Home gyms?

[Smoken Joe]

I think you reversed this. If your bodybuilding, you need machines for their isolation techniques. But understand this, bodybuilding is an insanely weird technique, the only wanted result is hypertrophy (fast muscle growth) and isolation is a good way to get that with machines. Most bodybuilders don't train with the most weight possible, but work in their 75 or 50% 1RM ranges in order to stimulate the isolated muscle. If you want strength, you should try to avoid machines, free weights will benefit a lot more.

 

On a side note, nice progress!

 

 

Naa he had it right the first time. Every serious body builder does basic excercises first then does the isolation excercises. You need some basic mass before you sculpt it.

 

 

Anyway................................ no need to confuse things the best thing to do is to exercise and do somthing you like and stick too it with some strenth and cardio if you can.

[My Ugly PC]

njswift10141980

 

Your head must be spinning with all these opinions! As you can see there are alot of ways to go about it. Some poeple in the workout community know their stuff, some got alot of half truth.

 

Don't get over your head. If you start out with more than 3 days a week 1 hour a day, alot could get out of hand. I get the ocasionnal friend who asks me for fitness advice, they listen to what I say than multiply it by ten and give up in a week. Start real small. A treadmill(or bike is cheaper) is something that will fit into any routine, even if you become a gym rat, you'll still need that quick home cardio.

 

Lifting and cardio togther is way more time consuming that it appears. May only take an hour a day but after work how much time you really got? I feel too busy even when I'm done with a cycle and on an off week. Thats why I really feel that circut training can be an advantage to beginners. The cardio you get is plenty good, and your body will get real shape. You won't just look deflated and saggy. Circut training can keep you to under an hour, 3 times a week, cardio and weights(machines really) included. You can bump up to 4 days a week later on. Its a good base to be able to jump into any routine, having already gained some muscle and stamina. Don't expect large muscle gain, but a nice reshaping. I'm on a six day(both) routine 8-10 week cycle, it can be tough. I think the vast majority of people who go straight into cardio and weights will fail. Its too much to just start with.

 

If no circut training, than maybe its better to start out with just cardio for a couple of months. Just don't set yourself up for failure, start small, grow into it.

 

 

 

 

This is for anyone who wants to go into real weight lifting, and be a real body builder: Go to a personal trainer to get the proper form. You will not regret it. There is no picture or video that will teach you true form and motion. Some may suceed without them, but that will always take longer and its very dangerous. I don't care how many of your friends just do it on their own, its just arrogant to think that you can jump right into some thing so complex on your own. You can make your own workouts and routines, play with them and see what works best, whatever, but you can't just "wing it" when it comes to form and rhythm. Learn from my mistake and stubborness. The heavier the weights get the more you realize how imperfect your form was.

 

Like I said maybe its okay to get some low weight dumbells and follow an exercise DVD, but if you want to be a real bodybuilder and get into some real heavy weights, go to a PT to start with. Home lifting after you know your stuff. And its good to go to a PT every couple of months or so no matter how big/good you get, just for a tune up, and to cut the excess out of your motion or lose any bad habits you've picked up.

 

I've known some retarded PT's that can't draw up a good rutine to save their life, but very seldom one who can't coach you into the proper form. Methinks they get fired if their clients keep getting injuries..

 

Ugly

[Guest Milkshake]

Naa he had it right the first time. Every serious body builder does basic excercises first then does the isolation excercises. You need some basic mass before you sculpt it.

 

 

Anyway................................ no need to confuse things the best thing to do is to exercise and do somthing you like and stick too it with some strenth and cardio if you can.

 

Well machines really arent that efficient with strength training, I am more for strength and In my opinion machines are useless for strength because they are isolation, and controlled isolation. They aren't completely bad to do, but they shouldn't be a focus of your exercise. But a body builder on the other hand, needs to have an equal balance of machines and free weights. Of course you do compound movements first, but isolation is just as important in body building.

 

Isolation does not mean sculpting necessarily (toning), its the way you do the exercise. Its all based on sets, reps, and weight. Even when you cut, you still do the same set, rep, weight schemes, just while loosing weight.

 

I agree with you in that you do need compound movements, but in body building the focus is hypertrophy and tone. So in saying that machines aren't for bodybuilders, that is a far fetched statement because every good body builder balances machine and free weight work.

 

You should check out http://bodybuilding.com and their forums, seriously. Just like you guys come here and think this is the best place to learn for dfi boards and such, bodybuilding.com is the best to learn for weight lifting. And just like you find out here that loose timings vs tight timings don't make that much difference in ocing, you can learn important things there that would be hard to find otherwise unless you condone experiments etc...

 

If you want to learn about bodybuilding, that is where the bodybuilders go. They have training videos that explain how important machines are to bodybuilding, I've seen an episode on it, Ill try to find it if your interested.

 

Anyways, I just am totally interested in this stuff, so ya.... :cool:

[Thasp]

I didn't read all of angry's post, but I disagree on the motivation thing.

 

If you're at the gym with friends, you might take on doing the exercise they are doing that day. If they are experienced, this will help you develop your schedule, so you don't wind up, say, doing back/lats on a day after doing heavy weight on the preacher curl. It teaches you proper form so you don't get into bad habits, and lastly, a little healthy competetion can motivate you.

 

Reading online and in books is like going to college for a job, while going to the gym with friends is more like an internship.. you learn the right and wrong things through the experience you get from working with others.

 

The machines are far less effective in certan respects again due to the lack of stabalizing muscles being used. For example, any sort of benchpress machine that does not use stabalizing muscles, means your rotator cuff is not being activated. So say you try to one day benchpress 200 lbs on an actual bench.. you could very well damage it, even if your shoulders, chest, and triceps can handle doing it. When you use freeweight dumbbells instead of a barbell to benchpress, it is much harder since those muscles you never used are now activated. I can just imagine how much a machine doesn't exercise.

 

I work at a sporting goods store. We had to institute a special return policy on fitness items since 99% of the people returned them after a week because they used it once and were too lazy to use them again. They wanted the quick way out. Exercising, and especially bodybuilding(this goes for women too, as they are building their body to the shape they want when they exercise) is not a sprint, it's a marathon. When I started heavier lifting on a daily basis early in the year, I was 123 lbs, and not satisfied with just being toned, and being skinny. It took a long time since gaining weight is hard for me regardless of the ridiculous diet I have(2 feet of subs, 3 egg sandwiches, and 3 protein shakes a day with milk), but I am now around 133 lbs and have a max bench of 185, and can curl more on a preacher curl than some friends who are considerably bigger than me.

 

Now, it may depress you when you see people doing 300 lbs easy, and it did for me too. But, when I look around and see what others who are in my weight class do now, I take pride in my accomplishment. I enjoy looking in the mirror and not seeing a skinny nerd.. now, I see a slightly more built nerd.

 

It took a long time to get to get there, but in the long run, I am far happier with my body.

[njswift10141980]

Well I just ponied up the money and bought myself an exercise (sp?) bike, and the pun is intended the wheel is now in motion.

[njswift10141980]

Hello everyone I felt like I had to bring everyone up to speed. As my last post in this thread said I bought an exercise bike which I had used when I got home from work in the morning and then my shift got changed which got me a little depressed and I stopped exercising and then I had my ordeal with the hospital and once I was better I still didn't pick up where I left off and yes I'll say it I was lazy, but then comes this October and something hit me and not only did I start to hit the bike again I also started to lift some weights and here is a pic of me in my work pants a few pounds later. http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/2364/200804070008azu3.jpg. I exercise three times a week @ 1 hour each of those days on the bike and about 30 mins to 1 hour doing the weights right after I get done with the bike. I am know down to 229 as of this morning from my previous which was around 270-280.

[momoceio]

Awesome! Congrats man...I started dieting a bit in September. I'm 5'11" and was 225...I'm now down to 195 and I just started jogging. I feel great, when I first started i could only go 30 mins on the treadmill but now I'm going 90 mins and 7 miles. I never thought I'd actually want to exercise

 

Congrats on getting in shape...it's probably the best feeling in the world.

[njswift10141980]

Awesome! Congrats man...I started dieting a bit in September. I'm 5'11" and was 225...I'm now down to 195 and I just started jogging. I feel great, when I first started i could only go 30 mins on the treadmill but now I'm going 90 mins and 7 miles. I never thought I'd actually want to exercise

 

Congrats on getting in shape...it's probably the best feeling in the world.

 

Yeah it's amazing how many comments i get from the people at work and even people I don't know give me. It' just an awesome feeling that I'm accomplishing one of my long time new years goals, between me losing weight and also starting school again (I plan to go into the HVAC field), and taking more chances in life in general I know great things are coming my way.

[momoceio]

Right on, seems like we have both come to a similar crossroads. I started going to school again a couple years back and I hate it but I know I'll feel good once it's done. I used to sit at home a lot and now I go out all the time...my life was boring and dull. lol