Shiny New Stuff
This weekend I got two nifty new things. A pull-up bar finally. The construction of it on Saturday afternoon by hubby somehow interacted synergistically with Malcolm refusing to take a nap and resulting bad behavior left us all pissed off and crabby. It’s in the back yard (we have been discussing indoor possibilities for years and so far, none have panned out), attached to Malcolm’s tree house. I used it for the first time right after it was constructed, and again this morning. I can do a whopping 3 pull-ups with poor form. I usually follow them with slow (10 second) negatives (meaning I climb up on a stool into final pull-up position and then slowly let myself back down). These are all narrow underhand grip. They are especially important to me because I lack access to a standard cable pull-down apparatus.
The other shiny new thing I have is the weightlifting book I referred to before: “The New Rules of Lifting For Women.” by Schuler. I was dubious about a weight lifting book for women, since pretty much all the weight lifting principles apply equally to mean and women. And I was almost offended by the book introduction, which sets out to dispute common weight lifting misconceptions of women. But I can’t claim these misconceptions aren’t common, so I guess it’s important stuff to say, if not for me specifically. Furthermore, the book did discuss physiological differences between men and women and how these pertain to lifting (e.g. it claims women tend to have weaker dorsal muscles, i.e. lats, spino-erectors, glutes, hanstrings compared to their ventral muscles i.e. pecs, rectus abdominus, quads, and thus women should put plenty of effort into their back work.) Anyway, I found it in the bookstore on Saturday morning, liked what I saw and bought it, and have since devoured ¾ of it. There were some chapters devoted to nutrition, and even a specific eating plan, which I didn’t at first think was worthwhile, but even these sections were full of useful information.
So here are some major ideas from the book:
The book assumes that your goal is to lose fat. If, however, you’re goal is to get stronger or increase muscle mass, the guidelines are equally effective since you lose that fat by intensely working large tracts of muscle.
The focus is on functional strength, balanced muscle development, and natural compound movements, as opposed to, say, a program designed to give you the most efficient exercises to strengthen and grow each muscle group, regardless of ones uses for that group. I can’t say I disagree with the book’s approach at this time in my life.
As an aside, many of the resulting lifts are what I consider frou-frou. Many promote core endurance, strength, and balance at the same time as strengthening a muscle, e.g. stand on one foot lean forward, other leg pointing backward, and do a double sided dumbbell row. I haven’t tried it, but I doubt I could use as much weight as I could when doing a bent over DB row while braced on the bench. Hence my back is not going to get as much of a workout. There are also a lot of things that use a box, or involve one leg, and tons of variations of squats, deadlifts, and lunges.
Common exercises that don’t seem to be included anywhere:
Bent over dumbbell rows on the bench, regular bench press or dumbbell chest press (they have inclined versions and pushups), dips, curls, kick-backs, lateral raises.
They do have some core specific exercises, but no regular crunches, and plenty of planks (they feel strengthening the core in the context of stabilizing the whole spine, as in the plank, is far more important than simply a strong rectus abdominus, and twisting exercises are very important, not merely for the muscles causing the twisting, but for the others that have to stabilize the spine during that twisting).
Pay attention now. Here’s the kicker. They have a nutrition plan, but don’t tell you to starve yourself. This is the first workout plan I have ever encountered that attempts to help you look more ripped and lose fat that doesn’t come with a suggested extreme diet which would obviously have way more impact on body fat and definition than the exercise plan. I found this refreshing. Likewise, they don’t tell you on the book flap that their plan will help you lose x pounds in y days. They want you to eat your maintenance amount of food, and tell you that if you try to lose weight at the same time, the program will not be able to have its desired effect. They do make quite a few suggestions about what form that food should come in. They advocate getting a whopping 30% of calories from protein.
So I have no intention of doing their program. It doesn’t fit into my current life. Getting some of the workouts done efficiently only sounds possible if one had a very generously outfitted home gym. If you tried to do it at a regular gym, the equipment would be there, but someone would be on it when your superset called for you to be doing that thing exactly 60 seconds after finishing the last set. Furthermore, 3/5 of it is leg stuff, and I just can’t do it and my current running program at the same time. Likewise, I don’t think I would enjoy a diet that is 30% protein, and only 40% from carbs (which is what I would have leftover if I also got 30% from fat, which I am wont to do) would not be enough for running.
Still, I am going to try out a number of their exercises, probably work harder on my back even if it isn’t as exciting as bench pressing, toss the curls, dips, lateral raises and crunches and use that time for something that works more of my muscles. This morning I even did some deadlifts and squats. And pull-ups will be my new holy grail. My goal is to be able to do a full set of them (8-10). I even went out in the backyard in the rain to do them this morning.
The other shiny new thing I have is the weightlifting book I referred to before: “The New Rules of Lifting For Women.” by Schuler. I was dubious about a weight lifting book for women, since pretty much all the weight lifting principles apply equally to mean and women. And I was almost offended by the book introduction, which sets out to dispute common weight lifting misconceptions of women. But I can’t claim these misconceptions aren’t common, so I guess it’s important stuff to say, if not for me specifically. Furthermore, the book did discuss physiological differences between men and women and how these pertain to lifting (e.g. it claims women tend to have weaker dorsal muscles, i.e. lats, spino-erectors, glutes, hanstrings compared to their ventral muscles i.e. pecs, rectus abdominus, quads, and thus women should put plenty of effort into their back work.) Anyway, I found it in the bookstore on Saturday morning, liked what I saw and bought it, and have since devoured ¾ of it. There were some chapters devoted to nutrition, and even a specific eating plan, which I didn’t at first think was worthwhile, but even these sections were full of useful information.
So here are some major ideas from the book:
The book assumes that your goal is to lose fat. If, however, you’re goal is to get stronger or increase muscle mass, the guidelines are equally effective since you lose that fat by intensely working large tracts of muscle.
The focus is on functional strength, balanced muscle development, and natural compound movements, as opposed to, say, a program designed to give you the most efficient exercises to strengthen and grow each muscle group, regardless of ones uses for that group. I can’t say I disagree with the book’s approach at this time in my life.
As an aside, many of the resulting lifts are what I consider frou-frou. Many promote core endurance, strength, and balance at the same time as strengthening a muscle, e.g. stand on one foot lean forward, other leg pointing backward, and do a double sided dumbbell row. I haven’t tried it, but I doubt I could use as much weight as I could when doing a bent over DB row while braced on the bench. Hence my back is not going to get as much of a workout. There are also a lot of things that use a box, or involve one leg, and tons of variations of squats, deadlifts, and lunges.
Common exercises that don’t seem to be included anywhere:
Bent over dumbbell rows on the bench, regular bench press or dumbbell chest press (they have inclined versions and pushups), dips, curls, kick-backs, lateral raises.
They do have some core specific exercises, but no regular crunches, and plenty of planks (they feel strengthening the core in the context of stabilizing the whole spine, as in the plank, is far more important than simply a strong rectus abdominus, and twisting exercises are very important, not merely for the muscles causing the twisting, but for the others that have to stabilize the spine during that twisting).
Pay attention now. Here’s the kicker. They have a nutrition plan, but don’t tell you to starve yourself. This is the first workout plan I have ever encountered that attempts to help you look more ripped and lose fat that doesn’t come with a suggested extreme diet which would obviously have way more impact on body fat and definition than the exercise plan. I found this refreshing. Likewise, they don’t tell you on the book flap that their plan will help you lose x pounds in y days. They want you to eat your maintenance amount of food, and tell you that if you try to lose weight at the same time, the program will not be able to have its desired effect. They do make quite a few suggestions about what form that food should come in. They advocate getting a whopping 30% of calories from protein.
So I have no intention of doing their program. It doesn’t fit into my current life. Getting some of the workouts done efficiently only sounds possible if one had a very generously outfitted home gym. If you tried to do it at a regular gym, the equipment would be there, but someone would be on it when your superset called for you to be doing that thing exactly 60 seconds after finishing the last set. Furthermore, 3/5 of it is leg stuff, and I just can’t do it and my current running program at the same time. Likewise, I don’t think I would enjoy a diet that is 30% protein, and only 40% from carbs (which is what I would have leftover if I also got 30% from fat, which I am wont to do) would not be enough for running.
Still, I am going to try out a number of their exercises, probably work harder on my back even if it isn’t as exciting as bench pressing, toss the curls, dips, lateral raises and crunches and use that time for something that works more of my muscles. This morning I even did some deadlifts and squats. And pull-ups will be my new holy grail. My goal is to be able to do a full set of them (8-10). I even went out in the backyard in the rain to do them this morning.