber uses its fuel faster than the blood and intracellular restorative cycles can resupply it, the maximum number of repetitions is limited. In the aerobic regime, the blood and intracellular processes can maintain a supply of fuel and oxygen, and continual repetition of the motion will not cause the muscle to fail.
Circuit weight training is a form of exercise that uses a number of weight training exercise sets separated by short intervals. The cardiovascular effort to recover from each set serves a function similar to an aerobic exercise, but this is not the same as saying that a weight training set is itself an aerobic process.
Will weight training make my penis smaller?
Only if you bodybuild.
Advanced techniques
A number of techniques have been developed to make weight training exercises more intense, and thereby potentially increase the rate of progress:
* Drop sets do not end at the point of momentary muscular failure, but continue with progressively lighter weights.
* Forced reps also occur after momentary muscular failure. An assistant provides just enough help to get the weight trainer past the sticking point of the exercise, and allow further repetitions to be completed. Weight trainers often do this when they are spotting their exercise partner.
* X-reps also occur after momentary muscular failure. After the last full repetition, an isometric contraction at the point of maximum force is combined with a series of small pulsing movements to further stress the muscles.
* Pyramiding involves increasing weights and lowering reps. The first set is performed with a weight that would seem challenging for a higher number of reps, in subsequent sets this weight is increased and the reps decreased so that the new weight seems challenging for the smaller number of reps.
* Supersets combine two or more exercises with similar motions to maximize the amount of work of an individual muscle or group of muscles. The exercises are performed with no rest period between the exercises. An example would be doing bench press, which predominately works the pectoralis and triceps muscles, and then moving to an excercise that works just the triceps such as the triceps extension or the pushdown.
* Partial reps are performed with heavier weights. Only the easiest part of the repetition is attempted.
* Negatives are performed with much heavier weights. Assistants lift the weight, and then the weight trainer attempts to resist its downward progress. Alternatively, an individual can use an exercise machine for negatives by lifting the weight with both arms or legs, and then lowering it with only one.
* Super slow repetitions are performed with lighter weights. The lifting and lowering phases of each repetition take 10 seconds or more.
* Pre-exhaustion combines an isolation exercise with a compound exercise for the same muscle group. The isolation exercise first exhausts the muscle group, and then the compound exercise uses the muscle group's supporting muscles to push it further than would otherwise be possible. For example, the triceps muscles normally help the pectorals perform their function. But in the bench press the weaker triceps often fails first, which limits the impact on the pectorals. By preceding the bench press with the flye, the pectorals can be pre-exhausted so that both muscles fail at the same time, and both benefit equally from the exercise.
Using a wrist strap.
Enlarge
Using a wrist strap.
* Wrist straps (lifting straps) are sometimes used to assist in gripping very heavy weights. They are particularly useful for the deadlift. Some lifters, however, avoid using wrist straps in order to develop their grip strength.
Aerobic exercise is complementary to anaerobic exercise. Aerobic literally means "with oxygen", and refers to the use of oxygen in muscles' energy-generating process. Aerobic exercise describes any type of exercise, typically performed at moderate levels of intensity for extended periods of time, that increases the heart rate. Oxygen, fats and glucose are used to produce adenosine triphosphate, the basic fuel for all cells.
-------------------------------
A couple of links
http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/ - This is a page dedicated to the Golden Era of Strongmen, It has some decent material on it. http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/229 - Although this isn't weight training, it's still a good read. http://www.t-nation.com/ - Bodybuilding's think tank, a great site with good writers who write articles daily. http://www.bodybuilding.com/ - The largest bodybuilding site in the world, check out the forums for advice, but stay clear of the teen section. http://exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html - ExRx Exercise & Muscle Directory. Brilliant site, shows you any muscle, and exercises for it, whilst telling you information about the exercises. http://exrx.net/Exercise.html - Exercise Instruction & Kinesiology, this splits it up very well. http://weightlifting.moonfruit.com/ - Good site, with some excellent links. http://www.google.com - Use it. http://www.elitefts.com
I am not including many links, if anyone wants to add links feel free.
-------------------------------
Make your own decision from here.
Good day.
|
So you're thinking of starting to lift weights...
2006-03-19, 09:10
