The Word on Weightloss

Yesterday I was at the gym, keeping up with my weight loss plan and I noticed a mother-daughter team working out together. I admire their fitness plan, routine and dedication. They shared weights and alternated exercise sets with the one who was resting, spotting the other, who was doing the exercise.

They had everything going for them like encouragement and support, but I noticed they needed some improvement in one of the biggest areas of an effective strength training workout: technique. They were trying to keep up with each other and seemed more focused on speedy repetitions than on the movement of each rep, their stance, proper breathing and form. Sure, they each finished their 10-15 reps, but they may not have been as effective as they could have been.

To get the most out of your workouts, you must use proper form. How well you lift is more important than both how much you lift and how many repetitions you do. Any deviation from proper form is likely to cause pulled muscles and other possibly severe injury. Further you’re greatly decreasing the effectiveness of your workout if you:

• Swing your weights (using momentum to do the exercise)
• Have sloppy form (not really squeezing your muscles or do incomplete reps)
• Rush through your repetitions

According to some diet and weight loss coaches, there are three areas with which to focus when strength training. These touch-points will improve your form and your technique. Let’s walk through them:

1. Breathe, Don’t Hold Your Breath.
I never realized how important breathing is during a strength training workout, until I focused on my own breathing. Breathing actually slows down your movements, keeping them more controlled which helps max out your fitness results.

• Forcing yourself to breathe allows oxygen to flow through your body, keeping your blood pressure steady.
• Proper breathing means exhaling as you lift the weight and inhaling as you lower the weight.

Start breathing and stop holding your breath!

2. Concentration
Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate on your exercise while you’re blasting your favorite tunes. Concentrate on what you’re doing and the specific muscle group you’re training. Although louder, catchy tunes can be motivating, try turning your music down so you can really focus on the muscle group and isolate that muscle.

3. Control
During strength training, complete your exercises deliberately and steadily, through the full range of motion. This type of control stimulates the entire muscle, not just a portion of it. Each movement has three elements to it:

• The eccentric contraction (lowering the weight), which lengthens the muscle;
• The concentric contraction (lifting the weight), which shortens the muscle;
• The isometric contraction (holding the weight), which develops the muscle when held at a constant length.
• The last element of the movement is one most people overlook. Don’t just drop the weight back down, or let gravity take control. Work your muscles all the way back to center.

Next time you’re at the gym or working out at home and moving through your strength training workout, remember: breathe, concentrate and control your movements. Theses three important points are critical to building the body and the muscles you’ve been working so hard to develop.