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18. No Pain, No Gain.
This is a simple one right? Man up and push through that pain barrier to get results? Well first of all one mans pain, is another mans pleasure. Also, not all pain is equal and it is very subjective. As a rule I would suggest any acute pain is bad regardless. What if you feel the pain in an area/muscle you did not train last session? Probably bad too and down to form or poor selection of exercise.
The main factor that should decide whether you have had a good training or session should not be the fact you can not walk the next day. It should be your training log and plan and whether or not you have achieved your objective for that session. If your goal was to add 2.5kg to your squat and you did you were successful. Simple. Pain is subjective, your plan and log are objective.
There will, well should, be training sessions when you have to push through the barrier a bit but you need to use common sense. Is what you are doing a realistic exercise/load? Yes, then push. No. Well drop the intensity. It all comes back to your plan, your log and your choice of exercise in the end.
19. Free Weights are Better than Machines
Another obvious one right? Free weights are harder so they must be better? Keep it simple (No. 1) an exercise is either appropriate to meeting your specific (No. 2) training goals or it is not. If you are doing standing calf raises to increase the muscle size in your calves it does not matter whether you use a machine, barbell, dumbbell or kettle bell as you load as long as your form is good. But, if you are trying to target the soleus (calf) muscle then you are going to have to do your calf raises seated so will need a machine of some sort.
If you are brand new to the gym or have not trained for a few years starting on machines makes perfect sense and will probably be more productive. This is because all your body needs right now is safe exercise, your brain has to learn how to control the muscles properly and in sequence etc etc. However, if you are gym regular trying to lose 10 kg of fat machines are most likely not suitable as for a start most involve you being sat down (using less calories), and most machines isolate too much.
Do not forget about Range of Movement (ROM) which machines can help or hinder, as can free weights. For most people training through the full ROM is a must although this does not have to be done with a single exercise. So you could target the bottom ROM with a machine exercise and the top ROM with a dumbbell exercise.
I will caveat this with the following……
Some machines are just [email protected] due to pure design so ask a friendly personal trainer for advice. Also, not all machines are equal although they look the same to most of us. The leg press and leg curl machines in the gym I work for are terrible, but similar items at other gyms work fine. Some examples here:
http://www.csulb.edu/~atlastwl/Biom_WL&Wt_Training1989.pdf
Some great stuff about all this here:
Machines vs. Free Weights: More Research is Needed | Bret Contreras |
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Author: Wardy257
26-11-2019 04:54:57
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