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.
No comments:
Post a Comment