Tag: Gym

Understanding the weight in weight lifting

I’ve been a gym member for 10 years and I’ve been training seriously (with goals and some base knowledge about lifting) for about 3 years now, and it’s only today that I understood what “weight” was. Not literally, but in a weight training context. I used to train with weights that made me unconfortable, weights that made me do about 8 to 12 reps (the normal bodybuilders’ rep range for hypertrophy), without really trying to lift more the next week. Just lifting the same weights week after week until I felt that I could put a little more on the bar or take a bigger dumbbell. I have not seen much progression in strength, even though I lost a great amount of fat and gained muscle mass. I was getting fitter, but not stronger.

A few weeks ago, I made a new workout program with the objectives of getting stronger, which meant putting more weight and doing less reps. As a beginner in “strength”, I figured that I better get myself used to a 3-6 reps range for this program, strength programs don’t normally allow more than 5 reps per set, and generally around 1 to 3 reps per set. I also decided to write everything I do in a notebook, what exercices, for how many sets and reps, and also the amount of weight used. So at each training, I know exactly what I did last time, so if I was able to do more reps than the program allowed, I add some weight to make the rep count drop.

I’ve been doing this program for about two months now, and I know pretty much the exact “max” weight I can take to stay in the rep range I defined. In fact, after just a month it was already clear. And I must say that this method has already shown me that I’m much stronger than I thought I was. And this is exactly where the title of this article takes its meaning. I understood what “weight” was, especially “heavy weight”. I can’t count how many times I read “lift heavy” in bodybuilding/fitness articles, I thought I knew what it meant, but I didn’t. I especially experienced its true meaning while doing deadlifts and shoulder presses at about a month into my program. So like I said earlier, now that I write everything in my notebook, I can make progress towards lifting the more weight I can while still being in a safe range for my body (because it prevents me from randomly choosing too much weight).

Ok, first, if you know a little about strength, you probably know that the main exercises used to compare lifters to each others are the bench press, the squat and the deadlift. It seems to be the bare minimum to squat and deadlift at least your own bodyweight (not bodyweight squatting and deadlift but doing squats and deadlifts with a bar that weights as much as yourself), and doing twice your bodyweight on these exercises before you can even consider yourself being a strong person. Bench press seems to be at 1.75x your bodyweight. As a beginner, my goal is to get to squat and deadlift my bodyweight, which is about 180 pounds.

So, that day I was at the 155 pounds mark on my deadlift, and I understood two things, what a real deadlift is, and what “heavy weight” is (I haven’t got the same feeling with squats yet, but I’m sure it’s coming soon too). From what I’ve said just before, 155 pounds is not much weight for a deadlift, but for my current level, it is. Until that day, I’ve been deadlifting around 135 pounds (one 45 pounds plate on each side and the barbell itself), which was enough to get me tired, and maybe working my lower back a little, but not much else. I just had to watch my form to do it correctly. But at a weight near my current limit, things got quite different. It wasn’t only about keeping good form anymore, it was about doing everything I could to keep my body from collapsing to the ground. I have to admit that I still didn’t feel much in my legs, but my core (lower back and abs) was ready to burst out of me as well as my forearms and traps. At this moment I realized how much every muscles have to work together to make it happen. And I can’t achieve this muscle concerto with light/moderate weights. So this is it, lifting heavy means that the weight is so heavy that you have no other choice than to solicit nearly every muscles in your body to manage to do each rep.

The same thing happened to me while doing heavy barbell shoulder presses (standing), it wasn’t as obvious as it was while doing deadlifts because I had to put a lot less weight on the bar to be able to lift it over my head. But the end result is really similar. With light to moderate weights, it’s a shoulder movement, with heavy weights, it becomes a lot more because all the rest of the body has to stay tight to avoid collapsing under the bar. The first few times, I thought that my back was about to bend backward under the pressure, to finally realize that contracting my glutes and core would make the movement workable without pain (and keeping me from collapsing under the bar).

So from a movement targeting few muscles with light weights, it soon becomes nearly a full body workout just by itself when you put enough plates on the bar. One last note before closing this article, when I say max weight for an exercise, I mean the max weight I can lift while still being able to keep good form and while having the weight under control from start to finish. All this to minimize the risk of injury. Because there’s no use to being strong if you can’t actually use it because of injuries.

Liquid confidence

You’re probably thinking about alcohol, but I want to talk about supplements instead. The article won’t be about talking to girls/guys at the bar but instead about how supplements help me make gains while training at the gym.

Some people say that protein shakes really make a difference, and some other say that it’s just expensive urine.

I’ll start with the “expensive urine” thing first. Pretty much everything you drink that isn’t water directly taken from the river IS expensive urine. You pay for everything you drink whether it’s juice you buy at the grocery store, your protein shake, or even tap water (your taxes). I’ll admit that some are cheaper than others, but nothing is really free in this world. So I choose to pee cookie and cream flavored protein powder instead of juice and soda.

I tried a few protein types, whey, isolate, rice and gainer (whey + maltodextrin + creatine + glutamine), and I recently tried electrolytes which is a blend of fast absorbing sugars and BCAAs. Beside flavor and texture, I can’t say with certitude that it made me gain more muscle mass than I would have without them (I’m not really big anyway), but there’s one thing I know, they make me train harder. “How is that?” you may say. It’s simple, sometimes when I workout, at some point I feel tired, or empty (energy wise), so I take my protein shake at that moment instead of waiting until the end of the workout. If I didn’t have it, I would probably strip off a few sets and get back home sooner. It gives me the confidence that I’ll make it to the end because I have something in my stomach other than just plain water from the fountain. So even if the powder itself would be a placebo, it would have the effect of making me do my whole workout instead of giving up in the middle of it.

The same thing goes for the electrolytes blend except that it is meant to be drank before and during the workout, so having already drank some of it before the workout, I already have the confidence that I have the energy I need to complete all my workout.

So when I talk about “liquid confidence”, I mean that the drink makes me believe that I’ll be good enough to do the whole workout without collapsing under a heavy pile of steel plates. Which itself is a benefit, more training = more gains.

I personally think that supplements can help us getting better results, but for me, even if they were just plain white powder, they would still have a positive effect on my gains.

Gym people and the rest

What I call gym people are the ones who are training in the gym all year long, the rest are the ones going to the gym on key moments of the year for short term results, new year resolutions, beach body, back to school, etc.

Gym people are people who love working out, they can’t live without it, so it’s obvious that they don’t miss any training session and that you see them everytime you go there. They get in shape because they like the process that makes it happen.

The other people go to gym because they think it’s the only way to get in shape. What I’m trying to say here is that the will to get in shape is a great resolution, but maybe you find it on your list each year because you’re doing it in a way that you don’t like. So this year, instead of taking a gym membership like everyone else will be doing, and stop going one month later because you find it boring, find something else to do.

There’s plenty of ways to get in shape and most of them don’t require a gym membership. If you like team sports, you can join a local team that practices a sport you like, hockey, ultimate frisbee, soccer, etc. You could also find a friend and play tennis or badminton with him/her as a team or just against each other. If you don’t like team sports or competition you could also do a more individual activity like jogging, hiking, biking or swimming.

This isn’t close to being a full list of the activities you can do, there is tons of activities you can do that you may enjoy while getting in better shape, the trick is to find something you like doing so it will last more than a few weeks. Just look at what’s available in your town and try new things. When you’ll find something you actually like, you won’t have to force yourself to practice it regularly. You don’t have to lose hope if you’re not a gym person, there’s so much to do outside the gym.

As a last note, don’t forget that getting in shape and being healthier in general requires clean eating too. Exercice alone will surely get you some results but eating food that’s good for your body will help it reach its full potential.