Dr. O's Health, Diet & Fitness Blog

Weight training is often the focus of those who want to increase strength and provide definition of muscles in targeted areas of the body.   While cardio exercise is also important to health, weight training is the winning strategy for changing your appearance.

Muscle tone is especially important when you are dieting.   It’s not enough to simply lose the ring of fat around your middle.  You want to replace that belly fat with strong, toned muscles.  A good weight loss supplement that targets abdominal fat is the best choice.

Health advantages to weight training go far beyond muscle tone.  The exercises help boost your metabolic rate and increase your endurance during physical activities.   They also strengthen bones and help prevent injury.

Training with weights also improves your balance and coordination.   It makes sense that stronger muscles would center your body for balance and allow controlled movement that is streamlined and more graceful.

To begin weight training, use a weight that will allow you to complete the repetitions necessary but will be difficult to lift for the last part of the training routine.  Within just a few days you will notice your body becoming stronger and more resilient. My preferred series of repetition during sets follows 1of 3 patterns

1.    Maintenance and strengthening (10,10, 8,5,3). This pattern is great for maintaining and improving muscle tone. The first set is a warm up, while the last should be close to your maximum lift. Also, the 8 and the 5 should certainly be difficult, but you should be able to get through them without a problem.
2.    Muscle increase (10,5,3,8,10). These sets are great for really straining your muscles, tearing individual sarcomeres (muscle cells), thus stimulating hyperplasia and hypertrophy. Remember, proper diet and sufficient proteins are of paramount importance in increasing muscle mass. The First set is a warm up, but the second “5” should be seriously heavy weight for you. The “3’ should be your “max”. Make sure to have a spotter to get the best benefit from these sets. The last two sets are designed to “burn out” the muscles and build muscle unit endurance. This should be weight that you would normally do earlier in a conventional maintenance set.

When the weights become easy to lift, it’s time to change the exercise routine.   You may do this by adding more weight, adding more repetitions or changing to a different body position.   For those new to weight training, the initial weight might be used for the first month and more weight added the second month.   During the third month you may choose to use a different type of resistance or increase repetitions.

When adding more weight you need just enough to balance the increased strength you built with the previous weight limit.   If you must swing a weight to accomplish the reps, it’s too heavy.   The goal is to use your limit of strength to accomplish the repetitions necessary with nothing left over.

The changes made to weight training routines are based on your goals for the exercise.  Adding more and more weight will lead to stronger (and larger) muscles but bulk may not be your goal.

Adding more repetitions to your exercise without more weight will strengthen muscles without bulking up.   For the most effective weight loss it’s best to vary the routine by adding more weight for some exercises and more reps for others.

Weight training should not be rushed.   The days when you rest your body are important in reaching your goals.   If you choose to work out several days in a row, target a different group of muscles each day to allow previously worked muscle groups to recover and change.  The results from weight training are due to taxing a muscle group and then allowing time for rest before stressing those same muscles again.

A warm up period is required before beginning your exercise routine as warm muscles are more flexible and less likely to be injured.  A simple cardio exercise and a few light repetitions is enough to prepare for your exercise session

The warm up also prepares you mentally for the training to come.   Focus on posture, don’t hold your breath and focus on slow controlled body movements using the range of motion necessary for the exercise.

Combined with a healthy diet and good weight loss supplement, weight training will transform your body.  While your muscles gain strength and become sleek and defined your self-confidence makes a giant leap as you see and feel the results of your efforts.

Heres a question that a friend asked me over on my facebook page. Of course, the answer was too long for facebook to display. Also, its a great question so I’m posting it here for everybody to discuss and learn from.

“Dr. Okwuje, Since you are a body builder, how can I build up my forearm muscle? After my thumb surgery I don’t have a lot of strength in my right forearm…Dr Garay says it will come in time, but I want to hurry it along a bit! I have been doing wrist curls? What do you think?”

Janis, in general there are Two things that dictate muscle mass, hence size AND “definition”.

1) Hyperplasia – an increase in the number of cells

2) Hypertrophy – an increase in the size of the muscle.

Hyperplasia tends to be controlled at a more central level, by expression of DNA, (diet, hormones, etc) This tends to respond slower to working out, but exercise is still important as molecular signalling processes act at this level.

Hypertrophy is the reaction to stretch and damage of individual muscle units. The result is that the muscle repairs itself and gets larger in the process assuming that there’s an adequate supply of dietary proteins (the building blocks) to support the growth.

Your forearm is composed of a bunch of different muscles but in in general the front are the wrist and arm flexors while the back are the wrist extenders. To develop stronger/larger forearm musculature, wrist curls are a great start.

However, I would also suggest the following.

1) Cable flys (chest) or any exercise that will require you to lock your wrist against extension resistance. Its great when you can use exercise for dual effect. By resisting extension, you’re in effect doing your wrist curls, but also hitting another muscle group!

2) Reverse curls. These target one of my favorite muscles – the brachioradialis. This is a forearm muscle (lateral forearm, next to elbow) that actually is a flexor of the forearm – not the wrist. You basically do a curl like you would for your biceps, but PRONATE your wrist, so that you look at your knuckles not your palm when you curl.

Typically you’ll be able to do less weight, so don’t be alarmed.

3) Ensure a proper diet rich in essential proteins.

I like to do 5 sets of increasing weight and decreasing reps. Usually 10, 10, 8, 5, 3. You want to ensure that the 5 and 3 are difficult.

As always, stretch out and train smart – there’s no hurry. This is a long-term game, not a sprint.

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