Crunch: Entry-Level Weight-Lifting Concepts (Part 1)

Talking to my buddy the other day, I mentioned that I’d started taking my daughters to the gym again recently, and he got surprisingly interested.  He and his son met us on Tuesday, and when I showed him what we were doing, he said, “Oh wow.  You have, like, a plan and everything.  I always just come here and do maybe half an hour on the treadmill and then hit some of the machines.  I’ve never, like, tried to hit multiple muscle groups on purpose or anything.”

His son followed up with, “I always just do five sets on the leg-press machine and a bunch of arms.  This is cool.”

Triceps extensions with the Emboo.

I was a little surprised.  But then I remembered that not everyone grows up with a Marine infantry officer for a father, and depending on how far you went with high school sports, maybe you’ve never gotten involved in organized weight lifting.  Weight room fundamentals are hardly the first thing they teach you in gym class, unfortunately.

At the same time, I’ve been trying to teach my daughters to lift, especially Emma, who’s been to the gym with us now three times.  But I want my kids to understand more than just what we’re doing.  They need to know why.  Otherwise, how can they adapt new concepts to their own future needs?  Even if you just want to sit down and read a few issues of Muscle & Fitness to get some workout ideas, it helps to have at least some clue why things work.

Basic Concepts

The U.S. Army Fitness Training Handbook lays out seven principles of physical training (PROVERBS), which I find myself thinking through by default whenever I design anything.  I design stuff for my own use pretty much every time I set a new fitness goal, so this comes up a lot.

Progression. We get better as we exercise over time.  Exercise, especially weight or resistance training, overtaxes the body.  Our natural repair processes build us back stronger than we were, and this leads to better fitness over time.

Regularity.  Progression takes consistency of effort.  We can’t go once or twice and expect results. We have to establish a schedule and stick to it in order to it to see incremental changes over time.

Overload. This is why progression works.  We work hard, and with proper rest and nutrition, we come back stronger the next time.

Variety. Progression works best when it’s teamed with muscular confusion. Doing a variety of exercises forces the body to adapt in new and different ways, enhancing overall fitness.  This is true even when talking about specific muscle groups like chest or legs.

Balance.  The Army taught me to think of fitness three ways—muscular strength, muscular endurance, and aerobic fitness.  Every exercise works all three, but most exercises lean heavily towards one or at most two at the expense of the other.  For example, running mostly works aerobic fitness, but muscular endurance is important in the legs and core muscles, and you can even work muscular strength if you do the right kinds of speed work.  Weight training mostly works muscular strength and endurance, but there are programs like P90X that are adapted to add aerobic elements as well.  

All three facets are important to overall fitness.  But most people are better at some things and not as good at others.  Maintaining balance trains the whole person.

Specificity. In a sense, this is the opposite of balance.  You want to regularly target specific aspects of fitness to achieve progression.  This is why we have a plan.  We target muscular strength and endurance one day, especially in the chest and shoulders.  Then we run or ride a bike.  Then maybe we swim.  Then we target back and biceps.  Then maybe we run again.  Then we rest and start again.  

Every exercise targets a specific aspect of fitness.  Linked exercises make workouts that target different parts of the body in different ways.  Linked workouts achieve balance to create total body fitness.

To all of this, I’ll add two things of my own.  First: Rest.  Overload and Progression work on the idea of overtaxing the body.  We don’t get stronger in the gym, we get stronger during recovery.  Yes, you have to put in the work to force the recovery process.  You also need good food, good sleep, and downtime.

Second: the phrase, “No pain, no gain,” is one of the most pernicious lies in the history of sport.  Legitimate pain is the body’s way of telling us that we’re injuring our joints or tendons.  Don’t run through knee pain, don’t lift through shoulder pain, and definitely don’t swim through elbow pain like I did this past summer training for the Swim Across the Sound—unless you’re consciously willing to trade your future joint health for some important athletic goal.  As a collegiate or pro athlete, you might actually decide to make that choice, trading future mobility for short-term gain.  Glory is eternal, so maybe it will even be worth it.  As a recreational weekend warrior, though, do yourself a favor and listen to your body.  

Struggling with Russian Twists.  One of the toughest issues with teaching new
weight-lifters is getting them to use weights that they can control while keeping good form.

Work hard and “feel the burn,” but stop if something actually hurts.

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That's all for now.  Next week we'll talk more specifically about program and workout structure.

Stay safe out there!