Posts Tagged: weightlifting

The Case for Low-Intensity Exercise Part I

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Benefits of aerobics

The whole world is drowning in the incredible, magnificent, growth-hormone spiking, heart-rate variability improving, lung-expanding, fat-burning benefits of high-intensity exercise. I define high-intensity exercise as basically the type of exercise that you can’t do for more than a minute or two at a time before either a) dying or b) slowing down and catching your breath. The superiority of high-intensity over low-intensity exercise just keeps on rolling in. And the fitness world has been thoroughly hijacked by it. Crossfit, Insanity, P90X, HIIT, Plyometrics, Bodyrock – it’s all grueling work at high heart rates in excess of the lactate threshold (the level of oxygen-deprivation where lactic acid starts being produced at a high rate). The case for high-intensity exercise – interval training, hard weightlifting, etc., is a strong case. So how… Read more »

Strength Research Project

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scrawny

I‘m looking for a few good men (and some women too).  Using some principles gathered from both research and experimentation that I’ve done, I feel pretty confident that I can create a pretty remarkable and foolproof method for increasing strength with basic exercises.  Perhaps the best part is the miminal amount of exertion required to get this strength increase.  My own benchpress has increased about 30 pounds in the last 6 weeks with just a couple minutes of total exertion.  This 30-pound increase equals the increase in bench that I’ve experienced from age 14 to 34 with sporadic training, and a ton of total work overall, so I’m pretty psyched.  Of course, a recurring theme here is getting the most reward for the least amount of time, effort, and life disruption… Read more »

Benefits of Strength Training for Women

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go kaleo butt

By Amber Rogers (Go Kaleo) I started strength training 4 years ago because my doctor told me that it can help improve function for people with osteoarthritis of the knee. At 36, I’d recently dislocated my kneecap, which exacerbated the arthritis I’d already developed from carrying around 80 extra pounds for 25 years. I was dealing with chronic pain, stiffness and reduced mobility and couldn’t even climb a flight of stairs like a normal healthy adult. I was desperate, so even though I’d hated exercise all my life I decided to give it a shot. My results far exceeded my expectations. Over the next few years my knee mobility improved and my pain started to subside, my strength and functionality returned, and I started seeing health improvements in areas I’d never… Read more »

How Much Protein Do You Need to Build Muscle?

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protein

In short, not very much.  Not very much at all.  That’s the short answer.  Perhaps 5% of caloric intake at the very most. But this is NOT the whole story of course. While many reading this may not be interested in building muscle, it is still a very fascinating topic that provides many insights into how the body works.  Most people are more interested in shrinking, not getting bigger (talking about the whole body, not certain parts!).  And the funny thing is – that’s when protein really is very useful.  Unless of course you want to lose more muscle mass than fat so you can be a marathon runner or runway model or something.  Or you want to be a wealthy Manhattan woman for Halloween or something.  Then by all… Read more »

Eccentric Training

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eccentric

Getting back to our conversation on High-Intensity Training (HIT) and Body By Science, today is a little primer on one of the basic fundamental principles of this form of exercise… The idea behind the exercise is to present the muscle with a new, and greater challenge each time you perform each exercise.  When the muscle gets fully exhausted, and is presented with a challenge that it cannot meet, there is a strong message sent to the muscle that it needs to get stronger.  This change to become stronger is referred to as an adaptation.  This adaptation is what allows exercise to be productive, and bring about real change. But to comprehend what full muscle exhaustion is, you have to examine how the muscles work.  With each exercise that you perform, there is… Read more »