Why Is Lifting Weights Objectively More Fun?
Resistance training is the most fun and empowering way to train because strength gains are more immediate, noticeable, and can be easily tracked. Progress and results that are more nebulous and subjective do not give the same sense of accomplishment, which is why making fitness goals around something that constantly fluctuates like bodyweight is generally unsatisfying. Strength training and other skill based exercises can help people live the lives they want to, and it’s important to find what works best for your life and body.
Are You Wasting Your Beginner Gains?
“Beginner Gains” aren’t a one-time phenomenon - it’s a process that happens whenever you start practicing a skill or exercise your body is unfamiliar with or change up your training programming. Hitting plateaus generally happen when people meet their body’s natural point of diminishing returns or when they’ve exhausted whatever program they’re using that wasn’t necessarily made for longterm progress. Diminishing returns will happen to everyone. Although the progress will not be as dramatic as what you see during the beginner gains period, the most reliable way to keep growing is putting in more time and effort working out.
Every Pushup
Pushups are a versatile bodyweight exercise to strengthen the chest, arms, and shoulders that can be easily scaled to suit the level of anyone from beginner to advanced. Different positions can be utilized to change difficulty. Elevating the upper body, like doing countertop pushups, allows for lighter than bodyweight pushups. Elevating the feet, changing position, or attempting single arm pushups increases difficulty.
How Fast Should You Lift?
It’s commonly believed that slower reps produce better results, though recent research strongly contradicts this old school wisdom. While high speed reps generally produce better results, there are still some caveats and nuances to understand. Understanding these nuances will help you understand when to apply purposefully fast reps, and when it may help to slow things down a bit.
Do Dumbbells or Barbells Produce Superior Results?
Most lifters train primarily with bilateral exercises, in which both arms or legs are working simultaneously. However, unilateral exercises, in which individual limbs act with independent loading, have their own strengths and weaknesses - and they may be superior depending on your training needs. Here I analyze some of the strengths and weaknesses of each.