Weight Training Advice
Warming Up For Weight Training
thing you must do - warm up. If you go straight into heavy lifting, your muscles won't be loose and ready for it and you can get injured. This makes warming up for weight training one of the most important things to do when you get to the gym.
When you are warming up for weight training, there are two main things you must do - stretching and light exercise. Stretching will help your muscles become less tight. Light exercise will get your body ready for some intense lifting.
When you first get to the gym it's a good idea to do a little light cardio. Doing this will get the blood flowing and help you warm up for weight training. You don't need to do very much, as 5 to 10 minutes of low intensity exercise on a stationary bike, treadmill, or elliptical machine should be enough.
The next thing you should do when you are warming up for weight training is to do some stretching. Stretching will help loosen up your muscles and get them ready for your workout. A little general stretching should be done, along with some deeper stretching for the muscles you will be training that day. You don't need to take a lot of time stretching, unless your body is really tight. Five to ten minutes should be enough time for most people. Stretching is an important part of building muscle and avoiding injury, so you should do some during and after your workouts as well.
Performing some sets of weight training exercises with low intensity is also essential when you are warming up. These weight training warm up exercises will be for the muscles you will be training during that workout. If you are doing chest, you should do 2 or 3 warm-up sets on the bench press. Increase the weight and go closer to failure on each weight training warm-up set. Leave yourself a few reps short of positive on these sets. As you get to each muscles training, do warm-up sets for that muscle.
Many muscles work together on major exercises, and you can use this to your advantage when you are warming up for weight training. If you follow a push-pull bodybuilding split routine that has you training related muscles during the same workout, you can save time warming up. On one day you would train the chest, shoulders, triceps together. Since the shoulders and triceps are heavily involved on most major chest exercises, you won't need to do as many warm-up sets for them because they have already been doing some work. This also holds true for the biceps if you train them after the upper back muscles.
If you keep these things in mind when you warming up for weight training workouts, you will avoid injuries and build more strength and size.
Weight training is an excellent form of exercise, and can help you build muscle mass, lose fat, and raise your confidence level. However, before you get to intense lifting there is one important
