Weight Training Blog

The other day I came across a prominent strength training site that published a guest author's opinion that cholesterol is not implicated in heart disease, that this is essentially a worldwide conspiracy to sell more drugs, and, that lowering cholesterol will reduce your testosterone and therefore your strength and muscle-building potential. You can even see special muscle-building diets designed around high cholesterol foods that are supposed to make you stronger. Don't believe it.

The internet is a mine-field of disinformation. There is no doubt about the role of high cholesterol in heart disease. Professors Brown and Goldstein won a Nobel Prize in 1985 for describing how this works.

Cholesterol is produced in the body and has an important role to play. One function is as a building block for hormones like testosterone, the male hormone, which women also need, and which helps promote strength and muscle and sex drive. The body makes as much as it needs. Cholesterol can come from your diet as well when you eat animal foods. And, saturated fats and trans fats in the diet can cause the cholesterol regulation system to get the wrong signals and so you get a buildup of cholesterol in the arteries, which can cause heart attacks.

Does lowering cholesterol reduce your testosterone significantly? Your body produces all the cholesterol it needs and, at moderate levels of consumption, incorporates dietary cholesterol into the process. Testosterone levels fluctuate with training, mood, and probably with diet to some extent. Hard training, insufficient sleep, poor eating patterns, too much alcohol, stress -- many things affect testosterone in ways that produce fluctuating levels of this hormone. Lowering cholesterol to protect yourself from heart attacks and disease has no significant effect on testosterone production or your ability to weight train or build muscle and strength.

Don't believe the cholesterol skeptics. They are dangerous.

Good sleep is perhaps one of the most underestimated tools in the bodybuilding and strength training arsenal. And by good sleep I mean "deep sleep," which is a form of sleep in which you are more likely to be undisturbed by noises and events around you. This can be compared to REM sleep or "rapid eye movement" sleep, which is a lighter sleep phase.

In deep sleep, human growth hormone does its best work. It repairs damaged tissue, aids in muscle growth and generally promotes the "repair and rebuild" function of muscle building that weight trainers rely on for results.

In fact, a decline in deep sleep as we age has been suggested as a contributing factor to muscle wasting (sarcopenia) in the elderly.

If you want to get the best out of all that hard work you put in at the gym, then you must plan to get sufficient quality sleep. How much of deep sleep, REM sleep and total sleep is optimum, is still a matter of conjecture across gender and age. Yet as you must know from experience, refreshing sleep has its own rewards when you wake -- and it is unmistakable.

Hamstrings are possibly the most troublesome muscles, in terms of injury, for athletes involved in running and, or, jumping sports. This includes a lot of sports.

Strengthening the hamstrings may be one way of improving the stability and endurance of this group of muscles, defined by the biceps femoris. Even though many approaches to hamstring training have been tried, there seems not to be one method that ensures hamstring invincibility. Highly-trained athletes inevitably pull hamstrings. It's a matter of trying to minimize the occurrences and severity. Glute-ham raises are certainly worth a try and are favored by many conditioning experts. Sometimes this exercise is called a Nordic reverse curl.

1. The glute-ham raise can be performed on the floor with the legs anchored at the ankles by a person or device. Alternatively, a special glute-ham raise machine or even an improvisation on a lat pulldown machine with ankles hooked under the knee pads can be used. (This is rough, better to try the others if you can.)
2. While kneeling, with ankles stabilized, slowly lower the body forward, bending at the knees. If you're doing this on the floor, ensure your hands are ready to cushion your fall because most people will get to a certain point then drop forward as the hamstrings are unable to support the body weight.
3. Depending on your strength, pull yourself up, or bounce up from the floor position to the kneeling position. Repeat the exercise as many times as programmed to complete a set.

The following video examples include a machine exercise and a floor exercise.

• Machine glute-ham raise.
• Floor glute-ham raise.

Read my review of hamstring training and injury prevention.

Image: (c) TrainerClipArt.com

Crunches, the exercise where you lie on your back and raise your shoulders to exercise the abdominal muscles, can take several forms -- from crunches on a fitness ball to the reverse crunch that involves lifting the legs instead of the shoulders to contract the abdominal muscles.

If you combine the standard crunch with the reverse crunch, you have the combination or "combo crunch." Not only does this make you work harder, it exercises a few more muscles, including the iliopsoas, which are the hip flexors, and the side abdominal muscles, which are the obliques. Lifting your legs creates an imbalance that the obliques work to correct.

• See how it's done in this article.

1RM is the maximum weight you can lift, push or pull for any weight training exercise or discipline. RM stands for "repetition maximum."

For example, your 1RM for the deadlift could be 220 pounds (100 kilograms), or 440 pounds (200 kilograms) if you are quite strong.

For traditional lifts in sports like Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting, going for a 1RM is usually what it's all about. That's how you know you are doing your best leading up to a competition. Yet it's not always a good idea to push the limits with other exercises in the gym. Some are not meant to be pushed to that limit and you may injure yourself if you do.

Machine exercises like leg presses and leg extensions are good examples. They're fine if you use them for higher repetition, moderate weight exercise, but you really don't want to try to push to your limit with these exercises because of the joint movement mechanisms and pressures that are involved.

Stick to lifts like deadlifts, squats, bench presses, snatches and clean and jerks and their auxiliary exercises for 1RM attempts and work up to it, with progressive lifts, under the supervision of a good strength and conditioning coach if possible.

This is an exercise to strengthen the shoulder capsule and muscles. If you've ever had to deal with a "frozen" shoulder, more technically referred to as a rotator cuff injury (in most cases), then you will know this is not a pleasant injury. The shoulder joint gets sore, has a limited range of movement and can interrupt sleeping. Sometimes it can be traced to an incident like a fall or an exertion like lifting, but in other cases it just seems to happen -- especially if you're over forty. I have to admit to having both shoulders go through this. It is usually self-healing but it can take 6 to 12 months. In my case, lifting seemed to be the precipitating cause. Both healed with more or less full range of motion.

This exercise can help strengthen the shoulder joint and associated muscles and connections.

1. Fix a cable about in line with the elbow.
2. Choose a weight that is just heavy enough to tension the cable when you pull. Don't use a heavy load for this exercise.
3. For external rotation, stand facing away from the cable weight stack so that the arm rotates outward and away from the body. Do about 15 repetitions. (See image.)
4. For internal rotation, turn around and face in the other direction with the cable in the same hand. Move about arms length away from the stack and pull the cable handle inward and across the body.
5. Do three sets of 15 for internal and external rotation at light to moderate weight with both arms.

You will get the idea of this when you do it. The exercise can be used as a preventive measure or in rehabilitation.

Image: (c) TrainerClipArt.com

Weightlifting can be an exciting sport to watch if you know a few basics about the competition. Big men and women, and not so big men and women, lifting very heavy weights overhead with explosive power and the facial expressions to match. Not to mention the exuberance of pulling off a record lift or a gold medal.

I've put together a few basics so you can go some way toward understanding what exactly is going on in this competition. It's not too difficult, and the knowledge will help you enjoy the dynamic sport of weightlifting.

• Olympic Weightlifting - What You Should Know for Beijing

Image source: James Mosser makes a successful lift during the snatch competition of 2008 US Olympic Weightlifting Trials. Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images

No sport or recreational group uses more supplements than the bodybuilding and weight training sports and disciplines. From illegal steroids to sports drinks and pills with strange chemical names, supplements are big business.

Few work at a level that many advertisers suggest. Yet some, like creatine, have a more or less proven record for many people.

Beta-alanine is an amino acid, although not an essential amino acid. Amino acids are the chemical bits that make up proteins. Early trials have at least been promising for beta-alanine. It's main benefit seems to be that it can enhance high-intensity exercise such as weightlifting and short to medium distance sprints -- and perhaps any activity where prolonged strength and power are important.

A new study with 8 resistance-trained men reported that beta-alanine supplementation allowed men using the supplement to perform a 22% greater number of squats than those who did not take the supplement over a 30-day period, when compared to a starting point.

While several of these studies seem promising for the use of beta-alanine as an effective sports supplement, most of the available studies used a small number of participants, which limits the significance of the results. In addition, the long-term safety of beta-alanine has not been adequately tested, although the nature of the substance would suggest reasonable safety.

Int J Sports Med. 2008 Jun 11. beta-Alanine and the Hormonal Response to Exercise. Hoffman J, Ratamess NA, Ross R, et al.

When you train hard, you need to eat regularly and time critically to replace energy and to optimize your workout. Sometimes it just gets a little boring eating the same old healthy stuff all of the time in the same old way. It need not be so.

I've rounded up a few different shake recipes that should add variety -- and even entertainment to your daily grind.

Here's one of my own -- Choc Dream

• One large glass of skim milk -- dairy or soy -- vitamin D fortified if possible.
• Two heaped dessert spoons of non-fat yogurt -- fruit or plain.
• One heaped teaspoon of cocoa powder and two heaped teaspoons of sugar -- more or less to preference.
• A few drops of vanilla essence in the blend and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top after pouring.
• Shake in container or use a blender -- which is not really necessary -- although some yogurts shake better than others.

This is quick and tasty and the yogurt adds extra protein and calcium.

Hugo Rivera - Bodybuilding

• Peanut Brittle Protein Shake Recipe
• Cinnamon Roll Protein Shake Recipe
• The Hulk Protein Shake
• Protein Shake Tips

The side lunge with front (anterior) raise is a "combo" exercise that works legs, and arms and shoulders together.

1. Stand upright with a dumbbell in each hand at the sides.
2. Take a large step to one side yet slightly out in front while you raise the dumbbells to shoulder height in front of you at the same time.
3. Return to starting position, then repeat for the other side with the other leg.
4. This exercise could be done with a standard forward lunge, but the side lunge provides better balance.
5. Try to keep the knee from protruding beyond the tips of the toes at full lunge.
6. Breathe out on exertion and in on recovery.

Image source: www.TrainerClipArt.com