“Barbells are terribly bad for flat butts and flabby arms.” Why do girls go to the gym?

About the dangers of myths

Articles spread on the Internet about the uselessness of visiting sports institutions are often devoid of any real basis. They provide arguments about why, for example, certain exercises are ineffective because they do not help increase muscle mass.

Scientists: the cost of a gym does not affect the effectiveness of training

Before making a decision on whether to go to the gym or not on this basis, it is useful to understand that muscle size is not the only indicator. It is also required to increase the density, speed of contraction, and endurance of muscle fibers. Those “ineffective” exercises that are criticized by “experts” from Internet portals often serve such purposes.

For example, in “shadow boxing,” using weights really won’t help build muscle, nor will it help you burn a lot of fat. What is often mentioned in such articles. But without this “useless exercise” it will not be possible to achieve explosive impact speed. What is important, for example, in martial arts. Another question is that for most trainees such training is irrelevant - they do not plan to go to the ring.

What should a newbie know about working out at the gym?

Before going to the gym, you need to clearly know for yourself:

• Basic exercises, isolated exercises.
• What is a general warm-up, a special warm-up.
• What are sets and repetitions?
• How to select working weight.
• How and why to stretch muscles.
• What is the carbohydrate window?
• How long should you rest between approaches?
• Learn the core muscles.
• And their functions, i.e. where each muscle moves the limb or body. This is necessary so that you understand which muscles work in the exercise.

Video for beginners to exercise on exercise machines

Benefits and harms

The benefits of sports activities are obvious. Muscle growth, weight loss, strengthening bones and ligaments, improving coordination, increasing strength and endurance. And cardio training also has a positive effect on the health of the heart and respiratory system.

Despite what is written above, the gym for most people is a waste of time, money and, most importantly, health. And it’s the people themselves who make exercise in the gym useless. Except for those who are thinking about a career in sports. However, they also train correctly.

Scientists: Gyms are dirtier than public toilets

The majority of people visit the gym three times a week for 1.5-2 hours after work. What is easy to understand is that employment leaves no other alternative. And in these couple of hours, such athletes strive to “get drunk” to the fullest. Try as many exercise machines and equipment as possible, do the maximum possible number of exercises and approaches. From such trips to the gym there is minimal benefit - much more harm.

The fact is that the maximum training time perceived by the body is no more than 60 minutes. The rest is a reason for excessive energy consumption and overwork. The likelihood of injury increases. And it’s not difficult to expect problems with sleep, as with health in general.

Therefore, training for less than an hour is better and more effective. However, the finances paid for the subscription only speak about lost profits.

S-FITNESS

It's no secret that a healthy lifestyle is the key to youth and beauty. And fitness plays a significant part in this. Fitness classes give us health, slimness, strength, and of course, a great mood.

How do you choose a fitness center?

1. Close to home or work

S-FITNESS club is located at the intersection of Gagarin and Latskov streets and is open for you from 8:00 to 24:00, which makes it very convenient for training after work or at any time suitable for you.

2. Wide range of services

Our club offers a variety of services in the field of fitness and health: fitness rooms, a large gym, sauna, children's fitness, a sports nutrition and fitness clothing store and the best solarium in the city!

3. Coaching staff

Our coaching staff is a team of highly professional certified specialists with personal achievements in the field of fitness, ready to help you achieve your goals in the shortest possible time. Our instructors are our pride - we can vouch for any of them, because each of them undergoes special training before joining our club and has documentary evidence of this (certificate). They will be happy to create a training program for a person of any age, weight and gender - be it a schoolboy or a more mature person. The basis of the unique approach is nutritional consultations, which allow you to balance your activities in an optimal way.

4. Favorable prices

We have the best price-quality ratio. We always have the opportunity to offer our clients a wide selection of services in different price categories with different payment options.

5. Gym.

Like any high-class establishment, our S-FITNESS offers a wonderfully equipped gym, ready to provide an abundance of exercise equipment to our visitors: strength machines and free weights at your service. We can also offer you TRX loops, treadmills, a functional training area, and over thirty exercise equipment.

7. Group classes. We are ready to offer you a wide variety of programs: strength, aerobic, dance and slow programs - they will help make your body ideal! We can also offer unique programs for people who spend a lot of time sitting. These are, first of all, our wonderful areas: Healthy back, Yoga, Pilates, Flexible strength, Stretch. This will increase the mobility of the spine, restoring it to its natural state, and will also balance the condition of the muscle corset.

6. Individual training.

Sports activities in clubs are becoming more and more fashionable - looking good and sporty is required by the environment of the modern city. Only with us you can train WITHOUT A CLUB CARD! With a personal trainer, you can always choose the program that suits you best, exercise at any time convenient for you and get real results.

Since our opening, entire families and couples have become regular customers; family fitness is our calling. Our motto is an individual approach to each client, which means you will achieve your goal! Now fitness classes are not only useful - but also very affordable! No more excuses, start training today!

vk736746

Training without a gym

Everyone can become strong and healthy. And you don't need to go to the gym for this. Of course, at home there are no equipment and exercise equipment available in fitness centers. However, there is one's own body. 4 “pillars” of proper training: squats, push-ups, abs and pull-ups - this is what you need both for losing weight and for gaining mass or relief. If you don’t have a problem with the horizontal bar (you don’t have it or you can’t pull yourself up), then you can start with the remaining three.

There are a lot of varieties of exercises: with different positions of the arms and legs, with different options for body movements, on one arm or leg, etc.
The Internet and specialized literature will help you find a suitable program. The main thing to remember: it is better to train 6 times a week for 15-20 minutes than three times a week for 2 hours. This is interesting: 7 stars who hate sports

Techniques | Opinions

How not to work out in the gym

At first I wanted to write a caustic and angry article, beginning with the words “the fool decided to go to the gym.” But then I thought: “Why am I doing this? I’m kind!” Therefore, the following text is simply advice based on personal experience.

Before going to the gym, it would be a good idea to study a textbook on bodybuilding or weightlifting (depending on your goal). It would be nice, of course, to hire a coach, but not everyone can afford it. Do not hesitate to ask questions to the “veterans” of your gym - people love to give advice. In any case, a newcomer asking questions causes less irritation than a self-confident amateur who does outright stupid things.

Before any workout, be sure to go to the toilet, regardless of your desire. That's how it should be! By the way, according to my observations, every third “athlete” does not flush the water, and every second does not turn off the light in the toilet. Well, they forget – there are a lot of thoughts!

Do not chew gum during class under any circumstances! Sports training requires intense breathing, and chewing gum can kill you if it gets into your respiratory tract.

Leave your cell phone in the locker room. Firstly, loud conversations in the gym distract other exercisers - to squat with 150 kg. barbell, requires considerable concentration. Secondly, the phone also distracts you - during the training you need to think only about the training, and not about whether the brick was delivered or not. Thirdly, the exercises require fixed pauses between sets - from one and a half to three minutes, depending on the objectives of the exercise. If you do two sets of bench presses with a two-minute pause, and then start a six-minute phone call, the work is going down the drain.

I rarely see athletes in the gym doing a full warm-up: at best, 20-30 seconds of rotation with their arms and body. Exercising without warming up is a blow to your health. Warm-up is carried out for at least five minutes and includes rotational and stretching exercises for the main muscle groups and joints + warm-up exercises (running, jumping rope, swings).

Do not open the windows in the hall when the temperature outside is below + 20 degrees. Hot? Take off your shirt! Is it still hot? Sweat!

You came to train, this is not a theater, this is where people sweat! Sweating is good for you! If you feel hot all the time, go to an endocrinologist, there is a chance that you are sick!

The optimal temperature in the room for weight training is +21 degrees in the absence of drafts. A drop in temperature of one degree below optimal results in a two percent decrease in muscle strength. Temperature +16 degrees – and you’re already benching instead of 100kg, only 90! And what about the energy costs that go to heating the body instead of training?

A cold draft from a window is generally a disaster. These are muscle and joint inflammations (myositis, bursitis, etc.), this is the likelihood of muscle rupture, this is just a cold, and, finally, breaks in training and trips to the doctors. If you don’t feel sorry for yourself, okay, feel sorry for your fellow members, they are not to blame for your problems. And if you start walking around the hall and closing the windows, someone will immediately start making a fuss. You try to explain what’s going on, but he doesn’t listen and repeats: “I don’t want the window to be closed.” And from his face it is clear that this “king of the universe” does not see other people point-blank. And in the gym there are a lot of men who have a lot of testosterone in their blood and their fists itch. And if you are used to speaking in a raised voice in everyday life, relying on your physical superiority, then in the gym there will always be a person stronger than you. Therefore, good advice: talk calmly and look for reasonable arguments in disputes, otherwise you will get dumbbells on the head, this is not a clinic or a passport office.

In the nineties, in gyms, people who didn’t put locks on the barbells were looked at as psychopaths. Nowadays, almost no one puts locks on barbells. I don’t understand, is this some kind of fashion? Maybe you're too lazy to spend 10 seconds on a basic procedure? Why are locks needed? To survive. Let's imagine: you lie down on a bench for a bench press. There are no locks on the bar. There are six plates on the bar. And now, a question for an idiot: how much does a ten-kilogram weight plate weigh? The weight error when making pancakes is 100-200 grams. Thus, a pancake can weigh 10kg.200g, or maybe 9kg.800g. Second question: which hand is your stronger? Right? Now let’s look: it may turn out that the weights on the left side of your barbell are 600g more, and the right weight is 600g less. The weight imbalance reaches 1200g. Plus the right hand presses harder, and now the barbell has moved to the left. Pancakes that are not secured with a lock also slide to the left and, according to the law of the lever, the distortion increases. In the end, the plates on the left fall to the floor, and the bar, having described an arc with the bar, falls to the right. When bench pressing, you may get lucky and not get injured. And when squats or deadlifts, a plate may fall on your leg. Or several. What happens to the leg on which a 25 kilogram pancake falls from a meter height?

Well, for yourself, dear friend, you are not afraid, because you are brave. Brave you! Don’t you feel sorry for those who train nearby? The gym is always crowded, and your arrogance could cost someone their health! They may object to me: “I’ve been training for a year without locks on the barbell, and nothing!” A very Russian approach! Until the thunder strikes, etc. In my youth, with a group of comrades, I jumped from the fourth floor several times for the sake of mischief (I’m not joking). What should I do now, assure everyone that such jumps are absolutely safe? I was lucky, but my friend broke his arm in two places. After that I changed my mind. Training with a barbell without locks is Russian roulette.

We all wandered around the hall more than once, looking for the right dumbbell, or pancake, or something else necessary. A lot of quiet, kind words were said to those who dragged the necessary thing to the end of the hall and for some reason hid it under the mat (a very real incident!). Comrade! Don't be a pig! Return the shells to their place!

Many gyms have bags hanging. This is very good. And you can regularly see people who have never practiced striking martial arts, but stubbornly pick at the bag with their hands and feet. This is bad! First, they take the place of people who can hit. Secondly, hitting the bag incorrectly can cause injury, even if you are wearing protective gloves or shoes. And injuries to the wrists, hands and ankles take a very long time to heal! First learn, then hit!

Sometimes the gym management is to blame for our problems. The same temperature regime: you can install windows without vents and air conditioners! And the music! For unknown purposes, speakers are installed in the halls and music is played for drunken Russian weddings. Or some kind of “radio record”. Everyone has long known that you need to rock out either to hard and heavy rock or to silence! This is not a matter of taste, but of psychophysiology. You can dance as a girl to the howls of singer Maxim, but you can’t lift weights! Some professionals manage to train in headphones with a player, turning on specially selected songs, but for many types of training this is unacceptable.

But finally, the last point of the training plan is completed (by the way, do you have a training plan?), be sure to do a cool-down to avoid hypermyotonia, and go to the locker room. There's a shower and maybe a sauna waiting for us there. A big request: if you take a shower, turn it off after you. Very often this is not done; a hot shower creates a cloud of steam, which goes into the locker room, where you yourself change clothes in dampness and stuffiness.

As for the sauna, they don’t pour water on the stones! If you want to take a steam bath, go to a Russian bathhouse. What are the benefits of a sauna? Firstly, exposure to very high (from 90 to 120 degrees) temperature for a long time (from 10 to 15 minutes) causes an adaptive response of the body, accompanied by a release of hormones that is very beneficial for the body.

Secondly, the sauna relaxes muscles, which is always useful, but especially after a workout.

Thirdly, blood vessels dilate and peripheral blood circulation increases, which helps heal injuries and some diseases of the musculoskeletal system.

Fourthly, sweating increases, which cleanses the body.

But this is ideal. But what actually happens? A pleasant man enters the sauna with a bottle of water. Exactly 6 seconds later he says with a cheerful smile: “It’s kind of cold here! Shall I pour some water? (note: when suddenly exposed to extreme temperatures, the first few seconds of the receptors can give paradoxical information, for example, very hot water seems icy). After which this nice man, without waiting for permission, pours half a liter of water onto the stones, making everyone present’s eyes widen. Two minutes later, for some reason, the valiant waterer is the first to disappear from the sauna. However, such people are always in a hurry to get somewhere. The people remaining in the sauna are mournfully silent, occasionally groaning in pain. Twice in my memory such cases occurred in a sauna heated to 110 degrees!

What has the irrigator achieved?

First, water poured onto the stones evaporates, cooling them. As a result, the temperature in the sauna drops! (Soviet school, physics, I think 7th grade). Over-humidified air negatively affects well-being by overstraining the cardiovascular system. It is this terrible stuffiness that some people mistake for warming up. You won’t be able to sit in this steam boiler for a long time, but you need a long time (1st run 5-7 minutes, 2nd run 10-12 minutes, 3rd run 8-10 minutes).

Secondly, the steam simply burns your skin and, especially, the mucous membranes of the eyes and respiratory tract. What a muscle relaxation this is!

Thirdly, as a result of the burn and steam condensation on your skin, you almost stop sweating (water condensing on the skin cools it!). Thus, there is almost no benefit from this strange attraction.

So, comrades, stop rushing! You have already spent 1.5 hours training, an extra 20 minutes in the sauna will not change anything. Go into the sauna, sit down, calm down and don’t fidget, and after 3 minutes you will realize that it’s not cold at all. Understand that you don’t have to endure suffering in a sauna to get benefits and pleasure. If you want to inhale, dilute essential oils in a small amount of hot water or use a herbal decoction (not alcohol tinctures) and gently splash it on the walls and ceiling of the sauna (not on the stones!). The temperature will not drop, and the essential oils will gradually evaporate rather than burn on the stones.

It's up to you whether to follow my advice, but I didn't make all this up out of my head. Smart people taught me and, as a result, since October 1991 I have not had a single serious injury, I am healthy, I train and enjoy life, which is what I wish for you!

Kravtsov V.V.

Squats

This doesn't mean that beginners should jump straight into barbell squats.

Because of the myths about the dangers of squats for the knees, many beginners are simply afraid of them. In addition, not everyone will be able to immediately squat with a barbell using the correct technique.

But this doesn't mean you shouldn't do squats. In the long run, they will lead you to serious results. There are many variations of this exercise:

• Bodyweight squats;
• Goblet squats;
• Front squats;
• Squats on a bench;
• Squats.

Experiment a little and choose the option that suits your body type and fitness level. This way you will gain more muscle mass. To prevent the technique from suffering when working for a large number of repetitions, use equipment (athletic belt).

Bent-over row

Beginners should also pay attention to bent over rows.

This is a basic movement that loads the entire array of back muscles.

Because it is a horizontal row, there is minimal stress on the shoulder joint.

Bent-over rows are an important part of any muscle-building program. Therefore, you should pay attention to this exercise at the very beginning of your training. This will create a great base. The most popular variations of horizontal rods are as follows:

• Standing horizontal row in a pulley machine - ideal for beginners;
• Horizontal pull-ups;
• Bent-over barbell row;
• Bent-over dumbbell row;
• T-bar row.

Use different grips for these exercises. Some back muscles respond better to a wide or reverse grip.

Health Benefits of Strength Training

Improved balance

Older adults often experience a loss of balance and flexibility, leading to falls and fractures. Strengthening exercises improve mobility and balance. A New Zealand study of women aged 80 and over found that women experienced 40% less loss of balance by performing simple strengthening and coordination exercises.

Strengthening Bones

Women experiencing menopause may lose 1–2% of their bone tissue annually. A Tufts University study published in 1994 found that strength training strengthened the bones of women ages 50 to 70, reducing the risk of fractures.