Weight Lifting vs. resistance training

By Robby Ryan

History shows man has been interested in physical and strength enhancement since the times of the ancient Egyptians if the pictures displayed on tombs are any indication, with men portrayed exercising by throwing and swinging rock and sand. Weightlifting competitions date back to early Greek civilization and these events led up to the Greeks creating the Olympic games in 776 B.C. and continued until 393 A.D. when Emperor Theodosis terminated the games stating it was a pagan religous event.

Not only are the Olympics in full swing again, but weightlifting competitions have been entered since 1896 and in 2000 women could also compete.

Strength training and weightlifting never really took hold until 1910 when a barbell was invented by Alvin Calvert that allowed the user to easily change the weight by simply adding or removing plates. People began to find, they now could easily workout at home and it wasn't long before sport training and physical education facilities were also utilizing the effective and easy to use barbell.

It wasn't until the early 1970's when the Nautilus machines were introduced that the industry really took off. The Nautilus was a more sophisticated version of the previous Universal machines. The Nautilus now made it possible to get a full body workout with the safe use of pullies and cables, allowing the user proper fluid natural movement and resistance.

Aerobics also became popular about this time and women were now joining the men at gyms for both weight control and strength training. Also, most if not all athletic sports training facilities utilize both free weights and resistance equipment.

In 1973 I graduated from high school and immediatly two friends and I joined The Chicago Health Club ( Bally's ). After I used the Nautilus machines I never looked back and very seldom used free weights anymore for my strenghth training and bodybuilding and to this day use the same techniques to maintain a lean cut physique and only need 40 minutes, three days a week to keep myself in excellent shape.

Of course, today there are numerous companies manufacturing resistance types of equipment, and some work very well if you don't mind forking over a large sum of money for a large piece of equipment.

I also discovered the use of free weights can be dangerous, since once you begin a set, you are at the mercy of the weight and can cause torn muscle and ligaments or have the weights fall off, which happened to me more than once.

An effective resistance training method is the strategic use of resistance bands. By simply adding or removing bands, you can easily change the resistance or change the colored bands that have different resistances.

I've been using a personally designed full body resistance band workout system for almost 15 years now and I have experienced great success by duplicating the nautilus equipment regimen.

Proper natural movement and resistance is essential for a beneficial band workout routine. To accomplish this, the bands need to be securely fastened to a stationary object and easily allow you to do up to 12 repetitions of the exercise in a controlled manner.

Resistance bands and tubes are a cheap but effective alternative to the conventional equipment of today and when quality workouts are done frequently, you can achieve the same results.

The workouts are no different than free weight routines, with the precise movement and resistance necessary for good results.

Beginners and bodybuilders, young and old, men and women, fitness conditioning to weight management or for physical rehab or to enhance your athletic prowess, it can all be accomplished safely, with a thought out resistance band workout.

Studies have been conducted by researchers on the affects of resistance exercise (RE) and the findings confirm that a consistant RE workout can have physical and mental positive outcomes, including cardiovascular improvements.

If you are looking for a inexpensive but effective way to get and stay fit, resistance bands should not be overlooked since some form of strength training should be on everyones todo list.

You too can reap the benefits of a properly orchestrated resistance workout routine copying what Iv'e been doing for the past 15 years by waiting a little bit longer until I release a version of my system.

About the Author:

For informative at home fitness and bodybuilding formulas and techniques, by all means enter 6topsystems for all of your health and well-being needs

Bodybuilding and Training Errors (Part 2)

By Mick Hart

It is a proven fact that our post training body has the ability to synthesis more protein. It is also a fact that our muscle tissue after training is a lot more sensitive to insulin and that the simple carbs tend to stock themselves up with glycogen rather than replenishing our body fat levels.

Just this useful information has given the insight to many bodybuilders to get into a routine of eating after training and cutting back on basic nutrient requirements at other times. The fact is that you need carbs a long time prior to training just to be able to complete the session and you require a high blood pool of aminos whilst training, which will have come from protein intake literally hours before training begins.

Another important point is that you make sure that you only eat those radical power bars before training begins so that they are already present and functioning in the blood stream when the level of oxidative stress is at its highest; (which is during and immediately following training), and not having them hanging around in the stomach digesting away while your torn apart body is just pleading for help.

A firm eating schedule should be worked out depending on your daily routine. Let's say that you are sat by a computer for several hours in the morning, and then your carb intake should be reduced while your protein intake should be increased. If your afternoon consists of a punishing workout, then your complex carb intake should be increased as well as fluids and antioxidants, and you will also need a mix of proteins. Post workout nutrition should be supplemented strategically based on your requirements for the coming hours.

Rare is the day when a competitive bodybuilder admits to being well beaten by his competitors. All you ever see on the boards is excuses and bitching about who the judges were, who's partner organised the show and every other wild conspiracy theory that someone can think of to explain why there under tanned, badly presented and soft as Rowntree's Jelly physique didn't win the whole show.

Once again this stems from the subjective way in which bodybuilding is judged, but it could be helped out a lot if judges were forced to take written notes on each physique along with scoring in each round. The competitors could then view these documents after the show and see what was lacking. If every judge at the table writes "Followed the Homer Simpson pre-contest diet" next to your name in the posing round then you know what the problem was, right?

Bodybuilders are the best athletes in the world at kidding themselves they are making progress simply because their sport has very little in the way of truly objective criteria for judging performance gains. In order to compensate for this every bodybuilder should have photos taken once or twice a year in the same light, in the same poses. Every bodybuilder should keep track of his / her muscular girths and have his / her body fat tested at least once a year also.

So in a nutshell, gains in lean mass and/or losses in body fat create muscular girth growth although the waist won't really change much. If aren't able to loose fat or gain muscle, you probably might want to think "Why the hell am I training?" If you look up Bodybuilding in the dictionary it says "building lean and large muscles", so if you don't manage to do that then you aren't actually bodybuilding and that is the name of the game, right?

This entire BS really does piss me off and it becomes so obvious to me that the bodybuilder has failed big time on training and nutrition and this is the truth behind zero muscle mass gains. You will never be poorly judged for showing off muscular lean muscle gains, will you? So what are the real main objectives in bodybuilding? Well I'll tell you a little secret and it goes like this...ALWAYS bigger muscle and improved condition.

The majority of bodybuilders are virtually insane. As defined by Albert Einstein "Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results". This is a perfect description for how bodybuilders consistently eat and train. You will quite often come across bodybuilders in the gym who never seem to change, but who are quite happy to carry on with the same training and nutrition routines.

Progress in the gym is by far your most important objective and if you aren't achieving anything then now is the time to make some serious changes. Do you really want to look the same after 5 years of training? It's more than likely that your training routine wants a serious look at, but if you have been working out for a while now then consider changing your general eating habits.

You might also have heard some idiot saying that they just haven't got the genes for bodybuilding. This is a really worrying sign and the truth is that they just haven't got a clue on how to train, eat correctly or recover properly. So how on earth can they possibly reach their maximum possible gains regardless of their size? So let me just resize that again, I mean size doesn't matter when it comes to being able to make muscle gains.

About the Author:

Author: Mick Hart... a Top Class Steroid & Bodybuilding expert gives tips on Safe Methods of Steroid Use

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