How to do weight training properly! (supposedly)

[Guest]

u dont need to do weights!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
all u have to do on prmc is press ups pull ups and have good core strength

But its improves your strengh so its easyer to do push-ups after you'v been weight training for a while.

[Daveb]

The movements that I would recommend to concentrate on would be Squat, Romanian Deadlift and Bench Press.

Call me really stupid, but what exactly is the Romanian Deadlift? I want to start on these, but dont wanna do these wrong. Also, the squat....is it the usual squad? or is there another way?

[Langarotti]

Daveb,

Check out this link for an explanation of the RDL.

http://www.protraineronline.com/past/ju ... dlifts.cfm

[snyder]

Call me really stupid, but what exactly is the Romanian Deadlift? I want to start on these, but dont wanna do these wrong. Also, the squat....is it the usual squad? or is there another way?

I think you go kill a bunch of Romanians, put them on a platform and lift them. Seriously, I looked at that link in the last posting and I see a couple of problems. First off, it has you going to the gym four days a week for strength training. That is at least one too many days. Secondly, it talks too much about specific muscle groups within the legs. When you're training for strength you do just a few very simple, basic exercises that hit a lot of muscle groups. Strength training is not about the fine points.

Squats are squats. You stick the bar on your shoulders, keep your back stiff but slightly curved in its natural position, squat down and come back up. As you come back up, be sure to keep your back in its same position, i.e., slightly curved in the natural position, and stiff. If you wrap your knees tightly with weightlifting knee wraps, you'll reduce the chance of any injuries and you'll add 15-20 pounds to your maximum weight. Be careful not to "bounce" off the bottom when doing a squat.

Deadlifts are deadlifts. Set the bar on the floor, keep your back stiff but slightly curved in its natural position. Grasp the bar and stand up straight, being careful to keep your lower back in the same configuration (stiff bur slightly curved) throughout the movement. Then go back down, keeping your lower back in the same position I've described. Don't jerk when you do a deadlift. You absolutely must wear a weight belt while doing squats and deadlifts. Use a safety rack for squats and a spotter for deadlifts.

Benches are benches. Lie flat on your back. Use a safety rack and a spotter. Have the spotter help you get the bar off the rack. Lower it toward your chest until the bar touches the rack but doesn't rest there, and then raise it to a fully extended position. On the back half of the pyramid, some people will have the spotter get in there while they lower the weight very slowly on the last few reps of the last set. This is a type of exhaustion training and it's great.

Any basic weightlifting book will picture all of these. Ignore the rest! It's nothing but filler to expand those books into a size large enough to justify their being thick enough to sell in a bookstore. The fundamentals of strength training and fit on four or five pages with wide margins. If you're absolutely insistent on adding something, then add leg presses. I've never been in a gym that doesn't have a leg press machine.

Honest to God, the less complicated the better. Do your benches, squats and deadlifts with freeweights because you get a wider range of motion that hits more muscles. Be sure to use a belt, a safety rack and/or spotters. Do pay attention to the proper form -- bad form and/or a lack of safety is what kills your back. But correct form is not hard because benches, squats and deadlifts are in every basic weight training book. Remember, most lifters are meatheads, and those who are not meatheads do best when they park the third digit of their I.Q. at the gym door.

Simplify. The hardest part of all this stuff is ignoring the other guys in the gym who will constantly be suggesting a new exercise. They're wrong. I repeat, they are wrong. Now go pump iron. You've been told all you need to know. Really. Trust me Dave, back in my lifting days it took a guy almost a whole year to bang this into my head because I'd simply refuse to believe that less is more. Once I listened, I made incredible gains in strength and size. Try it out.

[Chappy]

I like the odd bit of weight training myself, and as much as I hate to say it Snyder is pretty much spot on with everything said. Textbook!

[dannyd]

less is more

I've been putting this theory to the test over my past few workouts & I have to say that it seems to be bang on. I've been feeling more knackered after 1 hour long workouts using less exercises & greater intensity than I was after doing twice as long on the weights.

One other thing that it is worth trying is unstable exercises. I had a training session with one of the personal trainers at my gym last Friday morning & he showed me how to do this.

Basically you do 4 sets of whatever exercise it is that you want to do: 2 stable & 2 unstable. The stable sets could be for example bench press and (as it's the chest we're working) the unstable sets would be dumbell flys (or similar) while lying on a swiss ball. You do one stable set, then one unstable etc...

I've found it really works as you're using a lot of muscles during the unstable sets trying to keep your position - this will improve your core strength. However, you should get advice from someone qualified on how to do the exercises properly before starting as you can otherwise risk injuring yourself. As always technique is key.

Currently I'm mixing stable & unstable exercises while following the programme I mentioned in my first post (I'm on the 3rd week of the stability phase). I'm also off running for a bit as I've broken my metatarsal so all I can really do is work the upper body - ho hum.

[Maverick00]

Lads you have to be very careful with some of the stuff being said here.
For example I saw someone mention that you MUST use a belt when doing deadlifts. If you can't do deadlifts without a belt then you have a core stability problem. Go away and work on your core strength. Don't rely on a band of leather to act as a corset to protect you...thats what your rectus abdominus and transverse abdominus is for!

Secondly there was talk of stable and unstable exercises with the stable being done first. Do the UNSTABLE ones first as these require the most concentration and energy. If you do them when fatigued you are less likely to use correct form and posture (posture being the most pertinent point here).

I'm not just a weight training junkie I'm a qualified personal trainer with vocational and academic qualifications. To be honest, as always, KEEP IT SIMPLE! The bottom line is you can use weight training as a supplement to your training (as mentioned previously) but all you need to do is train SPECIFICALLY for the demands of your event (e.g. PRMC, BPFA e.t.c.).

Taking the PRMC as an example...

RMFA....running (bleep tests), sit ups (full), press ups (narrow arm) and chins (overhand)

Therefore you need to go on short fast runs (bleep test doesnt last long), do multiple sets of press ups, sit ups and chins!

Bottom field...sprinting, press ups, sit ups, high intensity/pace, no rest periods, log pressing (shoulder press), log curling (bicep curls) e.t.c.

Best for this would be a self-made circuit including the above exercises with no rest periods between stations and including lots of shuttle runs.

Assault course...upper body strength for pulling bodyweight, balance, agility, leg power

Could use chins/weights (lat pull down) with med/low reps, core stability work, balance work (e.g. wobble boards), squats/lunges (lunges also help balance) with mid/high reps. Best would be to find something resembling an assault course near you and do it! Climbing also a good activity.

Bear in mind all this must be done WITH FATIGUE so add a 'comprehensive' warm-up before such activities.

In summary...analyse the activity, identify its demands and replicate these demands. Principles of progression, overload and variety also apply.

P.S. Sorry about the length of the post!

[snyder]

Geez, I always learned that you must use a belt when doing squats and dead-lifts. Just to check I did a Google search and found this article about the proper use of belts in weight training. It cautions against using a belt all the time, because wearing one properly, i.e., tightly cinched, raises your blood pressure and can weaken abdominal muscles if overused. However, it definitely endorses use of a belt for squats and deadlifts.

Excerpt:

For this reason, belts should only be used on two primary occasions. The first is when performing maximal or submaximal lifts in exercises such as the squat or deadlift, in which the weight is supported by the lifter's back. The second is while performing exercises, such as the military press, which may cause the back to hyperextend. The belt should be loosened to allow blood pressure to return to normal levels in between sets.


Here is another article on the subject that says, in part:

In the gym environment the weightlifting belt should not be worn at all times. The belt should only be utilized for exercises that involve the spinal erectors against high resistance i.e. squat and deadlift. (21) The belt should be loosened after every set and the individual


This article says it's not necessary to use a belt during deadlift training, but note that it comes from a bodybuilding site as opposed to a strength-training site. In bodybuilding, people generally don't lift anywhere close to their maximum possible weights. They do lots of reps at low weights to achieve muscle hypertrophy (i.e., get things puffed out) while burning lots of calories and following a strict diet. The idea is to reduce bodyfat to a minimum and get the muscles highly defined.

Strength has little or nothing to do with it. Reading through what Maverick posted, I think that whether he realizes it or not, he's talking about bodybuilding as opposed to strength training. Not that bodybuilding is a "bad" thing. I see no problem with people wanting to show it off. But if you do deadlifts in a strength routine, i.e., at 80%+ of your maximum capability, use a belt.

[dannyd]

Secondly there was talk of stable and unstable exercises with the stable being done first. Do the UNSTABLE ones first as these require the most concentration and energy. If you do them when fatigued you are less likely to use correct form and posture (posture being the most pertinent point here).

This just shows how many different opinions there are out there on this subject. I was told to do the stable exercises first by a personal trainer as he said the unstable ones are harder so you will be working harder if you do them when fatigued. So who do I believe???

[toffee]

to be honest mate you dont really want to be doing weight training yes it makes you stronger but it also gives you extra weight to carry (muscle weighs more than fat) and you really need to be thinking more about stamina training this will benifit alot more for prmc or even basic.
toffee

[snyder]

This just shows how many different opinions there are out there on this subject. I was told to do the stable exercises first by a personal trainer as he said the unstable ones are harder so you will be working harder if you do them when fatigued. So who do I believe?

Yup, there are conflicting opinions in the world, and not just about weight training. You'll have to read and listen and make a judgment, and then prepare to have your personal experience be the most important teacher. All I can really tell you is that I think I reconciled the opposing views in my last posting, and that the stuff I've posted throughout was something I experience-tested.

I don't remember anymore the exact weights I could deadlift or squat, but I can tell you that at one point when I was in my 20s I could bench press 315 pounds. I achieved this through the strength training and diet methods I've explained. I had been doing a bodybuilding routine before that, i.e., lots of exercises, lots of reps. I was making no progress -- stalled out at 265 lbs on the bench press. A friend who had been in the USMC started telling me about the strength training stuff and I refused to believe him for quite a long while. He'd laugh at me and call me a dumbsh!t for not listening to him, and finally I listened and he was absolutely right about strength training.

toffee is right in a sense. Pure strength training for a long time wouldn't be the right approach for a member of the military. Endurance really does count more in the long run. However, using strength training for a while to go from Point A to Point B, strength-wise, is in my opinion a great way to go. When you can bench press 300 lbs. and deadlift, oh I don't know, maybe 450, and squat maybe 400, and leg press maybe 600, trust me this is an amazing thing and you won't regret it.

Some people might argue that you should do a bodybuilding routine to build endurance but I would disagree. To build endurance you should jog, swim or cycle and do it hard. I ran. At my peak with jogging I was running 9 miles a day, half of it up and down hills. I had names for them. There was "Mt. Motherf*****" and "Little Mt. Motherf*****" as I recall. After doing that training for a few months, I got a perfect score on the running portion of the USMC's physical fitness training test. If I recall correctly, that meant running 3 miles in less than 18 minutes.

Also good for endurance training are pull ups, push ups and situps, although with situps I think "crunches" are best for the muscles, and crunches are easier on your back. Don't do pull ups and push ups while you're doing strength training because it will interfere. Crunches are o.k. any time. Running will tend to interfere with strength training, although you can see what your experience teaches on that one. It really will depend on how much of a purist you decide to be. When running, make sure you wear well-built running shoes and/or do your running on soft ground, i.e., dirt or cinder if possible.

I never did the following but heard great things about it: Running up and down the stairways in a stadium. American football players do this. What you want to do with running is get your heart pumping very fast. You'll have to look around on-line or in the bookstores for advice on this. I used a book called Complete Conditioning that explained the cardiovascular fundamentals. What's important, though, is to ignore anything those books tell you about strength training because you simply will not find a book that tells you to pig out and do only a few exercises a week. That advice is too brief and too politically incorrect to ever make it into a conditioning book.

On the cardiovascular front, the basic idea is that a healthy person in his 20s has a peak heart rate of about 200 beats a minute. A good cardio program will be done several days a week, for 45 minutes each time, and will cause you to have a sustained heartbeat of 75% of your maximum. At the end of that period (and also maybe once in the middle, I forget) you spike it up to the max for a minute or two, then you "cool down" by jogging very slowly. If you do it right, the running will reduce your appetite and will reduce your resting heart rate.

I lost 25 pounds one year through running, and cut my resting heart rate to 50 beats a minute. This was a pretty extreme program, but I was in fantastic shape as a result. As you can imagine, this conflicts with strength training because for strength training you need those caloric reserves. Look at Olympic weightlifters sometime. None of them are svelte. If you want to gain strength you'll have to bulk up for a period of time, and then you can run it off later on. You'll keep most of the strength you gained.

Again, strength and endurance training are opposed to each other in their pure forms. If you've hit a plateau on strength, then go to a purer form. Same with endurance. Even if your ultimate goal is strength it doesn't mean you have to do only strength training, and same for endurance. Most people want a balance, but to reach your balance you need to know the fundamentals of each of the approaches. It's all I can tell ya, Danny. Take it or leave it. You won't find this advice in the weightlifting magazines, because they've all been taken over by the bodybuilding mentality. The last strength training mag I know of was called Iron Man, and it was purchased by a bodybuilding empire about 20 years ago and immediately became another male beauty contestant rag.

Now quit reading and start working out, Danny. It's a lot easier to debate it than it is to do it.

[Maverick00]

You're damn right! Despite being a science fitness training can be very controversial with a multitude of opinions!

Regarding the unstable/stable debate, although I can understand your PT's logic about working harder the unstable exercises are technically more demanding. If your technique is wrong, which it is more likely to be when fatigued, you are putting yourself at risk. IMHO it is a question of the quality coming first and intensity second purely from a safety and effectiveness point of view.

Regarding lifting belts and bodybuilding/strength training if your goal is purely to lift the heaviest weight possibly safely then use a belt. But if you want that strength to transfer over to other activities (which you would for the military) then its best not to rely on a belt as although your mobilising muscles will be strong your stabilisers/core will not be and this will limit you when applying your developed strength into the real world. You are only as strong as your weakest link - using a belt you are merely hiding your weakest link - the core. As a result a strength trainer who wanted a 'functional' type of strength would have to lower the amount lifted to allow for core strength. Squats in particular are exercises performed terribly by weight trainers, commonly due to a lack of core strength (e.g. how many people stick their arses out and arch their back beyond the spines natural curvature when they squat?)

A lot of this stuff can get very complicated, considering the type of fitness the armed forces require its too complicated. I've tried all kinds of training regimes to get my fitness up to armed forces standards and the best way ive found is running, press ups, chins and sit ups in circuits. Thats about it. Simple yet effective.

You do have to be careful where you get your info on when it comes to fitness training. The author/provider will always be subject to personal bias depending on training background and the industry in th U.K is under very little regulation although it is improving. If using a fitness professional for advice and you are unsure of them always check their qualifications.

[snyder]

I think Maverick's comment about "the weakest link" is understandable but a bit misguided. The lower back is more fragile then everything else. In strength training, you've got to be paranoid about not damaging it. To be clear, I'm really not advocating an exclusive emphasis on strength training. I've simply tried to lay out the reality of how you do it, and put it in the context of broader conditioning. If you do strength training, use a belt for squats and deadlifts. God gives you one lower back, and once you screw it up that's it. The game's over.

Any strength you gain is going to "transfer." The issue isn't transferability, not with squats and deadlifts because they are comprehensive exercises that hit a bunch of muscle groups. The issue will be endurance. To handle that, you do do cardio training plus some simple stuff like pushups and pull ups. Crunches, by the way, are great for the lower back as well as the abdominals. But there's simply never a reason to not use a weight belt when doing squats and deadlifts as part of a strength training routine. It's an exercise in foolishness to do that.

Also highly worthwhile in any workout, but especially a strength workout, is stretching the muscles near the lower back before starting. Three exercises are especially good. In the first two, you lie flat on your back on the floor. In the first one, bring one kne to the chest and hold it there a few seconds, then return that leg to the floor. Do the same with the other leg, and so on. At least 10 reps on each. In the second of these, grab one ankle and pull it out and away from the side of your body. Slowly lower your knee as close to the floor as possible. Then do the same on the other other. At least 10 reps. In the third exercise, you stand with your legs stiff and apart. Bend over as far as you can, trying to touch both hands to one ankle. Then try the other ankle. 10+ reps. Be sure not to "bounce" when you do this one, and same goes for the knee-ankle exercise.

[Maverick00]

I think we're both coming from different viewpoints on this one! I'm of a more functional frame of mind when it comes to strength training. I don't believe one should be lifting a weight if lifting that weight means your body is at a higher risk as a result. If the body can't do it then don't do it.

Fundamentally you're saying if a strength exercise risks the back, add a belt. I'm saying if a strength exercise puts the back at risk, drop the weight and work on your core strength so your back will be safe. For squats in particular there is a specific breathing technique you can use that enhances back safety. It involves breathing in at the correct time so that the lungs/diaphragm increase intra-abdominal pressure and effectively 'cushion' the spine from within thus ensuring natural curvature and uniform loading through the spine. Further errors in technique, excessive flexion at the hip for example on the lowering phase, can often be key causes of excessive lower back loading. Deadlifts, an exercise that will target the spinal erectors, is probably the main exercise that may require a belt at high %'s of 1RM. At lower %'s a belt should be avoided to allow for core development. A further point of interest regarding squats - I have known clients that have previously done squats and noticed 1-2 inches loss of height through spinal compression - no lie! Normal spine length returned when they ceased squats so no worries! This was an isolated case tho.

My opinions would obviously be at odds with someone wishing to lift the heaviest weights possible whilst maintaining back saftey and thus seem misguided. If I had a client that wanted to do very heavy deadlifts and I had doubts about their core stability of course I would use a belt! But I would also work on their core stability. I would say only use a belt if you are at the very limits of your 1RM i.e. competitive olympic lifting, fitness testing, high-level strength training. Joe Public, more often that not, should not need a belt. If they are it is usually to compensate for poor core strength and/or technique. I would not say NEVER wear a belt. Horse for courses and all that.

Yet again though, I reiterate that most of the potential RM's on this forum will not need this level of training. I'm merely carrying on this discussion as I find talking about controversial subjects like this very interesting. Don't think I'm having a go at you snyder, its good to exchange ideas!Training for a PRMC/POC etc should be pure endurance unless you have a specific strength deficiency.

(Would just like to point out I have used a weight belt before (many years ago) and I have also attended a POC so I have prev. personal experience on the above aside from theoretical knowledge!)

[snyder]

I think we agree on much more than we disagree. I guess where I'd wind up disagreeing -- but only to an extent, i.e., not totally -- is with your hybrid approach, Maverick. That's what I was doing when I hit my plateau, and I think what happens to people doing a hybrid is that they wind up adding more and more exercises when they should be going the other way.

Eventually, these people get discouraged and quit the gym. Then they come back a few months later, make gains and hit the same plateau. To me, this is where the purer strength training can be useful. Instead of doing more and more of the same and getting discouraged and quitting, you do a very different kind of workout for six months or so, give or take some months.

Maverick, I perceive that you agree with my description of the fundamentals of a strength routine, and I agree with you that a pure strength approach is not the right one over the long run for someone in the military. But I do think it can be useful for getting past the snags that happen in the weightroom. I can testify from personal experience that I kept the strength I added for a long time. I really noticed it in daily life. I think it's imperative that anyone doing it be extremely careful with respect to their lower back, because injuring it is, by far, the single biggest risk associated with a pure strength routine. That's really what I've tried to convey here: Do not be cavalier about this issue, or somehow think that "real men don't use a weight belt."

Danny, if you're still reading all of this I hope you get a sense of all of it and that you can see how the two approaches can be reconciled to one another. Now go work out. Get in touch with your inner meathead.