“Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
We’ve all seen people we might describe as “too skinny” or “shapeless.” While these people are far from overweight, they don’t have attractive-looking bodies. Some of them look weak and almost wasted, as if they’ve had a disease. And in fact, many of these small people are what we call “skinny-fat.” This means they have a fairly high body-fat percentage even though they are not technically overweight. A person becomes skinny-fat because he or she does not have very much muscle mass.
Have you ever seen a slim-looking woman on the beach with jiggly, cottage-cheese thighs and an upper arm that keeps waving long after she’s stopped? You can diet till all your excess weight is gone and you can do cardio till your ticker is stronger than an ox’s, but you won’t get the shape you desire until you pick up some weights. And there’s good reason for this.
The shape you associate with a body is created, for the most part, by muscle. Sure, your skeleton plays a role as well, but attached to those bones are muscles. With the exception of a woman’s breasts (made mostly of fat), the curves and angles that together formulate what we think of as an attractive body, whether that body is male or female, are made up of muscle. This is great news for you! It means you don’t have to settle with the shape you think you’re stuck with! You can decide what shape you want that muscle, and by extension your body, to be, and you can create it.
AS MICHELANGELO CARVED BODIES USING CHISEL AND FILE, YOU CAN CARVE YOUR BODY USING FOOD AND EXERCISE.
BODY SCULPTING
The concept behind sculpting your body is just that. To start off with, your body is whatever shape it is right now, just like a block of marble. And just as a sculptor uses a chisel, hammer and file to shape this block of marble into a masterpiece, you can use food, cardio and weights to shape your body into a masterpiece of your very own.
MISCONCEPTIONS
There are so many misconceptions about weight training that I hardly know where to begin, but let’s start with the idea that women who train with weights will end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1975. Yes, there are female bodybuilders who end up looking like very muscular men. But these women a) eat, breathe, sleep and dream about building muscle and b) may take steroids. The reality is that, with very few exceptions, women have a difficult time building muscle. Those who work hard and persevere are rewarded with beautiful strong curves, not grotesquely bulging muscles.
Women are also often under the mistaken belief that if they do train with weights, these weights should be very light and the repetitions, or reps (the number of times you complete a specific move), should be endless. This belief stems from the misconception above. The theory is that women will get “toned” from using light weights, whereas they get “bulky” from using heavier weights. The reality is that the toned look women seek comes from building muscle and losing fat, and the best way to build that muscle is to use substantial weights.
I can hardly believe that some people still think training with weights will make them muscle bound, but yes some do indeed believe this. The term “muscle bound” means that you have a hard time functioning, moving gracefully or even moving normally because your muscle size restricts you from doing so. While some enormous competitive bodybuilders with great slabs of muscle do reach this point, getting there means basing your whole life around building muscle. These bodybuilders are made up of 250 pounds of solid muscle and practically no fat. Their lifestyles revolve completely around muscle building, with some of them even setting their alarms to wake up every two or three hours through the night in order to drink protein shakes. In addition, yes, some probably do use steroids. People who train with weights as a regular part of their exercise program look great. Those without the goal of becoming enormous with muscle simply do not get that way. Bodybuilders work very hard to look the way they do – so don’t worry! After a few months of weight training, chances are you will start to look and feel amazing, but you won’t suddenly wake up looking like Mr. or Ms. Olympia!
You may have heard that if you stop training all of your muscle will turn to fat. This is simply not true. Muscle is muscle and fat is fat. If you stop training then you will lose your muscle. If you continue to eat as much as you did when you were training, you will gain fat. If you stop training and also decrease your calories to compensate, you will not gain fat; you will just decrease your muscle. A better option is to keep training! Conversely, fat does not “turn into” muscle when you begin training. Building muscle increases your metabolism, and if your diet stays the same or if you eat more carefully, you will burn some fat at the same time.
“Those who work hard and persevere are rewarded with beautiful strong curves, not grotesquely bulging muscles.”
“Weight training helps prevent aches and pains in the joints.”
BENEFITS OF WEIGHT TRAINING
Training with weights builds a beautiful body, sure, but it has many other benefits too.
Building muscle increases your metabolism, even while you sleep. Fat is meant to be stored. That’s the whole point of it – to be there in case of starvation. By definition it cannot take much energy to keep fat, because that would defeat its purpose. Muscle, on the other hand, is metabolically active. It takes lots of energy, i.e., calories, to maintain. This means muscle helps you lose fat, and helps prevent you from gaining fat once you’ve lost it. This doesn’t mean once you build some muscle you can eat whatever you want and not gain fat. But, in combination with a good diet, muscle does make keeping your fat off a lot easier.
Weight training helps prevent aches and pains in the joints. Progressive weight training strengthens not only your muscles, but also your tendons and ligaments, making your joints stronger.
More muscle makes you better able to do everyday tasks. Everything from carrying in the groceries to gardening to rearranging the furniture is easier when you’ve built some muscle.
Weight training strengthens your bones. Women especially need to be concerned about osteoporosis, and training with weights helps prevent it.
Building muscle helps keep you mobile as you age. I’m sure you’ve seen people who have a hard time getting in and out of chairs. They start to sit and sort of fall the rest of the way. When they’re trying to get up they have to push themselves up with their arms, and get to their feet with difficulty. Perhaps you have trouble with this yourself. This is caused by lack of muscle, pure and simple. Lack of muscle also makes us more likely to fall. And if you think it’s too late to start training once you’re already at that point, think again. Studies show that people in their 90s and even over 100 years old benefit from weight training. Several studies in nursing homes have demonstrated enormous gains in strength, mobility, activity levels and even sleep when elderly residents embarked on a 12-week strength training program.1
BALANCE
Men in particular like to pick and choose which muscles they train and which never get worked. Men are far more likely to work the “mirror muscles” – the ones they see when they look in the mirror. They forget they have a whole other side to them! Typically men like to train their chests and biceps, and then their backs and triceps end up underdeveloped. A guy looks pretty funny when he’s developed on one half of his body and undeveloped on the other half. But more than looking funny, he puts himself in danger of injury by having an unbalanced body.
To create a body that is at its best, both functionally and aesthetically, you need to build balance. That means you train your legs as well as your upper body. It means you train both your back and chest. It means whatever muscle you’re developing, you need to think of the opposing muscle and develop that too.
MACHINES VS. FREE WEIGHTS
Many trainers swear you can’t get a great body unless you use free weights almost exclusively. A few work mainly with machines. In general, free weights definitely give a better workout, but machines are great for certain exercises, and they are especially useful for beginners.
HOW OFTEN?
To reap the most benefits from weight training you have to understand that the training session itself stresses the muscle, but muscle growth occurs at rest. If you work the same muscle too often without giving it enough rest between workouts, you will not gain the benefits you think you should from all that effort. The amount of rest you need depends on the effort put forth during the workouts. Real heavy-duty bodybuilders split their training up, working only one muscle group per workout and sometimes giving it an entire week’s rest before working that muscle group again. Beginners will find best results from doing whole-body workouts three times per week. And there are many variations between these extremes. Most people do really well with three or four weight-training sessions per week. I have provided three training programs at the end of this chapter. Once you’ve been following the beginner program for about six to eight weeks, you can progress to the intermediate training program. Reading as much as you can about weight training and muscle building will help you make the most of your sessions. It’s also a great idea to hire a personal trainer to help you reach your goals.
PROGRESSION!
Just as with cardio, the key to success with weight training is to progress regularly. That’s why you will often hear the term “progressive resistance training” being thrown around in the gym. The concept, which originated in ancient Greece, refers to developing strength by progressively increasing resistance (aka the amount of weight you are lifting). No one starts a cardio program able to run a marathon, and no one starts a weight-training program able to lift massive weights. The key in both areas is to challenge yourself every week.
On the next few pages you will find some of the best exercises for working each body part, or muscle group. Explanations of each exercise can be found in the section that follows.
Gluteals
The gluteus maximus is the largest and most powerful muscle in the body. If you’re like most people, you don’t think of your butt as being a muscle (it’s actually made up of a few muscles, but the gluteus maximus, as its name suggests, is the biggest). Lots of people seem to think a lovely roundness on the buttocks comes from fat, but believe me, when it’s made of fat it is not a lovely roundness; instead it looks like a blob that’s flat on the top and droopy at the bottom. Unfortunately lots of people do have butts that look like that, and you might be one of them. To get that nice attractive roundness, you need muscle.
Best exercises for gluteals: lunges (standing and walking), squats (various forms), cable kickbacks and stiff-leg deadlifts
Legs
Shapely legs with narrow ankles gracefully sweeping into well-proportioned calves and thighs – weight training can make these yours. If you’re a man, you might want solid, masculine legs that look as if you could hold the weight of the world. If you’re a woman you may want legs that are sleek and toned. Both of these come from training with weights.
Best exercises for legs: squats (various forms), lunges (standing and walking), deadlifts, hamstring curls, stiff-leg deadlifts, standing and seated calf raises
Back
The back is very complex, with a number of both large and small muscles. The main large muscles are the latissimus dorsi (lats) and the trapezius (traps). Working your back not only helps with everyday strength for carrying things, it also helps keep the back healthy and prevents back pain. Men normally want a V-taper – broad shoulders and lats that taper down into a narrow waist and hips. This comes partly from back training. Women want a toned back without bulges, so they feel comfortable wearing backless dresses, tank tops and swimsuits. Most back exercises also work the biceps and the shoulder muscles.
Best back exercises: chin-ups (these are difficult for most people to do, but they are very effective), lat pulldowns, rows (various types), deadlifts and hyperextensions
Chest
Men normally love working the chest. Women tend to fall into one of two camps – either they avoid chest work altogether or they mistakenly believe chest training will give them larger breasts. Training the chest will never give a woman larger breasts, but it does make the entire chest area look attractive, on a man or a woman. Chest training also benefits the triceps and shoulders, helps with posture and makes you look more confident.
Best chest exercises: push-ups, bench presses with a barbell or dumbbells, incline presses, flyes and cable crossovers
Shoulders
Broad, toned shoulders look fantastic on a man or a woman. Clothes hang nicely on a strong set of shoulders, and they make your waist look extra small in comparison. We can’t do much about our bone structure, which affects how broad our shoulders are by nature, but we can definitely build up our shoulder muscles to make them look broad and toned.
“Broad, toned shoulders look fantastic on a man or a woman.”
Best shoulder exercises: military presses, dumbbell presses (standing or seated), laterals with a dumbbell or cable, upright rows and reverse flyes
Arms
When you talk about training arms, most people just think “biceps,” but in truth this muscle makes up only a third of your upper arm mass, whereas the triceps makes up two thirds. Men are more likely to spend time working the biceps and forgetting about triceps because they associate strength and masculinity with bulging biceps. Women are more likely to train triceps and skip biceps because they are trying to get rid of the upper-arm jiggle. Men and women both need to remember balance – to look your best you need to work both opposing muscles … in this case, triceps and biceps.
Best arm exercises: This may sound crazy, but some of the best exercises for your arms are actually exercises for your back and chest. Chin-ups or lat pulldowns and rows are great for biceps and push-ups and bench presses are great for triceps. An especially good part about these exercises is that they train the whole area, so you get an attractive flow from one muscle into the next. To isolate the biceps, you will want to do biceps curls with a barbell, EZ-curl bar, dumbbells or cables. You can sit or stand for some of these, and there are many slight variations. For triceps, the best exercises are dips, either on a parallel dip apparatus or on benches or even a chair. Other good triceps exercises are lying extensions with a barbell, triceps pressdowns and kickbacks.
Abs
Before we continue, I want to convince you that doing ab exercises will never give you beautiful abs. Countless people seem to believe that doing hundreds of reps of ab exercises will magically transform their midsections, when the reality is that diet is by far the most important and effective way to an attractive middle. You can do thousands of crunches, but if you have extra fat on top of your abdominal muscles, then your stomach will look as pudgy as ever. For a good-looking middle you have to lose your excess fat. That’s the most important step. Then you have to do cardio and weight training in general – this does plenty to tone your middle and make it stronger, because you use your abdominal muscles (as part of your core) to support you in almost any exercise you do. However, you can certainly improve both the look of your midsection and the strength of that area, which will help you prevent lower back strain, by doing ab exercises.
Opposing Muscles
To get the idea of opposing muscles, it’s helpful to think of the task muscles perform in your body. Muscles are attached to two bones, over a joint (or sometimes more than one joint). The one bone is the stabilizer, and the muscle pulls on the other bone in order to move that part of your body.
For example, your biceps muscle’s origin is at the scapula (in the shoulder area). That is the stabilizing bone. The biceps muscle is attached to the radius and ulna – your forearm bones. When you contract your muscle it pulls on your forearm to bring this body part closer to your upper arm. In other words, it bends your arm. So the opposing muscle would be the muscle that pulls your forearm away from your upper arm – in other words, the muscle that straightens your arm. This is the triceps.
OPPOSING MUSCLES/MUSCLE GROUPS:
Chest / back
Anterior deltoid / posterior deltoid
Biceps / triceps
Abs / Erector spinae (lower back)
Quadriceps / hamstrings
There are others of course, but these are the main opposing muscle groups for weight-training purposes.
Best ab exercises: reverse crunches, hanging leg raises or captain’s chair leg raises, bicycle crunches and regular crunches (especially on an exercise ball)
If you are a beginner, you will want to get set up with a basic program at your gym or use the beginner program later in this chapter. Do it regularly until you’re feeling comfortable. Then you can start adding new exercises, doing different rep ranges in order to stimulate the muscle fibers differently, and changing your routine around. As you learn more about training, you will begin to notice which muscles are being worked in each exercise as well as what works best for you. You will also start to feel excitement and exhilaration as your very own masterpiece begins to take shape right before your eyes!
“As you learn more about training, you will begin to notice which muscles are being worked in each exercise as well as what works best for you.”
Muscle Groups
Unless you are using the intensity technique known as “pre-fatiguing” your muscles, which you will certainly not be doing unless you decide to become a bodybuilder, always start with large muscles/muscle groups at the beginning of the workout and then work your way to smaller muscles/muscle groups. Working smaller muscle groups first makes you unable to effectively work the larger muscle groups. If you were to work your biceps, for example (a smaller muscle), and then work your back (a larger muscle group), then your fatigued biceps, which help you in all back exercises, will be a weak link and prevent you from doing as much as you could for your back. This means your back will not be worked adequately.
HERE IS THE ORDER YOU SHOULD DO YOUR TRAINING IN:
LOWER BODY
Glutes
Quadriceps
Hamstrings
Adductor muscles
Calves
UPPER BODY
Back
Chest
Shoulders
Triceps
Biceps
Forearms
1. “Strong Medicine,” David Pacchioli, Research/Penn State, Vol. 16, no. 2 (June, 1995)