The Problem with Lifting Weights

Here’s the main problem with traditional weight lifting…

The main problem with traditional weight lifting is that during most of the range of motion, the weight is being carried upward by momentum, not by your muscles. Most of us were taught to lift the weights in a smooth, controlled motion.  However, once the weight begins to move, most of your muscles take a back seat and are no longer working as hard as they were when you were first trying to get the weight to move from a static position.

Watch most people at the gym and you’ll see what I mean.  When most people do a chest press, for example, they’ll push the weight up as far as they can and essentially lock their arms to hold the weight there for a second or two before bringing the weight back down to the starting position.  Once you get the weight moving, pushing it the rest of the way up actually requires less force with momentum making up the difference.  When you bring the weight down, gravity is doing most of the work and your muscles are simply guiding it down in a controlled manner.

So basically, your muscles are actually working (or “loaded”) for only a short period and not during the entire technique, like many people think.  That’s why most of us tend to reach a plateau where you just don’t seem to build any more muscle even though you might be lifting regularly.

How to Really Build Muscle

We all know that to really build muscle, you have to keep the muscle “loaded,” or under a constant strain, throughout the entire range of motion, not just at the beginning.  Unfortunately, most weight training routines are performed way too quickly pretty much guaranteeing this doesn’t happen.

The solution I found is to combine Isometrics with my weight routines.  Isometrics are static strength-building techniques where a muscle is required to hold a weight load for a period of time without moving.  Here’s a great video that shows how isometrics work:

How Isometric Training Works

www.animal-kingdom-workouts.com – This video explains how isometric exercises are able to build muscle and strength so effectively in so little time.

The “Power-64″ Workout

So here’s what I call my “Power-64″ Workout (yes folks, you heard it here first!) that combines Isometrics with traditional weight training techniques.  Ready?  Here it is:

First, take the length of an exercise’s full range of motion and divide it into 4 parts or stops.  For example, if you can lift a barbell off your chest and fully extend it for about 2 feet, then your 4 stops are going to be about 6″ apart.  Do NOT get too hung up on exact measurements.  Just observe how much distance a single rep covers and divide it into 4 parts by eyeballing it.

Second, lift your weight to the first stop and hold it there for a count of 8 before proceeding to the next stop where you’ll do the same thing.  So during a full rep, you’ll press to each of the 4 stops and hold for a count of 8 at each stop, and then you’ll lower the weights the same way – lower to each stop and hold there for an 8 count before lowering to the next stop.

That’s it!  You’ve got a total of 8 intermediate stops and you’ll hold the weight for a count of 8 at each stop.  8 times 8 equals 64.  Power-64.  Get it?

OK, maybe an example would help.  Let’s take a basic chest press.

In the diagram, I’ve noted the approximate location of the 4 stops between the rest position ( 0) and full extension.  From the starting position (0), press the bar to position 1 (note that this is also position 8 on the way down) and hold for a count of 8.  Next, press to position 2 and hold for an 8 count before pressing to position 3 and holding for another 8.  Finally, press to position 4 and hold for an 8 count.

Now begin the concentric phase by noting that you’re already at position 5 so you’ll hold for another 8 counts.  Yes, that means that you’ll hold the same position (4 and 5) at the top of the exercise for a total of 16 counts.

Next, lower the bar to position 6 and hold for 8.  Then lower to position 2 and hold for 8 before lowering to position 8 and holding for a final 8.  Take the bar back to the position 0.  That’s 1 complete rep.  Try to work up to a set of 10 reps.

Holding the bar at each stop for an 8 count means that 1 rep should take you around 64 seconds to complete.  Your arm and chest muscles should be vibrating at this point.  Because performing 1 rep this way is roughly equivalent to performing 1 SET of chest presses the traditional way.  You’ll be shocked how exhausted your muscles will feel – which means you’ll also be shocked at how much muscle your body will build in response!

Helpful Hints

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

• You can apply this technique to all weight lifting exercises. Once you get the idea behind this, it’s really easy to apply it to any other type of exercise.  Whether you’re exercising arms or legs, simply divide the full range of motion into 4 stops.  Then start your exercise and pause at each stop for an 8 count (remember that positions 4 and 5 are the same).  The same applies to bodyweight exercises like push-ups, sit-ups, or pull-ups.
• Hold the top of the technique (positions 4 and 5) for a total of 16 counts (8 for position 4 and 8 for position 5). If this is too difficult, then combine the two positions into one 8 count and work up from there.
• Use light weights to begin with. I know all you guys (and some gals) can bench-press several hundred pounds — but not this way.  Reduce the amount of weights you normally train with by at least half and work up from there.  Remember, lifting weights this way will work your muscles 2 to 3 times harder so start out easy.
• Shoot for one set of 10 reps. I know it doesn’t sound like much but I guarantee that it will take everything you’ve got to complete 1 set.  If you need to rest between reps, take no more than 1 minute.

Try this for a couple of weeks and let me know what you think by leaving a comment.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results.

Hiram
The Balanced Health Guy
Certified Fitness Nutrition Coach and
Personal Fitness Trainer (NESTA)

Technorati Tags: weight training, weights, isometrics, exercise, fitness, muscle, health, building muscle, strength, power, power-64

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Anyway, what Dr. Petrofsky and his team did was to measure the amount of work that a muscle pair did during various isometric exercises and compared it to the amount of work performed by the same muscles during “traditional” exercises (either lifting weights or doing crunches).  They performed these tests on 17 people (6 males, 11 females) aged 22 to 28 and measured the results with an Electromyogram (EMG), a machine that measures the amount of electrical activity in a muscle indicating how much the muscle is working.  The results were pretty fantastic.

They compared the effectiveness of isometric exercise on three muscle pairs in three parts of the body:  the bicep/tricep muscle pair in the arms, the abdominal/back extensors in the midsection, and the hamstring/quads in the legs.  Traditional weight lifting exercises included the chest press, biceps curl, triceps curl, lat pull down, ad extension, ab flexion, leg extension, leg curl, and leg press.  Traditional floor exercises included the abdominal crunch.

In all cases, the isometric exercises produced up to 5 times (and in some cases, up to 16 times) more muscle activity than traditional exercises. Quoting directly from the article, the isometric “… exercises caused between 4.1 and 15.9 times the exercise for different muscle groups than did commercial weight lifting equipment.”  They also stated that “… when added to the fact that more muscle groups exercise with isometric than the commercial equipment, the isometric protocol is a much better form of exercise.  In fact, using isometric exercise for 6 minutes would be the equivalent muscle work of 30 to 35 minutes of gym work on commercial weight lifting equipment.” (emphasis added)

Pretty significant difference, don’t you think?  Now, this does not mean that you should immediately drop all other forms of exercise and do only isometrics.  But it does emphasize that isometrics should be a part of every balanced fitness routine.

Visit Balance-Your-Health.com for more information on the role of isometrics in a balanced fitness program or you can click on the link at the top of this article to get the full research article from The Journal of Applied Research.

Hiram

Technorati Tags: balanced health, fitness, exercise, isometrics, weight training

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