Weightlifting Sports

I often hear people say " I don't lift weights because I don't want to get bulky"; this fear seems to be based on the appearance of body-builders especially women. This often leads me down the road of differentiating the 3 different weightlifting sports and the physical adaptation that takes place in people who compete in these sports. The three sports I am talking about are: body-building, Olympic lifting, and power lifting. I am going to give a little bit of an idea of what is contested in each of these sports and link a few videos of each sport in order to allow you the reader to see the difference.

I will start off with the most widely known in the United States which is body-building. Body-builders tend to "target" muscles to work on. This is done through various techniques involving free weights as well as machines in order to isolate certain muscles. The end goal for body-builders is to be as muscular, lean, and proportionate as possible. Body-builders will often have very large upper bodies as a v-shape is judged favorably. I have provided a few examples of bodybuilders below.

Arnold Schwarzenegger



Sarah Dunlap

One thing that I also think is important to keep in mind when looking at many body builders is that steroid use is very prevalent in the sport. Coupled with high rates of steroid usage is the long term commitment these people put into their training; years not months of consistent never miss a training day type of training.

Next I would like to talk about power lifting and olympic weightlifting. I am going to group these two together as the rep range for training is fairly similar and the end game is the same, be as strong as possible. The difference between these two sports is the lifts which they do for competition. Power lifting competitions are comprised of three lifts which are often termed the "slow" lifts; the lifts used are the deadlift, squat, and bench press. In olympic lifting only two lifts are contested which are the clean and jerk and the snatch; these lifts are often referred to as the classic lifts. I have provided some pictures of athletes from both sports both male and female below.

Pyrros Dimas World Record Snatch (Olympic Lifting)

Female Back Squatting (Powerlifting)

Marilou Dozois-Prévost Snatching at 2008 Beijing Olympics

Cody Lefever Deadlifting (Powerlifting)

The above pictures show highly competitive athletes in their respective weightlifting sports with Pyrros Dimas being arguably the best weightlifter ever. These men and women have a high amount of muscle tone and extraordinary strength but do not possess the insane vein popping muscles of a pro body builder. I hope this encourages you to look further into the training methods which will give you the body that you are looking for. Regardless of your goal in mind their is a training protocol that can help you get there.

If you have further questions on how the training protocols of these elite athletes can help you meet your goals feel free to call me at 801-448-5692, email me at dsackettfitness@gmail.com, or leave a question below.

Resources for Strength Training

So today I won't be providing any specific information but something much more valuable. I will be giving a list of sites, programs, authors, and links which are valuable resources for various aspects of physical culture. I Will also provide a small outline of what is contained in the resources.

Coaches with forums, programs, and books:

Starting Strength: Mark Rippetoe - An introduction into the 5 main lifts; Deadlift, Squat, Over Head Press, Bench Press, Power Clean.  Contains the outline for the time tested beginners strength program "starting strength". A resource for coaches on teaching the lifts but also a decent resource for beginning lifters who plan on being self taught. Here is the link to a site where you can ask the author questions as well as other individuals who are familiar with his methods as well as many others http://startingstrength.com/ . If you are going to ask this guy a question type your question in search bar first or prepare for some harsh sarcasm.

Wendlers 5/3/1: Jim Wendler- A book which lays out specific percentages of max, reps, and sets to be used during each exercise session. This book is geared toward the intermediate to advanced strength athlete emphasizing slower gains. $24.99 for 120 page book seems a little steep to me, the previous book is a better usage of money. Jim Wendler also hosts a forum http://www.elitefts.net/Default.asp

Never Let Go: Dan John- Decent book on lifting as a lifestyle and how to maintaining health throughout your years. Dan John is considered to be the coaches coach. This book has some interesting ideas regarding diet. The amount of ideas which can be  The book is less of a reference material and more a compilation of essays he had already written. I obtained my copy through Amazon.com I have never seen a forum which he runs but he does have a Q&A on.http://www.davedraper.com/fusionbb/showforum.php?fid/73/ . The book is mainly geared towards males in its writing, but the information is good for both men and women.

The Naked Warrior: Pavel Tsatsouline- A book on how a strength trainee can find themselves ready to work out with little to no equipment. Pavel Tsatsouline is often considered the kettle bell guru. He subscribes to a method known as greasing-the-groove which works exceptionally well for individuals with multiple opportunities a day to stop and exercise for a 3-5 minutes and are looking to master certain movements. http://www.dragondoor.com/b28/ is the link to his forum and book.

This list is a pretty well rounded list of books by several successful coaches with very different methods that have all produced good results for their trainees. There are many more good books that if you are interested in coaching or plan to take your training to an advanced level in a strength sport that you should read. If you would like a more expanded list of reading that is worthwhile please contact me either by phone at: 801-448-5692 or via facebook on David's Friendly Fitness.

Aerobic vs. Anaerobic for burning fat

Myth: When you do slow paced cardio you burn more fat.

Fact: When you do slow paced cardio a higher percentage of the calories you use come from fat.

It is widely accepted that burning a higher percentage of fat will burn more fat overall this is just not the case. Burning more calories regardless of where they come from will burn more fat. Your body does not care where the calories come from when you exercise. I would like to explain why slow paced aerobic cardio work is not better than fast paced anaerobic cardio exercise when it comes to burning calories  

The way the percentage of calories used is determined is by a number called the respiratory exchange ratio (RER) or also called the respiratory quotient (RQ). Theoretically when your RER is at .7 you are burning 100% fat and when it is at 1.0 you are burning 100% carbohydrates or sugars. So why does any of this matter? When your heart rate is low and you are performing well below a maximal effort your RER will be closer to .7, when you are at a maximal effort such as in interval training or sprinting this value will be much closer to 1.

Let’s compare jogging at 5mph and burning 300 calories an hour with 60% coming from fat and running at 7.5mph and burning 500 calories an hour with 40% coming from fat. At 5mph you will be burning 180 calories from fat, at 7.5 mph you will be burning 200 calories from fat.  In addition to the fact that you will burn more total calories from fat you are also burning up more glycogen (blood sugar). Your body stores all excess sugars as fat, so by using up those additional calories from carbohydrates you are preventing your body from storing back up calories in the form of fat as well. As you can see fast paced workouts will be superior to slow workouts of the same time length for fat burning. If you need exercise that fits your schedule and gives results fast paced workouts should always be your go to. If you have plenty of time to spare then low intensity steady state (LISS) cardio is quite a bit easier and can improve endurance in a superior fashion than high intensity interval training (HIIT).

This should provide a little clarification about the best ways to lose weight through exercise. With that being said; the best program worked half way will never compare to the worst program worked with 100% commitment so find what works for you and stick with it.  

For more information on designing a training program I can be contacted at 801-448-5692.

References:

Dr. Philip Maffetone - The Big Book of Endurance Training

Jack H. Wilmore, David L. Costill - Physiology of Sport and Exercise

Roger W. Earle, Thomas R. Baechle - NSCA's Essentials Of Personal Training

Programming strength training for the novice

So you walk into the gym and you are thinking to yourself; what should I do now? With the myriad of machines, barbells, dumbbells, and cardio equipment this can be one of the most daunting tasks in the gym. I would like to give you all a few guidelines which can make this whole process easier and hopefully more productive.


The first thing I would like to do is explain the three main types of exercises. If you know the difference between a compound, simple, and core exercise you can skip this paragraph and move onto the next. A compound exercise is simply an exercise that uses multiple joints to complete the action. Examples of this would be a chest press or bench where both the shoulder and elbow come into play as well as the leg press or squat where the hip, knee, and ankle all work through the motion. A simple or an assistance exercise as it sometimes referred to is something like a curl or a leg extension where only one joint is brought into play. A core exercise is an exercise which uses the muscles of the abdomen and lower back in order to move the torso independent from the legs and arms.


What needs to be done now is to differentiate between an advanced, intermediate, and novice athlete as well as how the workouts should differ. An athlete is not classified by the amount of time they have been working out, how much they lift, how far they can run, or how fast they can run the event. An athlete is classified by how fast they can recover from their workouts and make progress. How fast an individual can recover and their athletic potential varies from person to person which is why set times, speed, or levels of strength simply cannot be used. If you take anything from this blog I want you to take the above piece of information as well as the next statement to heart. Very few people ever reach their potential. If you have the drive and the right direction you can be one of those people.


A novice is classified as someone who is able to make gains from workout to workout. This period can range from anywhere between 4 months and 18 months depending on the person. The novice period can even be several years for people who are just exercising and not really actually training with any sort of goal in mind. The longer you are considered to be a novice the better given that you are making progress the whole time. There is a small caveat to this, you will not make gains session to session on a bicep curl or other accessory exercises the muscle groups are much too small and they don’t make dumbbells in half pound increments. I am talking about exercising large muscle groups using compound exercises. The novices work out should consist of a warm-up followed by a 2-5 compound exercises, maybe one accessory or core exercise, and then a cool down. The reason for the large range in how many compound exercises is based on how many days per week you work out and how well you recover. The more days you work out the less exercises should be done. These exercises should be combined to form a full body exercise. Working out the whole body will yield much faster results than splitting the body up from session to session.


Oftentimes novices are best not doing any accessory exercises or worrying about their core. Accessory and core exercises are used to shore up weak spots in different movements and if you are beginning it is usually very difficult to accurately assess what is weak and what is strong. Often doing the compound exercises alone will iron out this problem much faster with less work. One last note I will leave the novices with is that if you start to stall the solution is usually not to do more work, but to do less. More is not always better and most of the time it isn't when it comes to exercise.


Now I know I didn't give a list of exercises that is because this is dependent on what equipment you have available and what you are trying to get strong for. You will want to pick out a few exercises that you can alternate between exercises sessions. If you use the same exercises consistently it is much easier to become efficient in those movements as well as track where you are so that you can continue to push for more progress each workout. This leads me to my new mission statement which is every article I write; I will attempt to dispel a myth about exercise. This week’s myth will be about muscle confusion. Muscle confusion was created by the fitness industry due to a misinterpretation of the concept of periodization, which I will actually write an article about in the future. I am not saying that you should stick with the same exercises forever but sticking to the same set of exercises for a short span of less than 3 weeks can really hamper progress. Strength is not only a physical attribute but also a skill.


The next article will be about aerobic vs. anaerobic exercise for weight loss. Hope everyone is enjoying the articles and is on their way to better bodies and performance. If anything in the articles seems to be contradictory to what you have learned or doesn't make sense to you I would encourage you to leave a message so that I can give further feedback as well provide further background for the information that I am giving.

Free Personal Training Contest Salt Lake City

Hello readers,
I am currently hosting a contest for 1 free month of personal training services. This is 8 total sessions. This is a value of $360.00 absolutely free. This only applies to residents of the Salt Lake City area. For more details on how to enter and restrictions go to http://www.facebook.com/DavidsFriendlyFitness .

Exercise vs. Diet

Recently I was asked to do an article on how food affects your metabolism. I spent hours searching for and reading scientific journals and found out a few things which may make your quest for better health more productive. I hope that this saves all of you a lot of time and provides some direction as to where your efforts should be going.

There is a certain amount of energy required to keep you warm and keep the organs like your heart, liver, and brain up and running. I know some of us have that crazy second cousin who we wonder if their brains are working but the same applies to them as well. This is referred to as basal metabolism. Basal metabolism is regulated by your nervous system.

There are a few studies which show that a calorie restricted diet leads to a down shifting in the nervous system namely the sympathetic nervous system which regulates heart rate and blood pressure. This is the reasons that after a certain amount of dieting people just start spinning their wheels. Well, no worries there is something that you can do to keep the progress going. Exercise has been shown to increase nervous system activity and metabolism. Activity has been shown to represent up to 50 percent of the calories used by active people in comparison to the 15 percent of calories used by sedentary people. The caveat to keep in mind is that working off a 273 calorie Snickers bar takes a lot more work and time than just avoiding eating it in the first place.

Unfortunately, the magic of exercise is somewhat short lived. The increase in metabolism lasts about 48 hours and this depends greatly on the mode of exercise. This means that consistency is the key here. Some exercise such as slow paced aerobic workouts do not have the 2 day period of increased metabolism, it is much shorter. The longest period of increased metabolism were noted in individuals after weight lifting and other anaerobic workouts. I know for some of you this will bring to mind the question; well doesn’t aerobic exercise burn more fat? The short answer is no. This is a misconception that I will address in the near future, so stick around.

I would like to leave you with this. If your dieting stalls and you are still interested in losing weight, cutting more calories may not be the appropriate action. Including more activity into your day is a sure fire way to increase your calorie deficit and keep that metabolism burning like a furnace to help you lose that unwanted fat. Diet and exercise should be used together for the most effective weight loss program; one without the other is half an effort, which usually leads to frustration and disappointment. Best of luck to you in your efforts to live a healthier and happier lifestyle. Keep the questions coming and I will keep the articles coming!

References:

Effect of chronic food restriction on energy balance, thermogenic capacity, and brown-adipose-tissue activity in the rat, Nancy J. Rockwell and Michael J. Stock

Reflex control of the circulation during exercise: chemoreflexes and mechanoreflexes,

L. B. Rowell and D. S. O'Leary

Physical activity – a neat solution to an impending crisis

Alison M. McManus
Institute of Human Performance, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

A Single Bout of Concentric Resistance Exercise Increases Basal Metabolic Rate 48 Hours After Exercise in Healthy 59–77-year-old Men, David L. Williamson and John P. Kirwan

The Real Deal On Flat Abs

The hot question these days is “how can I have tighter abs?” .Well, I am going to dispel some myths that have somehow gained popularity in the fitness industry as well as point you in the right direction towards a rock hard mid-section.

One of the things that drives me crazy that I see on infomercials is the claim that the device, drug, routine, etc. will burn belly fat. There is not a single shred of evidence that abdominal fat or any other fat can be targeted for reduction, believe me I have looked. Now that I have broken every one's heart let’s get to what you can do.

The abdomen is made up of several different muscles with a few distinct purposes namely rotation, holding the spine in place, forced expiration (breathing out) and pulling the upper body towards the hips. So why is this information important in developing flatter abs? Well, I want to encourage you to think about which of these actions will give the appearance of the smallest waist line. If the answer to this question hasn't popped in to your head I want you to hunch forward right now and take a look at your stomach, now sit back up and blow out the air out of your lungs as hard as possible. I think the answer will be quite clear to you at this point. If not, the muscle used to push the air out of your lungs is what you are looking to tighten up.

There is only one muscle responsible for this action. In order to tighten this muscle you will need to put stress on it. The way this is done is by a maneuver called "drawing in" all this means is that you pull your belly button towards your spine. This is similar to sucking in except you do not need to hold your breath to do this. This can be done anywhere, anytime, and needs no equipment to do. There are two different positions this works from; an upright position or from the plank position (seen below) if you are laying down on your back gravity is doing the work for you. Since you cannot do it lying on your back because gravity is doing the work for you the opposite is true in that if you do it from a plank it will be more difficult (which means more effective in most cases). Aim for 30 seconds at a time to start with, if this is too easy increase the time 15 seconds per workout. Once you get to 1:30 add a little weight on your butt. Start light this will make it worlds harder to complete. You can do these 2-4 times at the end of your workout. If these are too difficult try doing them from your knees instead of your toes initially and follow the same sort of progression.

                                        Plank                              

(note: you can have both arms down)

So we have talked about slimming the waist line through exercise, but it does not address actually improving muscle tone as the muscle used for drawing in is a deep muscle and is not visible. The muscle that is responsible for the elusive six pack pulls your torso towards your hips. This can be done one of two ways for maximum effect. You can either do the planks as discussed above which will be killing two birds with one stone or do crunches in addition to these. There is no reason to do full sit-ups because the abdominal muscles are only working until the point when your lower back starts to lift off the floor, a different muscle is responsible for this and for most people does not need the extra stimulation.

The last portion of the mid-section that I will address is the obliques. Not sure why they are called love handles since everyone seems to get rid of them. There are two very effective ways to work your obliques. You can either do Russian twists which is a variation of the sit up (shown below) where you go to about a ninety degree angle and then twist your torso back and forth or what are known as one-handed farmers walks. If the Russian twist is a little too difficult the farmers walks are the best place to start and will actually help with you posture as well. The farmer walk is performed by grabbing a dumbbell in one hand and walking a set distance with it. Pretty simple right? All that needs to be done to vary the intensity is to either grab a larger dumbbell or make the distance further.

One last thing I want to leave you with is that you won't want to do all of these on every workout. This will take away from the other work you can do. No matter how much you strengthen those muscles it will not be a replacement for dropping excess body fat which is best done through compound exercises using the larger muscle groups of the body. To avoid making this too long winded I will not go in to depth on proper progression for these exercises and I will write a future article on progression specifically which should be a quick read which should take your exercise routine to the next level. Hope you enjoyed the article and good luck on your pursuit of a better body and better fitness.

Feel free to post your questions below!