Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:46 am Post subject: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
I am your basic lanky/lean guy (swimmer's or cyclist's build) and I am trying to build my fitness overall.
I cycle some, watch what I eat, do yoga, situps, and am working with handweights. I can put together from 5 pounds to 35 pounds and of course, can do as many or as few reps as I can handle.
but I always run into 2 problems:
1. my right shoulder sometimes "complains," forcing me to back off, losing the gains I make, and
2. I seem to "plateau" in the sense that I don't feel I'm getting stronger.
I don't care about bulking up; I want my body to be stronger and more capable.
Anyone here care to share expertise on this subject?
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 1:59 am Post subject: Re: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
Strength is directly proportional to muscle size.
While, at first, you may be able to strengthen existing muscle mass by weight training it, the only way to gain strength after your initial breaking in is . . .
To build mass.
That's it in a nutshell.
You do recognize that there is no skinny guy on the planet who can squat 500 and bench 300, right?
As for your shoulder, it depends on what you are doing and how bad the discomfort is.
I'm not a medical guy, so this is not medical advice . . .
Stay away from barbell movements with your shoulders - i.e. military presses. They tend to have the greatest impact on shoulders.
For me, a small tweaky pain was no biggie, and I'd just take it easy for a few workouts until the tweak was gone.
Never had a serious injury working out.
He's my basic rule - - -
Never do a set of fewer than 8 reps. That way, you'll never be pushing your body to a dangerous point and you'll be able to control the weight.
I think you could build mass doing minimums of 20 reps, but that becomes a boring aerobic workout really quickly.
If you can't work lightly through the pain using only dumbbells, then either seek medical help or . . . maybe BB ain't for you.
Joined: Sep 17, 2005 Posts: 148 Location: The Netherlands
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:12 am Post subject: Re: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
Bodyweight training is a very good and cheap way of building strength and muscle.
35 pounds is not much, doing 100 reps with 35 is way less effective for building strength than doing reps from 5 to 15 with a heavier load. Ofcourse you'd always have to maintain proper form in order to stay injury free, but doing less than 5 reps is also a good way of building strength.
What you want to do for strength gains is focus on the major muscles in your body (Legs, back and chest). That is, don't do bicep curls or tricep extensions. Do (weighted) pushups or pullups instead. One of the most effective strength and muscle building exercises is the deadlift. The one and only test of strength which dates back to thousands of years ago when people used to lift heavy stones to see who was strongest. But it will take up to several months to learn the proper technique and you'd have to have a barbell and weights.
So it depends on what you want to do for it. Buy a barbell or go to a gym or do bodyweight exercises. Assuming you'd rather do the latter, here are some examples:
-Pullups/Chinups
-Pushups/Dips
-One legged squats (aka Pistols)
-Handstand(pushups)
-Dead hangs (grip strength)
-Burpees (aka Squat thrusts)
-Situps
-Flutter kicks
What i would suggest is doing 2 to 3 full body workouts per week always having one or two days of rest in between.
And don't worry, you wont 'bulk up' if you start lifting heavier weights/doing heavier bodyweight workouts. You will become more muscular but bulking up is only achieved when eating accordingly. So don't make any big changes besides eating a little bit more protein and healthy fats for better recovery.
But about your shoulder. I'm no doctor so i dont know if you should be doing this in the first place. But my opinion (yes, opinion) is that the human body is great at adapting to physical stress. So while you might worsen your shoulder condition it could also go away as your shoulder muscles will become stronger. To tip the scales in your favor, search on google for 'Rotator cuff exercises', the rotator cuff is a commonly injured muscle of the shoulder.
Above all, try to ease your body into the heavier lifting. Never do an exercise that creates pain, not the 'im tired' kind of pain, but the real stinging pain which would imply an injury. If you will do light full body workouts for a couple of months learning technique and getting a better feel of your body. You can go on from there increasing weights/reps and seeing how far you can strenghten your body until Mad Max comes around. _________________ The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:58 am Post subject: Re: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
Zeke, what exercise are you doing that causes your shoulder to complain? Have you been to a doctor or physical therapist for it? Does it hurt on top of your shoulder, or somewhere else? Also, how old are you?
In general people need to work on their rotator cuffs more than they do. We all end up working the major shoulder/chest/back/arm muscles at the expense of the rotator cuff and end up with muscle imbalances. You end up doing something that the major muscles are capable of but that overpowers the rotator cuff and you're stuck with an injury. That kind of injury you feel deeper in the shoulder.
Another common problem is bad form, and your form might be OK in general but a problem in some key way. By bad form, I mean the way you do the exercise. For example, the common problem is a AC joint problem exacerbated by bench press with heavy weight and your arms going past 90 degrees. I'm guessing this isn't the problem you're having, Zeke, since this is usually with much more than 35 pounds. But problems with form happen with every exercise.
Also, you may just be overtraining. How many sets and reps are you doing, and how often? When you cycle to a heavier weight on the injured shoulder, how fast did you go from a lighter weight that didn't cause problems to a heavier weight that did? I build mass and weight slowly too, and impatience is one of my biggest problems.
Finally, whenever you feel like you've hit a plateau, you need to mix things up. Either switch to another exercise that works a similar set of muscles, or do the same exercise with a radically different weight/sets/reps profile, or change the speed at which you do the exercise. Slow reps are a great change to mix in but changing to another exercise is the best thing to do, since it helps hit small muscles like the rotator cuff that will end up being your weak link.
Joined: May 18, 2006 Posts: 3972 Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:52 am Post subject: Re: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
zeke wrote:
I am your basic lanky/lean guy (swimmer's or cyclist's build) and I am trying to build my fitness overall.
I cycle some, watch what I eat, do yoga, situps, and am working with handweights. I can put together from 5 pounds to 35 pounds and of course, can do as many or as few reps as I can handle.
but I always run into 2 problems:
1. my right shoulder sometimes "complains," forcing me to back off, losing the gains I make, and
2. I seem to "plateau" in the sense that I don't feel I'm getting stronger.
I don't care about bulking up; I want my body to be stronger and more capable.
Anyone here care to share expertise on this subject?
thank you!
zeke
Swimming or and cycling does nothing for yer bones. Yer bone strengh will be the same as a couch potato. If'n you have a cyclists body build you will never look like or have the strengh of a weight lifter. Try some Nordic hiking (use hiking poles) on some extreme terrain to mix it up. It's a low impact exercise and generally non-anaerobic. Good recovery for a very fit person.
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:20 am Post subject: Re: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
zeke wrote:
but I always run into 2 problems:
1. my right shoulder sometimes "complains," forcing me to back off, losing the gains I make, and
2. I seem to "plateau" in the sense that I don't feel I'm getting stronger.
I don't care about bulking up; I want my body to be stronger and more capable.
I can share with you that if you're having shoulder issues and you're doing yoga then you're probably doing your chatarunga's incorrectly and that this will destroy your rotator cuff.
for Chatarunga make sure you only go down to where your elbows are 90 degrees. Many people think you're supposed to get as close to the ground as possible and do a "push up" when you do this over and over it continually wears on your rotator cuff.
I would also say that rather than worring about strength, try for endurance. If you currently do yoga 3 times per week try for 6 times a week, even take multiple classes a day.
You can also mix in weight training but if your shoulder continues to give you trouble get with a trainer to make sure you're doing things right.
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:00 pm Post subject: Re: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
thank you, kjmclark;
I am doing curls with hand weights; the kind where you can add or subtract weight "elements" to make larger or smaller weights.
the exercise I've been doing is curls. most recently, what happened was that I had reached a level of doing 30 reps with 30 pounds, one arm at a time, and doing perhaps 2 or 3 sets of those. Then I stopped for a week or two. I resumed at the same amount of weight when my shoulder began to "complain." Maybe I built some muscle up more than others?
I am 47, not overweight, do not smoke and drink moderately.
it might be that I'm being impatient; I *want* to work hard at this, but I might be endangering the structures and tissues concerned by doing too much too soon. When I get these little injuries, I back off from the exercise until the shoulder feels like it could resume, at a lighter weight, and by then my arms feel like Olive Oil's slappy, flappy arms and that's pretty disappointing.
maybe greater patience, greater variety and different types of exercise are the way to go...as I think back on what I've been doing, sort of putting all of my eggs in one basket by emphasizing curls sounds imbalanced and unproductive..
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:47 pm Post subject: Re: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
OK Zeke, couple things.
I disagree 100% with Blook's post, and my advice is to disregard everything he wrote.
Doing fewer than 5 reps has not been proven to build more mass than doing more than 5 reps, but it sure is well known to cause more injuries - anybody advising fewer than 5 reps should be ignored.
Why are you just doing curls?
Do major muscle groups to start - chest, back, legs.
Don't hit the little ones (biceps etc) until you've been at it for awhile.
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:52 pm Post subject: Re: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
Cashmere wrote:
Why are you just doing curls?
because my arms aren't as strong as I'd like them to be and as I know they can be.
Cashmere wrote:
Do major muscle groups to start - chest, back, legs.
Don't hit the little ones (biceps etc) until you've been at it for awhile.
Read up.
OK, to me that sounds like: pushups and flies for the chest, some kind of on-stomach leg kicks for the back, and for the legs, I guess the cycling I'm already doing..
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 1:39 pm Post subject: Re: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
zeke wrote:
the exercise I've been doing is curls. most recently, what happened was that I had reached a level of doing 30 reps with 30 pounds, one arm at a time, and doing perhaps 2 or 3 sets of those. Then I stopped for a week or two. I resumed at the same amount of weight when my shoulder began to "complain." Maybe I built some muscle up more than others?
OK, here are some ideas. I do think the shoulder problem is rotator cuff. I have a similar problem with curls sometimes, but I usually do a combination curl/military press with dumbbells, and the shoulder problem comes in more when I get near the top of the curl and switch to the press, and then later when I get about 2/3 toward the top of the press. The rotator cuff is a set of muscles that underly the deltoids, shoulder blade, etc and stabilize your upper arm in the joint. There are lots of good exercises you can do to strengthen the rotator cuff, and most of them use dumbbells. This site has some pretty good explanation.
Next, I would recommend that any time you take a week or two off, you plan to drop back to about 75% of where you left off. If it goes well, you can increase back to where you were pretty quickly, and you won't have lost much, if any, in the meantime. Jumping back into strength training where you left off can cause injuries, again, mostly because larger muscles overpower smaller ones. Your brain and muscles work together to decide what's a safe amount of exertion for all muscles and tendons involved, and taking more than a week off allows for the two to forget what was the last reasonable amount.
Finally, 30 reps is primarily building endurance, not strength. I learned it as 5-8 reps builds power, 8-12 is building strength, 12 and up is building endurance. Another way to look at it is that low reps with high weight trains fast-twitch muscle fibers and high reps with low weight trains slow-twitch muscle fibers. Fast-twitch fibers provide most explosive, anaerobic power, but slow-twitch fibers provide much higher endurance. Fast twitch/slow twitch ratios in a given muscle vary with the muscle group and your genetics, but in general I think biceps are mostly fast twitch. Here's some discussion of muscle fiber types.
Anyway, at 30 reps you're pretty far into the endurance end of the spectrum. You should be able to lift small weights all day like that! If you want to lift more weight, however, you should consider moving to heavier weights and fewer reps. I have a similar build and usually stick to the 8-12 rep range for upper body lifting. I train my calves at 12-30 reps, and upper legs between 8 and 20 depending on the season and the weight I'm at. If you do choose to try higher weight, I would do some rotator cuff work for a few weeks first, however.
Don't expect to get cannonball biceps. You might have won the genetic lottery and just don't know it, but most of us mortals are better off accepting our limits and avoiding injury. And good for you for exercising at all!
Joined: Sep 17, 2005 Posts: 148 Location: The Netherlands
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:30 pm Post subject: Re: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
Cashmere wrote:
OK Zeke, couple things.
I disagree 100% with Blook's post, and my advice is to disregard everything he wrote.
Doing fewer than 5 reps has not been proven to build more mass than doing more than 5 reps, but it sure is well known to cause more injuries - anybody advising fewer than 5 reps should be ignored.
Come on, you can't be serious. Where do you get your information from?! It is a universally known fact in the 'bodybuilding/weightlifting-world' that doing 1 to 5 reps accentuates strength gains, 5 to 15 accentuates muscle growth and more accentuates aerobic endurance. Have you ever even seen a pro bodybuilder or powerlifter train? Both do heavy low rep work. And yes, given the fact that with low reps you can use more weight, you can also injure yourself. That is why i said always maintaning proper form. I never said doing less than 5 reps builds more mass. Above all, the topicstarter stated he doesnt want to bulk up.
You probably mean that it is not smart as a beginner doing heavy low rep work. I agree. But saying that anyone advising 5 reps or lower should be ignored shows you don't have the slightest clue about how REAL strength is gained. You say it like it's some world wide truth that people doing less than 5 reps are destroying their bodies and not gain anything. The opposite is probably more true.
But like i ALSO said: ease your body into it.
But anyway, you also disagree with doing rotator exercises, bodyweight exercises, eating more protein and healthy fats. Okay then.
Quote:
Why are you just doing curls?
Do major muscle groups to start - chest, back, legs.
Don't hit the little ones (biceps etc) until you've been at it for awhile.
Read up.
So you obviously dont disagree 100% with what i posted. _________________ The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
Joined: Sep 17, 2005 Posts: 148 Location: The Netherlands
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject: Re: Fitness in the toolkit: small weights training?
zeke wrote:
because my arms aren't as strong as I'd like them to be and as I know they can be.
Arm strength will increase more with doing Chinups (palms facing you while pulling up) than doing curls. Strive to do compound exercises: exercises which work more than one joint. You'll get more bang for your buck.
Quote:
OK, to me that sounds like: pushups and flies for the chest, some kind of on-stomach leg kicks for the back, and for the legs, I guess the cycling I'm already doing..
'On stomach leg kicks' is not really a strength building exercise for the back.
Cycling wont build much strength in your legs. Cycling is endurance training, not strength training. Bodyweight squats are a good example for starting out. _________________ The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
News
Discussions
Resources
Members
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
Come on, you can't be serious. Where do you get your information from?! It is a universally known fact in the 'bodybuilding/weightlifting-world' that doing 1 to 5 reps accentuates strength gains, 5 to 15 accentuates muscle growth and more accentuates aerobic endurance. Have you ever even seen a pro bodybuilder or powerlifter train? Both do heavy low rep work. And yes, given the fact that with low reps you can use more weight, you can also injure yourself. That is why i said always maintaning proper form. I never said doing less than 5 reps builds more mass. Above all, the topicstarter stated he doesnt want to bulk up.
