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Ruby Dee
Greta Garbo
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Anna May Wong
Eartha Kitt
Dorothy Dandridge
Rita Hayworth
Tags: beauty, beauty tips, classic hollywood, glamour
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I will give all my money to any gym that puts these up on the walls.
If these were up at my gym, I might actually approach the weight machines!
“THE WEIGHT MACHINES ARE FOR CHILDREN.” – Carole Lombard
They’re also DANGEROUS. I always slam my fingers between weights.
This is why I’m learning to do push ups instead.
You can do squats and things with dumbbells, too! It’s a great way to get confident with the movements before venturing into the Barbell Area. Also, ExRx (http://www.exrx.net/Exercise.html) has great descriptions of how to do different barbell/dumbbell/bodyweight exercises, with gifs.
Ooh, thanks! The gifs are super helpful! My roommate moved out and left me all her dumbbells, so maybe I’ll practice with them in the privacy of my home. Much less intimidating than in a gym where people can *see* (egads).
My brother is my new roomie. He is also a former personal trainer. The other day he made me do sets of 25 modified push ups every half hour. Our goal for the end of the week for me is 3 regular push ups. (This is maybe not a huge deal, but I’m pretty excited about it.)
Eartha Kitt, feisty as ever. <3
Who is the classic Hollywood actress who famously said “There is no reason to be alive if you can’t do deadlift“???
ETA: If only there was a way to photoshop people into videos..
Officially going to start saying “ten cent squat” when I refer to anything pathetic or lackluster. This Monday morning, for instance, has been a million reps of 10 cent squats.
(That last one… is that real true weight lifting advice?) (I feel dumb for asking this.)
It depends on what you’re going for (bodybuilding vs. powerlifting) but.. yes.
Yes, pretty much. If you’re trying to put on muscle, doing a small number of reps of a heavy weight will work better than doing lots of reps of little weights. The one exception I’ve heard is when you’re just learning, when a lot of people suggest doing 8-12 reps with a lighter weight since you’ll be less likely to injure yourself if you start out with poor form.
Thank you! This explains a lot actually. I’ve been lifting weights for about a year but am still on the 8-12 reps kick and though I put some muscle on at first, have sort of hit a plateau. I’m not doing LIGHT weights any more, but if I was doing fewer reps I could definitely go heavier. Excited to try this out!!
My rule of thumb is to do at least 4 reps, and then yeah, once I can do 7, it’s time to increase the weight. That seems to give me a nice range for when I’ve gone up 5 pounds in my dumbbell shoulder press and I’m like:
FFFFFFOOOOOOUUUUUURRRRR
and then have to check and see if I’ve burst a blood vessel in my forehead
Can I butt in here and ask a question too? I’ve been doing cardio and endurance training for a while and I’m interested in building muscle mass. I’m not sure where to start with strength training. Do you know a baseline for where I can start (like, % body weight) or how much time I should leave between that and my normal routine?
Simplest approach: start with the lightest available weights for your first workout, and work your way up in 5-pound increments until things get difficult. Depending on your fitness level it may take a couple of weeks before you find yourself really pushing, but a few weeks in the grand scheme of things are no big deal, and you’ve invested that time in good form anyway.
Re time between weights and your normal routine: if possible, alternate days. Lifting weights while tired from running/whatever sucks, and vice versa; you should probably only be lifting 3 times a week as a beginner, anyway.
(Some people argue that if you’re focused on building muscle mass, you shouldn’t do ANY cardio or other training at all, because you’re burning more calories that need to be eaten back if you want muscle, and because you’re incentivizing your body to respond differently than to a pure-strength routine. This is probably all true, but fuck that, run and jump around whenever you want and don’t worry about it. I’ve been trying weights-only for a few weeks now and can attest to the fact that, even though I’m getting stronger and maintaining weight, I feel like warm garbage and need to go for a run soon.)
“Warm garbage” – love that! 😀 I think your instincts are correct. Do the cardio. The lungs and heart need to be oxygenating the muscles efficiently during all that weight lifting. The “calories” argument is rubbish. Protein in the diet makes muscle mass. Cardio work needs glycogen, from sugar that was broken down from carbohydrates and fats in the diet – or stored fat. Back in the day, I was taught to do the cardio last, after the weight training, because the available glycogen in the muscles could be directed to the lifting, and once that is depleted, the cardio would draw on fat stores. Caveat: that was just someone’s theory when I trained in the 1980s, and it made sense to me, but I don’t know if it really holds true. Physiology is complicated, and science learns more all the time.
Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength is an excellent resource if you don’t have a trainer/coach. His book is pretty much the gold standard for strength training. Good luck! Lifting weights is THE BEST.
Also bit of additional advice I learned while on a university sports team: once you get comfortable, don’t think abut weights in terms of absolute value, but rather as a % of your max lift across a certain number of reps.
So start off with light stuff and get someone to teach you PROPER TECHNIQUE (which is so so important, especially for squats and deadlift). Once you can do a reasonable weight with good technique, figure out what is roughly the maximum weight you can do in one rep. You should then up the reps in relation to the % of your max weight. So, if you’re looking to bulk up, do 3 reps of 90%. If you’re looking to be a little leaner, do 6-8 reps at 70-80%. Regularly check your max lift weight, and you’ll be surprised how it progresses. Thinking about it this way keeps you progressing intelligently, while both training serious, performance strength (the max lift) and gaining muscle with the other reps. What matters is improvement! As long as you’re lifting a bit more every few sessions, that’s what matters. Once you plateau (and you will) mix up the type of exercise you’re doing.
More importantly though, DO IT PROPERLY. It’s really easy to subtly injure yourself while using free weights. Use the full range of motion for every lift and good technique, plus stretch after every workout. This will prevent both injuries and you looking like you’re carrying two suitcases all the time. Don’t just look it up on the internet for five minutes. The best thing is to get an experienced friend to show you.
Good luck!
I should also point out a little rule my old coach used to preach: you want big muscles, do the same exercise every time. If you want to be strong (in an performance, athletic sense) mix it up. I was on the fencing team, and even though we were focused on being lean and fast, we were still doing sets of three rep, 90% squats, deadlifts and bench press once a week. A mix of heavy, mass building weights and lighter (75%), endurance focused lifting leads to explosive power complimented by high stamina.
What I mean is, if you want to be more…athletic and lean, come up with a plan that mixes heavy and lighter (but not too light!) weightlifting, and also do stuff that involves lots of muscle groups and the same time, like bodyweight exercises. If you want to bulk up, you should instead do the same exercises all the time that target specific muscle groups. What’s important is to know what your goals are.
Ok, I’ll stop now.
Idly interested – not used to an emphasis on mass building for fencing? I only fenced a little bit, two different coaches, two very different styles of instruction and contexts – but a shared emphasis on plyometrics, endurance, and just enough cardio to get the job done — no lifting at all. Did I just have very odd fencing coaches?
Probably not. We had a two coaches: a fencing one, and a general strength and conditioning coach who worked with all university athletes. Lifting was there, but plyometrics and bodyweight stuff played a much bigger part. The weights were mostly squats and deadlifts, so we all had really fast lunges by the end of the year.
Also, I’ve known handful of nationally ranked fencers from outside the uni system who don’t lift at all. I knew one guy who would only do exercises that related to technique. So no pushups, only practicing his parries hundreds of times.
That, and newbies are advised to condition the muscles, tendons, and ligaments with light weights, high reps for about six weeks, to prevent injury when advancing to heavier weights. At least, that is what this old dinosaur was taught back in the 1980s. 🙂
This thread gives me a new reason to avoid gym like plague: it’s too complicated to bother
lifetime of muscle atrophy awayyyy
I still do 8-12 reps, but I have weird health issues and have to be careful how I tax myself so I don’t fall into a spiral of chronic fatigue. I hope to be doing heavier weights and lower reps by next year. I’m only squatting about half my body weight and deadlifting 80% of my body weight right now. *sigh*
I, too, love the phrase “ten cent squat” and shall be incorporating it into my vocabulary starting NOW.
Mallory please make an exercise video. I’m never going to get fit just by reading.
Perhaps a series. Maybe one guest-starring Jesse Spano.
Ooh, thanks! The gifs are super helpful! My roommate moved out and left me all her dumbbells, so maybe I'll practice with them in the privacy of my home. Much less intimidating than in a gym where people can *see* (egads).
My brother is my new roomie. He is also a former personal trainer. The other day he made me do sets of 25 modified push ups every half hour. Our goal for the end of the week for me is 3 regular push ups. (This is maybe not a huge deal, but I'm pretty excited about it.)
<img src="http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/hh571/EmilyElsa/DoyouevenLIFT_zps517e9d06.png" border="0" alt=" photo DoyouevenLIFT_zps517e9d06.png" />
Anna May Wong’s expert side-eye at people who don’t want to lift because they’re afraid they’ll get bulky? MWAH.