This week, my gym is flooded with new faces. It's that post New Years
craze that sends everyone to the gyms to try and fulfill that elusive
but always primary goal of the New Year: lose weight and get into
shape. I watched one new member make her way around through the
jungle of strength training equipment last night. She moved from
machine to machine doing one set here, two sets there, five
repetitions here, twenty there. No rhyme or reason to it, no paper
and pencil in hand, it just appeared another random attempt at a
workout. What if there was a simple, straightforward way of taking a
workout and figuring out exactly what should be in it? There is it's
called the 5 Rs principle.
The 5 Rs Principle can help beginning exercisers figure out what exactly goes into an effective workout.
Each `R'focuses on an important element of an exercise routine that forces
the beginner to look at their workouts in a holistic fashion.
RANGE of motion
Range of motion refers to how the capability of a joint to move
through a prescribed set of movements. In order for a beginner to see
results, each exercise should be performed from a fully stretched
position of the muscle to a fully contracted position. An example: I
see a lot of beginners (and people who have been around the gym long
enough to know better) load up the EZ-curl bar for preacher curls and
perform the exercise only lowering the bar halfway down on the
eccentric portion of the exercise. Not only can this cause injury to
the bicep muscle, it also doesn't work the muscle the best way
possible and limits the results of the exercise.
You'll hear the term `range of motion' often in reference to joint
health and mobility. This is no exception in the gym. Your joints are
supported by large and small muscles. In order to optimize your joint
health, all the muscles surrounding the joints must be worked as well.
RESISTANCE
When you're just starting to lift weights, how much weight to use is
a huge issue. It's unfortunate that many personal trainers will tell
women to use a lighter weight so that they will "tone up" and not get
bulky. This is probably the biggest myth in all of weight lifting?
women who lift heavy weights will not get bulky. Don't believe anyone
who tells you this! Choose a weight that allows you to complete the
exercise without sacrificing proper form but that is heavy enough
that you cannot possibly perform another repetition at the end of
your prescribed set of repetitions.
REPETITIONS
Another huge variable for beginning exercisers is how many
repetitions to perform. Performing certain repetitions will indeed
produce highly specific results. In general, low repetitions (3-8)
produce greater absolute strength, medium repetitions (10-20) produce
anaerobic strength endurance, and high repetitions (20-40) produce
aerobic strength endurance.
Now, an ideal beginner routine will probably include sets of medium
repetitions, just to allow the exerciser to learn to perform the
exercise correctly, with proper form and technique and to allow her
to experiment with experiencing muscle fatigue at 12-15 repetitions.
As she progresses, she can experiment with different set/rep schemes
customized to individual goals.
An important note is that in order to achieve the results desired
from performing a certain number of repetitions is that muscular
failure must be achieved within the repetition ranges above. Muscular
failure means that you can't possibly push out one more repetition no
matter how hard you're trying to do it.
REST
In general, your body needs between two to four minutes of rest
between sets to prepare itself to perform another set at maximum
capacity. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and phosphocreatine (PC) are
used by your muscle cells to contract during a weight lifting
exercise. Your body needs time to regenerate these two compounds
before it is ready to go again.
Unless you're trying to develop all-out absolute strength by
performing low repetitions with very heavy weight, you're probably
not going to need to wait that long between sets. Most beginners will
be working within a medium repetition range and therefore do not need
to wait that long between sets. One to two minutes is fine.
RECOVERY
You will not see faster or better results by working the same muscle
groups day after day. As important as hard work is, recovery between
workouts is even more important. Beginners should work the same
muscle groups no more than two times per week, with at least forty-
eight hours break between sessions. As an exerciser becomes more
advanced, she will probably cut back to working each muscle group
once every seven days or so.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Hagar Lagarto
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