UK Shopping Search
1000s of searchable products GO
Once again with the various exercises we are probably more confused than ever.
Each exercise is promoted as being the best for this or that, when in actual fact only a few exercises can claim to work muscles through their complete range of movement. If a muscle is not worked through its complete range of movement then not only are you loosing out on the efficiency of any exercise you perform, but are limiting the muscles effective range of maximum effort. This situation can lead to injury in the future and is generally not a very good situation. Therefore try always to exercise muscles through their complete range of movement. By range of movement I mean from expansion to contraction and then back to full expansion again.
However there will be times when this is either not achievable or is inconvenient, when this is the case, realise the situation and try to correct it as soon as possible. The above statement is to be used as a general rule and is not written in stone...
Besides all rules are made to be broken occasionally...
Whether you are trying to loose weight, or trying to pack on a few kilos of muscle the next principle is the same... That is your legs contain the biggest muscles in your body so these should be worked to their maximum. These big muscles use the most fuel and will not only burn the most energy when trying to loose weight but will promote growth in the whole of the body if gaining muscle is your goal. Only the diet and exercise repetitions differ between the two objectives, the principle of using your legs remains the same...
As a general rule lower repetitions, in the range of 6 - 10 reps with an increase in weight, promote maximum muscle growth. And higher repetitions 10 - 20 although promoting some muscle growth, do tend to burn more energy. Do not however think only one direction is the way to go as to higher or lower repetitions as it takes the body 6 - 8 weeks to adjust to any new form of exercise and the returns on the exercise diminish considerably after 8 weeks. So a short sharp shock is sometimes needed to wake your body up and react to a new exercise or regime. So changing your exercise slightly each couple of months is the correct way to go...
Also many different forms of exercise are better than only doing one in particular.
So walk a lot, bicycle regularly if you can, swim, dance do whatever you enjoy but variety is the key here. Remember if you only use your muscles in a particular way then they will become accustomed to that movement, so when you ask them to perform a different way they have to adjust to this new stress.
