I get bored when lifting weights. Please help.

[FeatheredSnake]

Someone asked for helpful advice and I gave it. If you disagree that's fine Brit, but you were not very specific. And no, there is nothing flawed or dangerous about anything I said. I listed some moderately advanced suggestions that I would not recomend to a beginner....that should be obvious. Maybe too advanced for you.....so don't try that at home, ok? Peace.......

[terry]

Baah, the vast majority of personal trainers are idiots. Most of them are positioned to take overweight, inactive people and make them slightly less inactive. Very few of them have the experience it takes to train a real athelete.

What works for me is to put up pictures of good looking, near-naked women, turn on some head-bangin music very loud, pacing back and forth trying to intimidate the weights, having my traine partner shout at me and working out so damned hard you almost pass out. BTW, that works. And to all these little pencil neck geeks with personal trainer certifications trying doing lunges simultaneously with curls. Try this with 100+ lb dumbells sometime. Then stop wasting people's time with this tripe.

[Guest]

"One thing to try is doing more than one excercise at once. That will give you more to think about."

Yes. Like a trip to the hospital.

"When you do dumbel curls (for biceps) do lunges or wall sits at the same time."

And rip your hamstrings out.

"Try standing on one foot while you do deltoid raises...this will improve your balance and also require more concentration."

And greatly assistyou in falling over.

"When you do bench press try adding leg lifts to strengthen hip flexors and abdominals while you perform the reps."

This will ensure that you have no balance on the bench and, as you lose it, the whole weight can crash into your face or neck.

"Any other questions let me know. Good luck."

I have a question. Do you have a sideline in private medical treatment? You'll make a packet if people follow this advice.

Is that specific enough for you?

[FeatheredSnake]

This is the last reply I will make here. First of all, Brit says that doing lunges in conjunction with bicep curls will "rip your hamstrings out" this is absurd. Doing deltoid raises on one foot (or with a horse stance if you prefer) DOES challenge your balance which is exactly what I said dumbass. As far as leg lifts with bench press, yes, that too challenges your balance. And of course I would not do that when I'm maxing out. That would be ridiculous. Weight training IS risky. Many injuries occur due to poor form and technique. Learn the basics first. I was only giving suggestions for someone that was bored by the basics.....I assume he is already familiar with proper lifting techniques. Also, if he is bored and finds weight lifting repetitive, doing integrated excercises will cut down time spent in the gym. Some people would rather have time to spend with half naked women rather than spend all their time in the gym looking at pictures of them while listening to headbanger music (as terry put it). Then you can go home and get some lovin from that horny elaphant Brit!!! (seriously dude....where do you get this crap?) I have better things to do than argue with internet geeks posing as meatheads. I only posted a reply to offer a suggestion which may or may not be of help. Anyone that thinks it was a bad suggestion is free to think so. But rather than trying to put my ideas down, why not offer a better suggestion? Isn't that what this is really about? Just a thought.

[terry]

There has been a lot of discussion on this board about decent martial arts being watered down into a McDojo scenario, and people need to realize that this happens just as much in personal training--if not more. I've seen trainers that do what FeatheredSnake is talking about. They train out of shape people to do low intensity exercises very slowly with 10-15 lb dumbells. They are cheerful and watch very carefully and talk quite a bit with their clients. The clients eat up the attention and customer service but rarely realize they are wasting both their time and money.

I'm sorry, there is no way to sugar coat this. FeatheredSnake says something so inadvisable as to do leg lifts simultaneously with bench press. Tell me, is this an advisable or standard training method for any of the four major methods of weight lifting: A) Olympic weight lifting, B) Bodybuilding, C) Powerlifting or D) Strongman? Answer: Of course not. If you do this with a max you'll wind up with the bar seesawing back and forth. If you're lifting even 50% of your 1RM you will lack the base you need to stabilize the barbell and control the weight. So, speed work is out. Is this advisable as a warmup? NO. Heck, no. Not even with 5-10% of a 1 RM. What you should be doing is learning and practicing good form every single time you setup for the bench press. The bench press is actually one of the most technical lifts to do correctly and requires the coordination of many stabilizing muscle groups--abs, lats, legs, lower back, shoulders--in addition to the prime movers. You need to repeat the exercise with proper form to allow your body to carve the neuromuscular pathways it needs to do the exercise safely and reliably under heavy loads.

A bench press with simultaneous leg lifts is not good for max or near max work--obviously. It is not good for dynamic or speed work. It's not a good warm up. And because it's not effective it's not useful for a sport. So, what's left? I'll tell you. There is a big market created by people who don't know the difference between training that is effective and that which is ill-informed, ill-advised and mis-represented as being useful. Move over McDojo; here comes McTrainer.

Terry

P.S.: Re: Getting psyched up for a big lift. I spent nearly 2 years at a 585 deadlift. The barrier was psychological. I learned to do what I do to get psyched up from some elite lifters because it works. My wife, a reigning world champion at the bench press, relies on other people to get her mad, which her coach seems to be able to do pretty well. She also inhales ammonia before a max attempt. In any case, there is a psychology to getting psyched up which is used by athletes (and fighters). It does not surprise me that FeatheredSnake does not relate to this.

[Guest]

Forgive him. He is a personal trainer and, as such, knows not what he does.

When I lift I feel real fear when its Squat time. Fear because I do 20 reppers (as hard as any grappling workout) and I improve on my lifetimes best each and every week. When I get to rep 11 or 12 theres no way I can get to 20. But I do get to 20, 99.9% of the time.

How can you be "bored" when you train like that?

ps - I don't feel the need to stand on one leg to make it more "interesting". Nor do I somersault, do a handstand or masturbate whilst under the bar.

pps - Maybe after.......

[da_mill]

oh dear. only just found this thread lol.

Im frankly quite scared. I could go to a personal trainer one day and ask for advie and you could say somethin that like that to me ?

And of course I would not do that when I'm maxing out. That would be ridiculous

He said he wanted to supplement his fighting with strength by weight training. surely snake as a personal trainer you might know then that to make gains you have to work hard? how will he gain in strength if he is lifting a 5 pound weight with one hand, juggling to improve his coordination with the other, and hopping on one foot to improve his cardiovascular system?

he wont gain strength by lifting small weights anyway which surely makes the whole of your advice wrong.

lastly. learn to read - once again - hes not going to the gym, hes working with limited equipment at home.

[Tom Yum]

Getting focused

Feathered Snake Guy, your techniques make weight lifting ever so fun!

Unfortunately, lifting weights is not fun. Most of us prefer the old-school method of getting really motivated and then doing it. People have the right to lift for fun - a little toning here and there etc. that's why we have fancy gyms, with beautiful hallways that sell designer work out clothes. Martial arts athletes lift for gains in strength, power and stamina. We go through the pain for our own development.

I used to watch Arnold's 70's film "Pumping Iron." He goes to a small gym with iron cast weights, very few machines, slaps on a few 45's on each side of the bar and then goes nuts. He was there for a reason (it wasn't for fun).